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Roam lies on mooring #3 in Alofi Bay, Niue. We have the bay to ourselves.
Thirteen-hundred miles of open ocean lie between French Polynesia and the Kingdom of Tonga. There are very few places to stop. The single-island nation of Niue (New-Way) is one. It’s not only a great rest stop; it’s a worthy destination unto itself.
The Savage Rock
Captain James Cook, who, after three attempts to land, famously dubbed it “Savage Island” due to what he perceived as a hostile reception (it was, in fact, locals painted with red fe’i banana). Today, it’s called the “Rock of Polynesia” as it pops up out of nowhere in the middle of the Pacific. I’d suggest calling it “Friendly Rock” because of the friendly, enthusiastic islanders who genuinely love having “yacthies” visit their island.
Niue lies along the long route between French Polynesia and Tonga.
There is no protected harbor on Niue. It’s a deep, open roadstead. You can’t anchor. The local yacht club installs 15 moorings every season. These are in excellent condition and well maintained. They remove them during the off-season to refresh all of the components. You have to reserve one and pay for it in advance.
Running from the WARC
We were fortunate to get a reservation. We are running in front of a large group of boats participating in the World ARC—a rally of 26 boats who sail around the world together over the course of 15 months. They had reserved all of the moorings and were behind us in Bora Bora, hot on our heels. The Niue Yacht Club gave us three nights. We’d then have to leave to make room for the WARC boats. For now, we have the bay to ourselves.
Diving Niue
I’d heard great things about scuba diving in Niue. I wasn’t prepared for what I experienced. Caves and sea snakes. And crystal clear water. And big coralscapes.
The Niue Blue dive operation is based in New Zealand. The Kiwi crew and guides rotate through every few months. It’s a well-run operation. Guides Jackson and Ant picked me up from our boat one morning. They had one other long-time client with them. Only four of us. One guide remained in the boat while three of us dived.
Jackson: “Hey Jim, how do you feel about caves?”
Ant: “Hey Jim, how do you feel about snakes?”
I think I mumbled something about my life being in their hands. With that, we blasted off across the bay to their first favorite spot—Bubble Cave.
Katuali: Niue’s venomous, flat-tailed sea snake
We saw hundreds, if not thousands, of Niue’s famous Katuali venomous3 sea snakes. Outside the caves, they swim freely. In the caves, they are wrapped up in tight mating balls—some several feet in diameter. Above the surface, they lounged on the stalagmites and rocks inside the caves.
This is the kind of place where I could see spending a week, diving every morning and never getting tired of it.
Driving Around Niue
Pam rented a car to tour the island while I was diving. Unlike pretty much everywhere else in the world, Niue insists you get a local driver’s license. I’m not sure why they have this rule, but they are serious about it. Tourists apparently like it because it’s a cool souvenir to take home.
Helping the police chief get her printer back online.
Pam tried to get one, but the police station ID card printer was broken. They let her drive around without it while various people came and went from the police station trying to fix the printer. So much for the serious rule about having a local Niue driver’s license.
She is legal to drive in Niue!
That afternoon, we went back by the police station to see how the printer was doing. Despite my objections, Pam often volunteers me to help people with their computer problems5. The police chief was eager for help. Instead of intervening directly, I introduced her to Google Gemini and let them work things out together, which they quickly did. The printer was again spitting out ID cards. Pam got her license. We were legal. And, Niue has a resident AI expert now.
The loss of the Anastacia
A week earlier, we sat out some bad weather in Aitutaki, Cook Islands. That same disturbance passed over Niue. It caused the wind and seas to swing around and come from the west, making Alofi Bay a dangerous lee shore.6
There were several boats on moorings. Two left the mooring field and took shelter in the lee of the island on the other side, sailing back and forth on the east side for 48 hours. Two boats decided to ride it out on their moorings (despite warnings against it). One survived; one did not.
The Swedish-flagged, Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 44i, Anastacia, was lost when it broke free of its mooring and foundered on the reef in front of the town. It didn’t take long for the waves and the rocks to reduce it to small bits.
