biggest waves encountered in a Mako

[bgreene]

Who's got a story about really big waves encountered while running a Mako!!!!

My friends were a few miles out in some HUGE swells, and saw the entire horizon turn white !!

It looked like a giant rouge wave was breaking several miles further out, and was tall enough to stand well out on the horizon.

Given that there was a hurricane well offshore, it is possible that a few of those giant swells fell together into a pattern that created a huge breaker. Not the place to be - as even a giant Carnival Cruise ship was hit recently by a rouge wave off Florida.

[Sailor]

The largest waves I have probably been in where in a 15 Whaler. It was running about 8 - 10 that day but they were big rollers. We were Mackeral fishing and would simply go up and down. In the trough of the wave you looked up at nothing but water, at the top you looked around to see who was near you. We never took on any water, or even any spray since it wasn't choppy and we simply rode on the waves, but the large boats slammed into the next wave which looked really uncomfortable.

Another time we were cobia fishing in a Mako 25 when the boat broached down a wave. The rubrail went under water but it did recover. I wasn't in the tower, but here is the strange/cool part. I had a coke in a can holder which was one of those old swivel type beverage holders. The can did a 180 came out of the holder but actually landed right side up. The owner of the boat was next to me and we just looked at each other like "Do you really believe we just saw that happen?!"

[justus]

I'll tell you the biggest waves I experienced and it wasn't underway. Last June I was retuning to port on the last day of an annual rodeo I fish out of Grand Isle. We were only about 7-8 miles from shore and ran into the most hellacious thunderstorm anyone would want to ever experience. It closed in from all angles and there was no where to go. In the GOM what do you do? Hit the closest rig. I did and tied up with about 150 ft. of rode, save for the wraps around rig piles and make up. We were experiencing waves of est. 7-9 foot and real choppy (in a 22'er mind you). What made it even more uncomfortable is that with the wave action, as the bow would rise, water came in from the transom. In the chaos of what was going on, I emptied all ice chests in the front console fish box and placed them in the stern of the boat sideways and myself and crew sat on them so that they wouldn't float. We tumbled around a bit but held them relatively in place. The ice chest worked as a make-shift splash guard.

In the same timeframe I heard a MayDay call to the Coast Guard from a 31' Fountain going down and saw a small overturned i/o (Chapparel like) vessel overturned with no one around. When the squall passed we headed in to port and also saw a Wellcraft beached on rocks at Camanada Pass. It was the most frightening boating experience I have encountered and I truly believe that the ice chests and a little cajun ingenuity are the only thing that saves us that day.

[Trident]

Two years ago, a hurricane passed offshore of Massachusetts and kicked up a pretty big ground swell. I headed down the Merrimack River on a dropping tide and sure enough, the swells were breaking across the entrance to the inlet (from south to north). I estimate that they were 8 feet with some larger ones mixed in. Since I had no need to go out, I anchored up river a bit and watched some guys go out and dissapear behind each wave. It was amazing.....the mouth looked like the Pipeline in Hawaiii....whitewash everywhere.

I like the big waves but much rather be out on a surfboard than in a boat!

[mrdelgado]

Ed, I went to the mouth this past sunday, pretty much the same scene with this nor'easter. Needless to say, I didn't go out and just drifted the flats for some schoolies. The coastguard looked like they were having some fun though. But on a separate occasion I was trolling the mouth and got into some tight steep waves following me. One actually lifted my stern enough to burry the bow of my Mako 22'. fortunately, the wave traveled under me fast enough to lift the bow out of it's dive before too much water came in. It really made me wish I had better drainage in the boat. It took a while for the water to disappear

[Micura]

a couple of years ago on "micura", Mako 20c, a friend of mine and me went out fishing during a cold front (i know, very stupid) we encountered 10 foot solid squared off seas with gusts to 25 kts. it was so nasty we just traveled with the seas about 10 miles down to San Juan harbour for shelter. Needless to say it wasn't comfortable, but the Mako 20 was so stable and rode so well, we actually had fun and were running about 17 kts downsea. When taking over waves it felt like we were droping down from a second story, a feeling I was used to after surfing for many years.[]

[saltyballs]

I was drifting in a charter boat at the Mouth of the Merrimack and a Wave about the height of the boat (30ish Carver, say 10 to 12 feet high) appeared out of no where. Capt had about 30 seconds to get the boat cut into the wave instead of being hit broadside. Basically ended up the anchor & about 500 feet of anchor line went over board (Capt had it in a couple of milk crates on the bow) Basically crapped myself and decided to end the day after retriving the line & anchor... that's a scarey inlet....

SB

[Prop Blast]

Biggest waves I ever encountered in one of my Makos was something I'll never forget -- June 21, 1990 off of Cape Hatteras, NC.

A friend of mine, Bob Shaunessy, and I had gone to the Outer Banks from Fayetteville for three days of fishing using my 17 Mako. Our hope was to catch some dolphin and maybe small tuna. We headed out about 7:00am from Teaches Lair Marnina and went out through Hatterass Inlet -- no problems and proceded out towards "The Rock Pile", which is about 20miles offshore. At 15 miles we put out two trolling lines and promptly hooked our first dolphin -- things were looking good! [][]

After another hour or so of trolling, I noticed the seas building behind us (to the west). We kept trolling, hooking and losing another 'phin. Looked around some more and realized the wind had shifted and was now coming from the west and we were in a trough with the waves way, way above us [:u][:u] It was about 11am.

Told Bob it time to head back in and we turned to the west to head back to Hatteras. Could not get the lines in! [:u] Seas were easliy 10'+. I've been in combat and that was the first and only time I thought I'd die. We started taking water in over the bow and had to adjust our heading to the northwest to stop taking water.

