Writing Sample: Running the ICW
Originally published on boatlifelarks.com Running the ICW: 10 Tips for Newbies Text and photos copyright Matt Claiborne, 2017. Matt: “Why is that guy hugging that green channel marker so closely?” CRASH. Lucy: “Gosh, that catamaran looks way out of the channel!” CRASH! Fun fact: when only one keel of a catamaran runs aground, it spins violently! Pretty fun to smugly watch from a free floating vessel, but we bet it’s shocking to be aboard. Hopefully, we can continue to be smug. But we don’t like to get too smug. We did have a few close calls (we draw 4 feet and we consider anything less than 6 too skinny!). We got to 5.2 at one spot outside of McClellanville, SC. We saw it coming and were going very slow. Nothing happened, we made it fine. Now we know what you are saying, “there’s two types of sailors, those that have run aground and those that have lied about it.” And that may be true. When we bought our first boat to live aboard, a 32-foot monohull, we ran hard aground ...