I won’t speculate on the skipper’s decision-making. These are always complex situations. It’s impossible to fully appreciate what they were facing. She wrote about it on the ship’s blog.
What we did see was the aftermath. The day after we arrived, the town citizens met with the island’s Prime Minister to confront the issue. The theme was a proposal to remove all moorings from Alofi Bay so that something like this would never happen again.
Locals salvage the wreck of Anastacia as she founders on the reef in front of the town of Alofi. Photo: Broadcasting Corporation of Niue
The wreckage left behind an environmental calamity. The fiberglass hull had been reduced to a kind of fiberglass fuzz that was all over the reef surface. Locals were engaged in a daily surface clean-up operation. The dive shop was running afternoon clean-up dives in an effort to get the debris off the bottom. It was a mess. People were angry.
Decisions that seem clear-cut after the fact are not so clear-cut in the moment. I think about our own experiences. Like a few days earlier in Aitutaki, where we had wind gusts to 44 knots. A slightly different weather trajectory, and we might be telling a different story. Often, we are more lucky than good.
The forecast models showed another disturbance forming near Tonga a few days out. It was forecast to track toward Niue. Some of the WARC boats seeing this, diverted north to Samoa. This freed up some of the moorings in Niue. The yacht club let us know we were free to spend another day or two should we so desire.
We could have made it work. But Anastacia’s fate was on our minds. The sea state was forecast to be smooth for the next day—less than two meters. The wind was blowing in the right direction. It would be a good chance to make the run to Tonga with good weather margins. Our weather router, MetBob agreed with the plan.
We woke to our alarms at midnight, slipped our mooring lines, and sailed west out of the bay and into the black night toward Tonga.
Customs Departure Tax: $150NZD per person (yes, that’s a lot)
Clearance Fee: $50NZD
Clearance was handled ashore on the wharf and in the customs office. Nobody came to the boat.
Gallery
Breakfast underway, offshore. Pam froze a bunch of croissants we got in French Polynesia. They are true luxury out on the ocean.
Some of our passages are “dead downwind.” We’re sailing with the wind directly behind us. We’ll often dispense with the mainsail and fly our reaching sails “wing-and-wing.” Here, “Jack,” the Code65 to port, and “Jill,” the Code Zero to starboard. In theory this is a safer setup than flying a spinnaker because both sails can be furled without leaving the cockpit. In practice, it can be a bit fidgety to set and douse. I’m not convinced I love this arrangement.
Arriving at Mooring #3 in Alofi Bay, Niue. We time our passages so that we arrive during daylight. We cut it close here, arriving at sunset. But this is a wide-open bay, and the navigation is straightforward. The Niue Yacht Club puts reflective tape and reflective numbers on the mooring balls. We found them easily with a spotlight.
Our downwind, reaching sails are flown from the “longeron” (fancy French term for bow sprit). Rigging them sometimes requires a balance beam performance on my part. And yes, I have fallen off (but not with my phone—yet). Simone Biles I am not.
Dinghy lift: Alofi Bay is an open roadstead. There is always a surge against the wharf. They make it easy to hoist your dinghy out of the water and set it on the wharf. There is usually a local around to help.
Like the Cook Islands, Niue is well supplied by New Zealand. Matson Shipping’s “Olomana” moored here for two days while the crew shuttled containers ashore.
The scuba diving in Niue was some of the most unique and memorable ever for me. Niue Blue is a first-class dive operation. Kiwi dive guides, Ant and Jackson took good care of me. Photo: Jackson, Niue Blue
Surfacing inside “Bubble Cave.” Lit with our dive lights. The cave is sealed and it pressurizes with the surge. You have to equalize your ears much like you would in a plane. The surge also vaporizes the surface into a mist. The Katuali sea snakes hang out in here.
Niue is known for Katuali—a highly venomous, flat-tailed sea snake. You see them on the surface frequently. When you dive the caves you find them in abundance. Sometimes in a mating ball one meter in diameter. They have tiny mouths. You’d have to try hard to get bitten. It would be bad if you did. Like most marine life, they are timid.
