Rocks Close to Shore
 

In talking with a friend the other day, she told me that rocks within 150' of shore do not have to be marked on maps. Can anyone chime in on this?

We had a "mishap" with our boat on some rocks between Timber and Mark last Sunday afternoon. :(

I don't know about "have to" but I know they are not. I know of lots that are not marked that you would NOT want to hit with your boat. I don't think they could possible mark all rocks close to shore in this lake.

Bizer has the following disclaimer/warning on their charts: " Due to space limitations NOT ALL ROCKS ARE DEPICTED (emphasis is theirs). Rocks less than 164 ft (50 meters) from shore are not shown either." So it pays to be vigilant when in close to shore. :eek:

Well there are literally tons of rocks near shore. Someone had to draw the line so to speak of what to draw on maps. No map could show every rock near shore. The map would be solid rock markers around any shore.

Which rocks did you hit? Hopefully no one was injured. Boats can be fixed.

I am curious as to what happened as well. I go through that area quite a bit. How close to shore where you? On the Timber or Mark side?

The Bizer maps do show a bunch of rocks between Timber and Mark, where were you specifically ? Hopefully everyone was ok...and if it give a bit of solace, many of us have had our run ins with the rocks of Winni...

A week ago last Sunday we were looking for a "good" spot to anchor and float between Timber and Mark, near the southern end of Timber. We had been there several times that week in our 21' Monterey bowrider. My husband was going very slowly and I was in the bow about to throw the anchor in 12' of water. No sooner did I see the rocks than we were on top of them! I yelled at him to hit reverse, trim up, turn......too little too late. At that point we were in neutral but we were also on top of the rocks. :eek: The depth finder did not go off indicating two feet of water, so I assume it reads the bottom of the lake, not the top of the rocks. Anyway, 15 seconds and a few choice words later, we were able to glide off. NOT a good day! My brother came over from Maine with his Scuba gear and said we have a nice six-foot long scratch and several 3" long gouges but no fiberglass showing. A friend has also offered us their boat lift so we can see the damage for ourselves. We are learning firsthand the meaning of B-O-A-T, bring over another thousand! Oh well, live and learn!

The depth finder will read the depth to the top of the rocks, if the transducer is directly above the rocks. If the rocks have pointed tops and vertical sides, there's no way you can safely use a depth finder to gauge the depth or rocks that are too shallow for your boat, because it will be way too late when the finder sees them. You could invest in forward looking sonar, but that's awfully expensive. The only real solution is a sharp lookout and very low speeds. Polarized sunglasses often help cut through the glare on the water making the lookout function easier.

If you slip the boat, you should get the gouges repaired ASAP. Raw fiberglass absorbs water and the longer it's in the water, the longer it will take to dry out enough to repair properly.

If you have insurance the damage (less the deductable) may be covered. Banged up my outdrive a few years back and my insurance covered the claim.

Check Your Chart
 

You have stated you were on the South end of Timber. If you were looking to anchor between Timber & Mark..that would be North end of Timber. Once you approach shore lines of any Island you run the danger of encountering rocks. Know the waters your in and refer to your chart often. The area you may have been is clearly marked on my chart as ROCKY, (asterisk * symbol means rocks) The 150' has been a boating rule for headway speed and for many many years a distance from shoreline for privacy and landowners rights. Have fun, be safe, learn the Lake.

The 150 foot figure is not a hard-and-fast rule.  Consider it more of a rule-of-thumb.

Bizer wants to find and chart anything that is a hazard to normal navigation.  However, the closer one is to the shore, the less likely the rock will be on the chart.  As "jrc" pointed out, we have to draw the line somewhere.  Even rocks that are more than 150 feet from shore are suspect.  Should Bizer chart a rock that is six feet below the surface when only the Mount Washington could hit it?

These are not hard-and-fast rules, but Bizer normally takes the following into consideration:

• Distance to shore
• Distance to a boating route
• Distance to other rocks (e.g. If there are 5 rocks with 50 feet, Bizer only charts one, for space reasons)
• Depth of rock - Normally, rocks more than three feet below the surface at fall lake levels are not charted.  If near a normal route of navigation, they may be represented with a "4" or other depth reading.
• Depth of surrounding area is a consideration.  For example, a rock that is 18" below the surface may not be charted if it's on a sandbar 30" below the surface.  To be charted, a rock typically should be more than 12"-18" above the surrounding area.

How we found rocks: Bizer puttered around the entire lake (most of it twice) about 100-150 feet from any shore at six MPH.  Keep in mind that there is 278 miles of shoreline on this lake.  Bizer stood up in a 15 foot outboard with polarized glasses looking for trouble.  We (I) made the assumption that most rocks more than 150 feet from shore would be marked with a buoy, and that rocks less than 100 feet from shore should require cautious navigation and/or local knowledge.

