Largest swells your Parker can take

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Miker1234

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Joined
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Hey All,

I was curious what’s the worst conditions you’ve taken your boats out and how sketchy it was or wasn’t.

  1. Boat size (ft)
  2. Swell (ft)
  3. Period (s)
  4. Wind (mph/knots) and direction relative to swells.
Thanks!
 
2004 1801 115 2 stroke No t-top or bimini
4'-5' swells
seemed like every 3 or 4 seconds
20-30 mph winds head on
It was a rollercoaster, Thank goodness for self bailing decks!
Been caught out in some really bad stuff. I trusted the boat and my skills. Everything was tied down as it should be and made it in safely. The hardest part was the salt spray to the face every few seconds requiring me to take a hand off either the throttle or the wheel to clear my eyes.
 
2013 1801 Yamaha F115 with T-top
I am From Long Island NY and Moriches inlet gets hairy, and that is an understatement. Typically drifting the slop in the mouth of the inlet is a 3-5’ washing machine. The little Parker 1801 can handle it, not comfortably smooth but it can and I do it regularly, however I have been caught out on the reef a few miles out in some pretty nasty weather. WSW 25-30 knots seas 6-7’ or more, don’t recall swell duration. The 1801 got me back. The little hull really feels like a bigger boat and you can very quickly get in trouble. The Yamaha 115 engine is the limiting factor the boat. It just doesn’t have the power needed to motor out or motor up on the back of a swell. WOT throttle barley keeps it in the back side of a wave and I’m propped perfectly. I suppose in that situation a 4 blade would be ideal, Awesome little boat though.
 
As stated above, these boats can handle a lot of ocean. And we get our share of rough water here in the North West.

But people need to be careful and use sound judgement. Every year people die running rough bars and inlets. No fish worth your life. This is supposed to be fun not the deadliest catch.
 
Xlandscaper said:
2013 1801 Yamaha F115 with T-top
The Yamaha 115 engine is the limiting factor the boat. It just doesn’t have the power needed to motor out or motor up on the back of a swell. WOT throttle barley keeps it in the back side of a wave and I’m propped perfectly. I suppose in that situation a 4 blade would be ideal, Awesome little boat though.
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I never felt my 115 smoker lacked anything other than when I'm heavily loaded. Even when I was transporting 20 pieces of 6"x6"x10' treated lumber across the bay I had plenty of throttle to punch through. Totally different ride with all that ballast.
 
Sunday and ONE day impressions on just bought 2018 Parker 2501 with twin Yamaha 200 hp. This is not a typical 25’ CC, with that bracket and 9.5’ beam, which extends well forward, runs much bigger.

Point Judith RI, Swell 4’ to occasional 4.5’ out of SE at 6 to 8 s, I guessed. Good for surfers. And plenty of boat traffi, including Block Island Ferry which crossed bow while at drift. The ferry puts up ug
 
I’ll take 4’ with an 8 second or more interval over tightly packed 1-2s all day long. I’m 18 seasons in with the same 2520SL. Great boat but it’s not perfect and if I am being honest, delivers an uncomfortable ride in tight chop that’s within approximately 45 degrees of the bow unless you slow WAY down.

The boat is predictable and seaworthy. I’ve run my boat in all kinds of conditions typically over a 7 month season each year in the Northeast and rarely felt unsafe despite occasionally getting into some unexpected weather offshore but when it comes to tight chop on the bow, even when the chop is not very big, you really gotta slow way down unless you’re looking to shake out the fillings in your teeth or put the chiropractor on the pay roll…..
 
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(…) ugly close together steep 3.5’, I braced and grabbed rail, arriving from beam. Not too much rolling! And the swell was not an issue.
Past 14 years owned 26’ Glacier Bay Island Runner. None better cutting through chop. What I did not appreciate is how drastic the GB rocked on drifts, and beam seas. Parker much easier on you.
 
Mpellet said:
I’ll take 4’ with an 8 second or more interval over tightly packed 1-2s all day long. I’m 18 seasons in with the same 2520SL, great boat but it’s not perfect and if I am being honest, delivers an uncomfortable ride in tight chop that’s within approximately 45 degrees of the bow unless you slow WAY down.