Our ongoing quest for decent pizza in faraway places. Kaiika, Alofi. Like Aitutaki, Niue has great eateries. A welcome change from the culinary food dessert of French Polynesia. New Yorkers might take issue with the pizza “style” here.
Roam in Alofi Bay, Niue.
LOOSE CANNON covers hard news, technical issues and nautical history. Every so often he tries to be funny. Subscribe for free to support the work. If you’ve been reading for a while—and you like it—consider upgrading to paid.
Cruisers Net is proud to be a member of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway Association, whose lobbying work is crucial to keeping the Waterway navigable and safe. Your membership dollars directly support their vital work. Please join and encourage your boating neighbors to do the same, regardless of their home port.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Releases FY26 Civil Works Budget Outlining the Administration’s Proposed Projects and Programs
May was an important month for waterway federal funding news. In addition to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) release of their work plan for Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25) funding on May 15th, we received more good news when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released their FY2026 Civil Works Budget on May 30th providing the detailed information on the President’s priorities for project and program funding for FY26.
Building on the $33 million allocated for FY25, the administration is proposing over $38 million dollars for waterway projects to be conducted in all five states in FY26. Below is a summary of the FY26 President’s budget request for the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway.
Summary of appropriations in the FY26 President’s budget VA – $5.413M NC – $12.490M SC – $9.213M GA – $6.265M FL – $4.83M Total- $38.211 million Our New Jersey partners are also included in the President’s budget for $1.715 million
This funding level is the highest amount we have ever received in the President’s budget. This great start is a testament to our collective voice of waterway stakeholders and partnering with the Corps in building a national program for the last decade.
Looking forward
With the release of the Administration’s funding priorities, our focus turns to the FY26 appropriations process in Congress. The next step will be for the House of Representatives and Senate to develop their appropriation bills as the current FY25 funding ends on September 30, 2025. We are hopeful that we will be able to secure additional funding above the President’s request through Community Project Funding. In previous years, Rep. Greg Murphy (NC) and Rep. Brian Mast (FL) requested project funding for the waterway. We are also continuing to request Congress to add in funding pots for Additional Dredging needs for Inland Waterways; Small, Remote or Subsistence Navigation; and General Navigation into the Corps’ Operations & Maintenance Account, which could lead to more funding for the waterway.
Below is a table outlining our recent success and the current state of waterway funding. It is possible that we could surpass the $220 million in waterway funding over the past five years with another successful funding cycle in 2026.
BoatUS Has All the Hurricane Preparation Info Boaters Need
An article from our partners at BoatUS
Recreational boaters whose vessels have been impacted by a hurricane and came out relatively unscathed know it all starts with a plan. With the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season starting June 1, Boat Owners Association of The United States (BoatUS) is offering free hurricane boat preparation information at BoatUS.com/Hurricanes.
Online help is available to every boat owner (no BoatUS membership required), whether their vessel will have to weather the storm in the slip, stored ashore, on a boat lift, in canals, at marinas, boat clubs or hurricane holes.
The storm-planning help includes downloadable guides, videos and in-depth articles from BoatUS, the nation’s largest boating advocacy, services and safety group with more than 725,000 members and with more than 40 years of experience in hurricane preparedness for recreational vessels and post-storm recovery.
The simplest way to begin a customized boat hurricane damage avoidance plan is to download the one-page Hurricane Planning worksheet, which will help you determine a boat’s storage and protection options and needs, including any special equipment such as chafe protection, shackles or extra line.
Also offered is the “BoatUS Magazine Hurricane Preparations Guide,” which offers proven tips and techniques, and the “Guide for Preparing Boats and Marinas for Hurricanes” – a helpful resource for marina and boat club staff, community resiliency managers and local government organizations that focus on protecting boating facilities.
A video playlist includes nine hurricane preparation videos on a range of topics, making it easy to understand the steps to take, such as how to tie up your boat, how to set fenders, and what to do after a hurricane has come through.
If a named storm approaches, BoatUS.com/Hurricanes offers great up-to-the-minute storm tracking tools with live satellite images.
The Atlantic hurricane season officially ends November 30. For more, go to BoatUS.com/Hurricanes.