Did we find them all? We hope so.  In an effort to make the chart more accurate, Bizer offers a reward of $250 to anyone who finds a shallow area (less than 6 feet deep) that is not marked in blue on Bizer's chart.  In nineteen years, three boaters have claimed that reward makeing Bizer's chart a little more accurate each time.

So if you see something, say something.  Write/email/phone/text us.  We want to know about anything and everything that boaters consider a hazard to navigation.  As for "Jeanzb1" who started this thread, we'd love to hear where this rock was so that we can investigate this area when we do our annual survey of the lake in September.  She obviously though it was important enough to mention.  Even if it is in an area marked in blue on Bizer's chart, we may add this rock on our next edition.

Not to Hijack the thread but Bizer:
Why is it coming into the channel from the big lake into Paugus bay the Green guides you in instead of Red Right Return?
is that because the dam is considered the outlet to the lake and therefore is defines the channel as heading outward instead of inward?

What green guides
 

What green navaids are there on the lake? I did not think red right return really applied on inland waters in NH.

depth finder
 

Keep in mind the depth finder is looking at water under the stern of the boat 21' behind the rocks you hit.

The channel markers in/out Paugus bay are blinking Green and Red at night

it is too hard to get them blinking red and black.....:)

agreed lol
but wanted to know why they are not reverse, green on the other side for leaving the channel and going into the large part of the lake'

only reason I could put together was that the outlet was down in the bay meaning leaving the lake?

Red right return has no applicability on NH inland waters. We operate under a completely different system.

Green and black
 

When buoys were made of wood and were square, they had reflectors on them to show up in your spotlight better. Red on a red buoy and green on a (solid) black buoy. Black top buoys usually had a white reflector. I believe the lights follow that pattern.

And works the way it is supposed to in the channel too. You are East of the black markers and West of the red markers.

Actually it does make sense. usually it's red right return going UPSTREAM. Going in to Paugus is down stream.

Wonder how they figured sally's gut, six pack, graveyard?

Every set of solid black and solid red spars that I know of follows the same "black pass on E or N, red pass on W or S" rules as the white spars with black or red tops.

Black is coid which is in the north east. Red is warm as in the south and west.

The only time to think about red right return is on the ocean - not on the lakes of NH.

Invest in . . .
 

a good pair of polarized sun glasses, they're a must out there. & never trust electronics. :( Glad all is okay.

rocks
 

I was fishing this area extensively with my bass boat a couple weeks ago. Even in a bass boat it's dangerous. As I was moving around with my trolling motor I had to navigate around several rocks that even my shallow draft boat with motor up could have hit. Beautiful area though...

I was just thinking, the southern end of Timber is near the witches, not Mark. Did yiu mean the southern end of Mark?

I was wrong when I said we hit rocks on the southern side of Timber. We just looked at the Bizer map. It was on the northeast side.

Key word here is SOLID, correct me if I'm wrong but the fact that it is SOLID means that it marks a defined channel. The red-black rule still applies so if you use N/E-S/W you end can't help but to end up in between them. There are spots that red and black (top) spar buoys are close together and passing between them would be breaking the rules on both buoys and could be a very expensive mistake. Solid buoys mark channels. In ocean channels where the red return rule applies, the buoys are also shaped, Nun, and Can, so the bouy can be idetified on conditions such as fog when it's difficult to see the color. Bring a good chart to the ocean, there are NO buoys that mark obstructions, you are on your own.

150 foot reference.
 

I think that the 150 foot navigation reference is a general rule that the NHMP "typically" will not mark hazards closer than 150 feet from shore. If you are that close "local knowledge" is expected to be used.

Misty Blue

It kind of fits nicely with the 150' no wake rule. If you are 150' from shore, then you are at headway speed. So you should be able to watch for rocks.

You are indeed correct

Correct. All the marked channels I know about still have the solid black and red in the correct orientation as the others.

A suggestion
 

I've found that the satellite image over at yahoo maps will get you a pretty good bottom image of anything you'd need to worry about close to shore. Google's image is better resolution, but most of it is covered in ice:(

Bing also has pretty good images of the lake bottom. I use it to check out shallow areas. This shows those Timber Island rocks:

http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=r82...=b&form=LMLTCC

I can almost see some fiberglass gel-coat left on the tops of some of those rocks: http://yhoo.it/1pBaMcy

:emb:

A cool app would be one that takes these satelite images, and jacks up the contrast to enhance an 'underwater' perspective. :D

Take a look at the area around FL #44 ..... between Pitchwood and Eagle.

Is the image just "pixalated" or are those ALL small rocks (close in to Pitchwood)?

I can almost visualize the proper boating path through the 44 and to the Red top south of Stonedam with this view.


.

I think what you're seeing is light reflecting off ripples in the water creating an illusion there are a bunch of rocks.

I'd like to say that those appear to be reflections off the top of the water.

Google map (even though there is ice), doesn't show those 'reflections' or 'rocks'. But it does look like a minefield in yahoo or bing maps (they must be using the same satelite imagery).