The boat is predictable and seaworthy. I’ve run my boat in all kinds of conditions over a 7 month season in the Northeast and rarely felt unsafe despite occasionally getting into some unexpected weather offshore but when it comes to tight chop on the bow, even when the chop is not very big, you really gotta slow down unless you’re looking to shake out the fillings in your teeth or put the chiropractor on the pay roll…..
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MPellet, I would benefit from your expertise and note that you are in my neck of the woods. Any chance you could join me in an outing? I am at Billington Cove.

Trim tabs and engine trim, need to get dialed in. Coming up the pond, where you can open up, got up on anothers clean wake and started porpoising like crazy! Whoa. The Glacier Bay never did that, completely new to me! Trim was all wrong. Also don’t like the backwash coming up engines when slowing down too quickly. Hear you on chop and slow, we get plenty of afternoon chop.
 
Miker1234 said:
Hey All,

I was curious what’s the worst conditions you’ve taken your boats out and how sketchy it was or wasn’t.

  1. Boat size (ft)
  2. Swell (ft)
  3. Period (s)
  4. Wind (mph/knots) and direction relative to swells.
Thanks!
Click to expand...
2004 2520MV
5-6’ seas and building quickly with a 2-3 sec period
Wind building out of the NE
I was bottom fishing for Black Sea bass about 5 miles offshore with a colleague and his father-in-law when shortly after dusk the VHF weather started howling a quick incoming storm. Lightening on the horizon and wind picked up real fast. Seas built from 2-3 to 5-6’s quickly. Picked up anchor and tackle, we all jumped into the cabin and gunned it for the Manasquan Inlet. Within minutes seas were 7-8 and visibility was null. Got to the inlet while riding the troughs and found the train bridge down. Dropped anchor inside the inlet to ride out the storm that had such power it moved the water from one side on the inlet to the other in minutes with lightning striking around the boat continuously, listening to all the emergency marine calls on VHF 16. I was amazed how the Parker handled and delivered us safely that evening. She’s a workhorse. Though my guests never asked to fish on her again.
 
Miker1234 said:
Hey All,

I was curious what’s the worst conditions you’ve taken your boats out and how sketchy it was or wasn’t.

  1. Boat size (ft)
  2. Swell (ft)
  3. Period (s)
  4. Wind (mph/knots) and direction relative to swells.
Thanks!
Click to expand...

I have 2 Parker's a 2301 Deep Vee and a 2801 CC. Hard question. In the 2301, I have been in as much sea as 7' every 6 sec. on a SW wind out of Morehead City NC in the gulf stream. That wind direction makes the stream a little calmer. That's as much as I wanted and turned home. The boat was fine but I was chicken. For the 2801, I was in 9 to 10 foot seas 5 weeks ago fully loaded and 5 people aboard and made it to the edge of the stream before turning back. The wind was out of the North and the stream runs north so that wind clashing with gulf stream currents built the sea extremely big. the wind was North at 22 MPH. we were running quarter sea and the ride was pretty good but we knew we would be fishing on our knees. so, for the safety of the crew we tuned back. Had we lost an engine or run into a storm we would have been in trouble. Not worth that.
 
southofblock said:
MPellet, I would benefit from your expertise and note that you are in my neck of the woods. Any chance you could join me in an outing? I am at Billington Cove.

Trim tabs and engine trim, need to get dialed in. Coming up the pond, where you can open up, got up on anothers clean wake and started porpoising like crazy! Whoa. The Glacier Bay never did that, completely new to me! Trim was all wrong. Also don’t like the backwash coming up engines when slowing down too quickly. Hear you on chop and slow, we get plenty of afternoon chop.
Click to expand...
Block,

I think you’re gonna have a hard time accepting the realities of the ride on your Parker transitioning from a Glacier Bay. When I bought my Parker in 2006, I was not buying it as a fishing boat. At the time I was diving offshore shipwrecks exclusively and was setting up the boat to support technical diving ops, which involved hauling around mountains of gear. I thought I wanted a Glacier Bay which at the time had the reputation as one of the best riding boats on the market. Once I started looking, I realized that the Glacier Bay didn’t have enough cockpit space for what I was trying to accomplish and they were also a lot more $ then the Parker, which in terms of cabin/cockpit was perfect for a dive boat. I fell into an amazing deal on a 1 year old Parker 2520SL that I couldn’t pass up and bought the boat knowing it was a mod v. The Parker ended up being perfect as a dive platform. I also ended being glad that it was a mod-v which made the hull very comfortable anchored up offshore, which we did for hours on every trip. I accepted that my Parker was never going to deliver the ride that the cat GB would have and there were going to be days that I was going to have to run slower then I wanted to but that was just part of the trade off.