Savannah, Georgia SAVE THE DATE | AIWA Annual Meeting November 18-20, 2025
The AIWA is a national non-profit organization with the mission of securing funding and support for the maintenance of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. We are the only organization dedicated to ensuring the future of the AIWW and proudly represent all stakeholders of the waterway.
Cruisers Net publishes Loose Cannon articles with Captain Swanson’s permission in hopes mariners with salt water in their veins will subscribe.. $7 a month or $56 for the year and you may cancel at anytime.
Richard Sydney-Smith’s Christina before she was broken up for scrap.
Spouted, Touted, Pleaded Guilty
He spouted conspiracy theories and touted anti-vaccination positions while anchored in the Dominican Republic. Now, Australian Richard Sydney-Smith is waiting to be sentenced for drug smuggling and hoping for less than 10 years in prison.
Sydney-Smith arrived at the country’s hurricane-hole harbor—Luperon Bay—sometime in 2020 in what had been a beautiful steel ketch named Christina. She met her end as scrap in late 2023 after demonstrating a tendency to take on water at anchor.
Next thing we know, according to court documents, a Dominican drug figure named Orlando had hooked Sydney-Smith up with associate Onasis Lisandro Garcia, and the two of them were piloting Easy Times, a 44-foot sportfisherman, en route from the Bahamas to Fort Lauderdale. She was packed with 157 kilograms of cocaine.
Easy Times was intercepted on the evening of October 27, 2024 about two nautical miles east of the entrance to Fort Lauderdale.
With the jig being up, Sydney-Smith and Garcia quickly went into cooperation mode. Authorities switched out the cocaine with fake stuff and allowed the two men to arrange a rendezvous with their shoreside connections, bringing the total number of arrestees to five.
What some readers may find amazing is how cheap Sydney-Smith and Garcia were willing to work, given that the sentence for smuggling ranges from ten years to life. They told investigators they were paid $3,000 up front with a promise of “$5,000 to $10,000” upon delivery.
They are pleading guilty in hope that the court will grant them mercy, something along the lines of a five-year sentence.
Christina in better times.
Swaggering Keys Grifter Self-Deports
Jan Kanafoski is a Polish national whose criminal career began in Georgia, where he did time for theft. After that he engaged in a series of escapades—and had another criminal conviction—involving boats that burned, disappeared, were repossessed or given to him as gifts by older men who (one assumes) admired Kanafoski’s swaggering streetwise demeanor.
Kanafoski, 45, became a fixture along the Key West waterfront and, for a while, at Isla Mujeres in Mexico.
Kanafoski’s latest ride is Baba Yaga, a 66-foot catamaran, which was provided to him by an “investor” who was told the boat could make money in charter, according to Kanafoski’s son. Baba Yaga is a famous witch from Slavic folklore.
According to Baba Yaga’s most recent AIS coordinates, she was crossing the Atlantic after a stay in Bermuda. Her last available position was 40 days ago, just west of the Azores.
Baba Yaga, according to Kanafoski.
While at Bermuda, Kanafoski took the time to explain his plight in a Facebook post.
His “kid” denies informing on dad. Kid said he believes that the ICE story is made-up. Kid believes dad actually has self-deported, heading back to the mother country because he has cancer and wants to take advantage of Poland’s national health care.
The Coast Guard plan to discontinue 350 navigational bouys in the Northeast has been met with widespread chagrin in the maritime community, and the deadline for comments is fast approaching.
The latest criticism comes from the Maine Legislature, which last week passed a unanimous resolution opposing the whole idea, arguing that it represented false savings at the expense of public safety.
But since the Coast Guard comment structure appears built around the question of whether to remove each bouy individually, it is not clear that opposition to the entire concept will carry much weight.
Ted Arisaka is a cruiser and Loose Cannon correspondent who actually took the time to break down the buoys in question by type. His analysis showed 48 sea bouys had been targeted for removal, and further broke them down…
By State and Light Type (0=No Light)
By State and Sound Type (0=No Sound)
Caught in the act: Members of different termite species mate.
Termite Love Child Going to Sea?