Finally we seemed to get the pacing of the waves down and could make 8-10 mph -- but the current was running east to west, so were were more likely only making 4-5mph of real progress. Took us 4 1/2 hours to get back to the marina. The inlet was rough we had to "surf" over the north sand bar because I didn't thing I could get lined up for the inlet proper.

We got back to the marina and the dock hand said, "Where have you guys been?" When I told him The Rock Pile, he just shook his head...

The boat performed great -- it was the captain who was an idiot. Always check the weather first, don't let your enthusiasm get the best of you.

The next day we headed out again to the Rock Pile -- this time with anther boat. Had a good day, two small BFT and the partner boat picked up a 300lb marlin.

Tom

[HungOne]

about 6 years ago went fishing out of Gulfport with 9 other guys for an 18 hour trip to fish some oil rigs. We were in a 52' Custom (I think) named "Good Times". We were scheduled to leave at 4:00am and the sea's were pretty bad at the time, about 6-8 feet. The captain show's up promptly just before 4:00am and starts asking if we want to go. We huddle for a discussion but can't come to a conclusion. This trip was a reschedule from our first that was cancelled do to weather and we really wanted to fish but some of the guys wasn't so sure about the sea's. The captain advises that he's sure the sea's would die down by the time we make it 3 hours to the oil rigs and thinks we'd be fine. On the captain's assurance we decide to go for it.

I'm down below sleeping when water from the hatch pours in and soaks me about 2 hours into the trip. I notice the boat is rocking pretty good and go topside for some air. I can easily tell by the rocking that the 6-8's we left with were bigger now. A few of the guys are already sick and I can tell they really were not sure about being out there. I go back down and fall asleep again. A couple more hours were finally at the first rig, it's still dark and the boat which is now sitting still is rocking out of control. I come back up top and as I get to the cabin the first thing I see is one of the mates flying accross the deck with arms flayling as he's trying to grab hold of something to keep from getting thrown over board. Needless to say they were back there trying to secure everything, we were definately not fishing. I looked out the window, one moment I can see all the lights from the oil rig and the next moment it's completely gone as all I see is a wall of water. It took us about 7 hours to get back in. Everyone on the boat got sick except for the captain, one of the mates, myself, and one other guy in our group. It's the only time I literally saw a person change colors. The poor guy was purple sitting in the fetal position the entire trip. We're not sure exactly how big the waves were but one of the mates said that some of the waves were actually came up over the flybride where the helm was. When we got back to port, the boat had a huge crack on the starboard bow.

Sorry for the long story, I could have just said. Went out in a 52' boat in Alabama and got caught in 15+ feet waves but I wanted to tell the whole story..... [:x)]

On a brighter note, our trip was rescheduled for the following month. We came down and went out on a 48' boat curiously named "Good Times" and caught a boat load of fish. I even caught my first wahoo on that trip. One of the mates let me use his home made cedar plug that he made from a broomstick. Oh about the 52'er with the crack, from what I heard, they tried to repair the hull but could not get it repaired well enough to pass coast guard inspection.

[jimcinfra]

A few years ago I bought a McGregor sailboat (20' trailerable) and had practiced sailing on a lake. I thought that I was ready for the ocean so we went to Destin to try it out. We had no problem motoring out, setting sail, and traveling up and down the beach, but when it was time to go back through the jetties we ran into a big problem. The tide had changed along with the wind. As some of you know...low tide at the Destin jetties is like a giant fire hose. The current is unbelievable. The low tide and the wind built up giant waves at the mouth of the jetties. Since I was a novice at sailing, I decided to pull down the sails and motor in. When we got into the waves the following seas came over the stern of the boat and drowned the motor. It would not restart. So we hoisted sails and sailed into the harbor. We ended up surfing down the face of the waves that must have been 15+ ft high. I was scared to death but the Lord was with us and we made it.

[Mississippi Mako]

For those of you out there who get saltwater sportsman magazine George Poverermo has a good story on the last two pages. 100 miles out when the bad seas hit, it's a scary story..

[zonian1903]

We get pretty gnarly waves regularly here in Panama (the country, not the city). One that comes to mind was a few years ago, my buddy and I were on an 25" Eduardono Panga and mind you, these things are EXTREMLY good in bad seas...we were scared out of our minds! We were on the Atlantic side comming in to a river mouth in the middle of now where to go tarpon fishing when out of the blue, about an hour before we arrived the Seas went from mirror flat to 30+ foot glassy ground swells. At first it wasn't so bad until we got to the river mouth and found 30-40 close-outs all across the river mouth. At was getting dark and there was no option to head back at that hour, so we time it and wated for a lull in the swell and gunned it all the way to shore. We slammed right into the sand pretty freaking fast. Right when we hit the sand, with the motor still revving, a wave came in from behind and push us the boat another 30-40 feet up the sand before i could even say WTF! I thank God every time I think about it that the wave didn't flip the boat on the sand with us in it. We jumped out of the boat likety split ready to leave the panga to the seas...and as soon as I landed, when I looked up there were no less than 25 people... the entire fishing village ... got on the sides of the boat and literally picked-it-up/pushed-it-up and out of the sand when I was still trying to get my wits together. The swell lasted over a week, so we were stuck there (there's no roads there), but at least I got some good tarpon fishing in the river and made some really good friends.

Frank

Here are some of the pcs I found, if I can find more I'll make sure to scan them and post them.

Here's a pic of one that didn't get away. (I'm 6'2") []



Here's an aerial shot of the river mouth on a calm day. The day we went in the boat, the waves were wrapping around the river mouth point in perfect 30+ foot point breaks with huge closeouts at the ends, it was insane when the waves would close out and you coule feel the ground shake.