Over the years, I’ve learned to run the boat, I think to it’s fullest potential. Engine trim and tabs are absolutely critical but that doesn’t change the reality that slowing down for conditions is a necessity with a Parker Pilot House. I had a tuna trip planned for yesterday and NOAA put out an SCA on the day. I had a motivated and tested crew who isn’t prone to seasickness and I knew could handle the conditions that were supposed to improve throughout the day. I was planning on fishing approximately 50 miles from my slip so we left at 02:30 anticipating a 12-15kt run for most of the trip out. Sea state ended up being a big swell with almost 0 chop and I ran 20-22kts all the way but I was mentally prepared to run at 12-15 if I had to.

I’d be happy to discuss operating techniques with you but I don’t think anything I have to say will get your Parker to deliver a ride comparable to the cat GB ride that you’ve become accustomed to.
 
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Learned a valuable lesson about cargo ships the other day...was trolling and ended up about a mile from a big Maersk freighter that was hauling butt closer to shore than I've ever seen and snuck up on us; guessing she was doing 15-20kts in a 500' ship. She was also only about 20mi offshore in ~250fsw. Anyways, I kept an eye on the wake to keep a safe distance...or so I thought. Since we had 5 lines out, I figured I'd just turn into it since it was a bit bigger than I expected. And as it got closer, our reactions quickly went from "uh oh," to "oh s**t." The wake was a double wave about 1 boat length apart and about 8' high; we went up the front side and then stuffed the bow with the windows open on the backside. It was like getting hit in the face with a 5 gallon bucket of seawater. One of only 2 times I've ever stuffed the bow, and I'll never get that close to another cargo ship again. If we took it broadside or had a smaller boat, we would have been in real trouble. So single 8' waves are ok, just shut the windows 😉.
 
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Mudskipper said:
Learned a valuable lesson about cargo ships the other day...was trolling and ended up about a mile from a big Maersk freighter that was hauling butt closer to shore than I've ever seen and snuck up on us; guessing she was doing 15-20kts in a 500' ship. She was also only about 20mi offshore in ~250fsw. Anyways, I kept an eye on the wake to keep a safe distance...or so I thought. Since we had 5 lines out, I figured I'd just turn into it since it was a bit bigger than I expected. And as it got closer, our reactions quickly went from "uh oh," to "oh s**t." The wake was a double wave about 1 boat length apart and about 8' high; we went up the front side and then stuffed the bow with the windows open on the backside. It was like getting hit in the face with a 5 gallon bucket of seawater. One of only 2 times I've ever stuffed the bow, and I'll never get that close to another cargo ship again. If we took it broadside or had a smaller boat, we would have been in real trouble. So single 8' waves are ok, just shut the windows 😉.
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Crazy story!
 
Miker1234 said:
Crazy story!
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Yeah man, it was. I was in utter shock for about 10min after. I've been a hardcore boater/offshore fisherman here in Florida for almost 20 years and I've never had anything like that happen. And then last weekend, right after that, I rode an anchor like Superman over the reef in the Keys after I freed it from the rocks so we could outrun a nasty storm that popped up out of nowhere (ok, maybe the yellowtail snapper bite distracted us...). I need a break from these Final Destination moments!! I'm the super conservative safety-conscious one in my group, but sometimes sh*t happens. We got the anchor in, I didn't get an AGE, no one got electrocuted. We rode the storm out dry in the cabin and 30min later we were tied up at a dock eating cuban sandwiches and drinking rum runners at a tiki bar. Ran my Parker 2320 back at midnight to the right Key, enjoying the warm tropical breeze and a million stars...love that boat!! Saw two 2520s and a 2320 down there, must be some fellow adventurers.
 
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