Loose Cannon recently published a story quoting scientist Thomas Chouvenc, who believes boats are exporting Florida termites to who knows where. Now, he’s learned that it’s actually worse. He’s discovered a hybrid termite and expects this new super species will also be stowing away.
“Having the two of the most destructive termite species in the world hybridizing here in Florida is a real concern and it is unknown if in the long term it will be a major economic problem that would be compounded to the one already caused by both species,” Chouvenc said.
In his just-published essay in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society, Chouvenc wrote that invasive Formosan subterranean termites and Asian subterranean termites have gone from coexistence to cross-breeding. Chovenc is associate professor of urban entomology at the Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center, a branch of the University of Florida.
The university’s news release on Chovenc’s study concluded:
With the presence of established hybrid colonies now confirmed, scientists warn that the consequences could extend far beyond Florida. Fort Lauderdale, dubbed the “yacht capital of the world,” is a known hotspot for the introduction and spread of invasive termites via recreational boats. Chouvenc’s previous research has shown that private vessels are a major pathway for spreading these species internationally.
“This may be a Florida story now, but it likely won’t stay just in Florida. Give it time,” he warned.
LOOSE CANNON covers hard news, technical issues and nautical history. Every so often he tries to be funny. Subscribe for free to support the work. If you’ve been reading for a while—and you like it—consider upgrading to paid.
Aqua Map is an advanced marine navigation app for smartphones and tablets that features up-to-date nautical charts and online satellite imagery. It offers POI displays, marine forecasts, live sharing, and AIS target display with collision detection to make planning safer.
What’s Happening In Your Parks – Charleston County Parks
Reggae Nights Summer Concerts
Book your ticket to summer chill: Reggae Nights are back! On May 30, the summer’s best party kicks off at James Island County Park. Join us for live reggae music, delicious food truck fare, and plenty of good vibes.
Peak Summer
On June 18, salute the summer solstice and reconnect with nature at our annual Yoga Fest. Together we’ll celebrate summer and community at this family-friendly yoga event, complete with live music and a kids’ yoga class. Register before June 4 to ensure you snag one of our awesome event t-shirts!
Something to Tweet About
Did you hear? Folly Island is going to the birds! On June 13, take a bird walk with us through Lighthouse Inlet Heritage Preserve, home to one of the largest bird lists in South Carolina. Register today for your chance to see painted buntings, Wilson’s plovers, and more!
Sounds of Summer
On June 6, join us for another Moonlight Mixer at the Folly Beach Pier! Dance the night away with your favorite partner or just kick back with a cool drink and enjoy the ocean breeze. Save on admission when you purchase your tickets in advance!
High Vibes
Take your family on an Odyssey Adventure at James Island County Park this summer. We have a multitude of challenges and high-flying obstacles, complete with a zipline exit! Book your session today.
Sponsorship Opportunities
Connect your company with our vibrant and growing community while supporting your Charleston County Parks! From family-friendly fun to cultural celebrations, sponsorship opportunities with our festivals and events offer excellent exposure and strengthen your brand. Learn more about sponsorship packages and how you can get involved.
BoatUS is the leading advocate for boating safety in the US and A CRUISERS NET SPONSOR.
May 28, 2025
NEWS from BoatUS Boat Owners Association of The United States 5323 Port Royal Rd, Springfield, VA 22151 BoatUS News Room at https://www.boatus.com/news-room/
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Press Contact: D. Scott Croft, Vice President Public Affairs, 703-461-2864, SCroft@boatus.com
BoatUS Has All the Hurricane Preparation Info Boaters Need
If a boat cannot be removed from a boat lift prior to a hurricane’s arrival, tie-downs may help prevent a total loss if storm surge dislodges the vessel from its cradle. Download hi-res photo
SPRINGFIELD, Va., May 28, 2025 – Recreational boaters whose vessels have been impacted by a hurricane and came out relatively unscathed know it all starts with a plan. With the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season starting June 1, Boat Owners Association of The United States (BoatUS) is offering free hurricane boat preparation information at BoatUS.com/Hurricanes.
Online help is available to every boat owner (no BoatUS membership required), whether their vessel will have to weather the storm in the slip, stored ashore, on a boat lift, in canals, at marinas, boat clubs or hurricane holes.
The storm-planning help includes downloadable guides, videos and in-depth articles from BoatUS, the nation’s largest boating advocacy, services and safety group with more than 725,000 members and with more than 40 years of experience in hurricane preparedness for recreational vessels and post-storm recovery.
The simplest way to begin a customized boat hurricane damage avoidance plan is to download the one-page Hurricane Planning worksheet, which will help you determine a boat’s storage and protection options and needs, including any special equipment such as chafe protection, shackles or extra line.
Also offered is the “BoatUS Magazine Hurricane Preparations Guide,” which offers proven tips and techniques, and the “Guide for Preparing Boats and Marinas for Hurricanes” – a helpful resource for marina and boat club staff, community resiliency managers and local government organizations that focus on protecting boating facilities.
A video playlist includes nine hurricane preparation videos on a range of topics, making it easy to understand the steps to take, such as how to tie up your boat, how to set fenders, and what to do after a hurricane has come through.
If a named storm approaches, BoatUS.com/Hurricanes offers great up-to-the-minute storm tracking tools with live satellite images.
The Atlantic hurricane season officially ends November 30. For more, go to BoatUS.com/Hurricanes.
###
Suggested social media post:
With the Atlantic #hurricane season starting June 1 and an above-average number of storms predicted, recreational boaters should practice the three Ps: preparation, preparation, and preparation! @BoatUS has all the hurricane prep information boaters need to prevent or lessen damage. Downloadable guides, articles, worksheets, videos, and storm tracking are all free at BoatUS.com/Hurricanes https://bit.ly/4kGeDoV #beready #hurricaneprep #hurricanepreparednessweek #beprepared #BoatUS #hurricaneseason #stormready #freeresources #weatherready
About Boat Owners Association of The United States (BoatUS):
Celebrating more than 55 years, BoatUS is the nation’s largest advocacy, services and safety group with more than 725,000 dues-paying members. BoatUS is the boat owners’ voice on Capitol Hill, fighting for their rights. The TowBoatUS® fleet is available 24/7 to assist our members on the water when boats break down or run aground with some 600 vessels and 300-plus locations across North America, bringing our members safely back to the launch ramp, marina or dock. On the road, we are The Boat Owners Auto Club™, helping ensure roadside trailer and tow vehicle breakdowns won’t slow you down. BoatUS offers GEICO boat insurance policies that give boat owners affordable, specialized coverage and the superior service they need. Award-winning BoatUS Magazine is the largest circulation recreational marine publication in the U.S. with engaging content that speaks to the passion for boat ownership, while our 501(c)(3) nonprofit BoatUS Foundation for Boating Safety and Clean Water offers the nation’s only free online boating safety course and many other programs that keep boaters safe and our waters clean. Visit BoatUS.com.
Keep your calendar clear: Every season in Washington, NC brings something new and exciting. Enjoy local festivals, area concerts, or waterfront adventure.
An interesting human interest sailing journey, even if not within the Cruisers’ Net coverage area. Diagnosed at 29 with a rare bone disorder, Oliver Widger left his job, cashed out his 401K, and bought a sailboat. He has now embarked on a round-the-world sailing voyage, and is currently in the Pacific Ocean, speaking with CNN’s Anderson Cooper during the initial part of his journey.
Cruisers Net publishes Loose Cannon articles with Captain Swanson’s permission in hopes mariners with salt water in their veins will subscribe.. $7 a month or $56 for the year and you may cancel at anytime.
The author is a certified NAMS marine surveyor and Loose Cannon friend with an office at Marblehead, Massachusetts. His uncle was a PT Boat skipper.
“Charging full tilt into combat, often against tremendous odds, the men who ride the Elco PTs are modern versions of the fearless knights of old. Their daring and initiative, teamed with the terrific speed and offensive power of their Elco bred ‘steeds,’ have wrought vast destruction against the enemy… Never in naval history have craft so midget in size proved so fabulously mighty in deed. Never have officers and crews more richly deserved the praises of a grateful nation.” —Elco Boat Company advertisement, The Rudder, August 1943
Echoing the stirring words of Sir Winston Churchill, the above ad copy illustrates the lore that shrouded motor torpedo (PT) boats. The colorful ads further claimed that these mile-a-minute giant killers were “Hell on Keels!,” which would soon bring the enemy fleets to their knees. To a nation eager for avenging heroes, the PT boat represented more than just another weapons
In the bleak months following Pearl Harbor, the general public was well aware that the U.S. Pacific fleet was antiquated as well as outnumbered. The prospect of hurling our remaining capital ships into a conventional war of attrition would have seemed suicidal.
However, during the desperate process of rebuilding, the average American could identify intimately with the vision of individual small craft roaring to counterattack. More powerful than might alone, the St. George imagery provided the assurance of righteous cause around which to muster the all-volunteer force. While the PT boat is still a popular icon of World War II, many misconceptions remain regarding the type and its development.
The motor torpedo boat was not born precipitously on the eve of hostilities, nor was its concept unique to the United States. The Elco and Higgins PTs represented a refined combination of hull design, power plant, and weapons that were all invented in the 19th century. Powerfully armed yet vulnerable to fire, mass produced yet of superior performance, the PTs embodied many design contradictions.
At left, Proposed 70-foot PT drawn for Gen. MacArthur. At right, PT-1 designed by George Crouch
That the boats could be finely tuned to meet the demands of the front lines, and still be produced at such an unprecedented rate, makes the PT program one of the greatest accomplishments of the wooden boat building industry.
Origins of the Motor Torpedo Boat
The essence of the torpedo boat concept lies in radical tactical responses to conventional naval strategy. By the time of the American Revolution, accepted naval doctrine called for sending a fleet of floating wooden fortresses either to trade fire with their enemy counterparts or to blockade its ports.
Blockade strategy was as tedious and stagnant as sieges in medieval Europe or trench warfare in World War I. Both of the latter static strategies were outmoded respectively by the invention of artillery to breach walls and armored tanks to span trenches.
The development of the torpedo boat was governed by advances in hull design, power plants, and weaponry. Robert Whitehead’s invention of the self-propelled torpedo in 1876 along with the multiple expansion steam engine led to the first modern torpedo boats. One particularly famous example was N.G. Herreshoff’s conversion of the launch Stilleto to fire a torpedo over her bow.
The body plan for the Higgins 78′ PT (Patrol-Torpedo) boat, shown at the top, displays its kinship to the sections for a William Hand powerboat (circa 1908). Hand’s early experiments in modifying Chesapeake dead-rise workboat hulls had a major, and largely unrecognized, influence on PT boat design.
The conventional mindset of the Navy gradually pushed for ever larger torpedo craft, a move which led to the development of fleet-sized ships and the destroyer. At the turn of the century, one of the most influential proponents of the torpedo boat was none other than then Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt. In answering critics who dismissed the boats as dangerous aberrations, the aggressive statesman showed remarkable insight in predicting the hit-and-run role of the PT while conceding, “They will always be as fragile as they are formidable.”
Design Development Between Wars
Motorboating in the depths of the Depression was highlighted by the designs of Gar Wood and the Gold Cup racers. It is only natural that these fire-breathing unlimiteds are often cited as the forebears of the PT boat. Despite their thrilling performance, these boats show little if any influence in the design of the torpedo boats of World War II.
As with the torpedo boat, the concept of the stepped hydroplane is an old idea. The hull is designed purely as a lifting body to reduce resistance. In fact, the whole thrust of the hydroplane is to deny its own element by skipping above the surface of the water. Thornycroft used the idea in World War I in designing its 55-foot Coastal Motor Boats. Though fast, the boats were severely limited by range, armament, and sea conditions.
While less radical, the early warped V-bottomed hulls lie at the heart of torpedo boat design. The idea is generally credited to yacht designer William H. Hand, Jr., in around 1902. His adaptations of Chesapeake deadrise hulls possessed the unique combination of high speed, comfort, low power, and good seakeeping ability. By World War I, Hand’s larger boats were reaching 35 mph and winning ocean races.
The British Admiralty took note of the designs and ordered a series of 40-foot patrol launches. Ironically, the U.S. Navy showed little continued interest in small attack craft during the 1920s and early ’30s. General Douglas MacArthur, then commander of Philippine forces, foresaw an escalating threat of invasion and proposed a program to build a squadron of 30 motor torpedo boats to defend the islands. The 70-foot all-aluminum design presented by MacArthur’s naval assistant, Lt. S.L. Huff USN (retired), followed the well-tested lines of a 45-foot Luders crash boat.
However, preliminary studies showed that the horsepower necessary to bring the boat to 40 knots would be enormous. The approved propulsion plan proposed jamming six 550-hp Hall-Scott engines into the tight engineroom. No boats were built to Huffs design.
At left, Huckins 78-foot PT designed by Lindsay Lord. At right, British 72-foot 6-inch Vosper/Thornycroft MTB.
With the support of Secretary of the Navy Admiral Pye, the U.S. initiated its own design program in December 1937. This testing produced three 25-foot half-scale boats, each powered by two 140-hp engines. The boats all varied in angle of deadrise, height of chine at bow, transom immersion, and location of the center of buoyancy. The results of this program produced valuable data on loading and trim, handling, and other requirements needed to get over the hump and onto plane.
Scott-Paine, Sutphen and Plywood Derbies
In July 1938, the Navy’s Bureau of Construction and Repair sent out invitations for a design competition. The designers only had two months to submit entries. Finalists would be awarded $1,500, and the contract winners $15,000. The competition was for two designs: a 54-foot boat that could be easily loaded onto a mother ship, and a 70-foot boat with increased range. Entrants submitted 24 designs for the smaller boat, and 13 for the larger.
Speedboat professor George Crouch was working for Henry B. Nevins, Inc. at the time, and won the competition for the 54-foot boat. Not unlike his earlier racers, the boat had a pronounced barrel back and a flat, hollowed-out underbody. The torpedoes were launched by sliding off rails over the stern, an idea borrowed from Thornycroft British 72-foot 6-inch Vosper/Thornycroft MTB in England.
Workers at the Bayonne, New Jersey, plant assemble elegant, but complex, deckhouses for the early Elco 70-foot PT boats. These aircraft-like cabins were replaced by simpler plywood houses on the Elco 80-foot boats.
PT-10, an Elco 70-footer running at speed. Note the enclosed gun turrets.
This flawed concept meant that the boat would have to be up on plane to fire its tubes, so it could accelerate and swerve out of the way of its own torpedoes. However, this meant that the torpedoes would start their run in turbulent water behind the PT, and could easily veer off course. Plagued by construction problems, lackluster performance, and the decision to scrap the small boat/mother ship concept, only four of the Crouch designs were built.
Sparkman & Stephens won the design competition for the 70-foot boat. Two prototypes, PTs 5 and 6, were to be built at Higgins Industries in New Orleans. The design was unique as probably the leanest of the PTs, with only a 5:1 length-to-beam ratio. Veteran builder Andrew Jackson Higgins predicted the hull design’s poor lift and low top speed of only 33 knots. Higgins successfully petitioned the Navy to dump the prototype by selling it to Britain, and he started from scratch on his own designs.
Amidst this proliferation of designs and prototypes, Henry Sutphen of Elco remained notably removed. The shrewd builder could see that meeting requirements for performance, armament, and seaworthiness exceeded all conventional designs and would demand more experimentation—all at the considerable expense of the competing contractors.
Workers swarm over Elect 80-foot PT boats under construction. The inverted hulls allowed the builders to “work down” on the job, saving time and effort.
An 80-foot Elco PT shown at full speed during time trials.
Instead of wading into the fray with his own set of plans, Sutphen focused on the work of a flamboyant British entrepreneur. Hubert Scott-Paine was an eccentric and a visionary who threw himself into the forefront of the transportation revolution in the 1920s.
He founded British Airways and Supermarine Aviation, whose 1934 Schneider Cup Trophy-winning float plane was to become the prototype for the Supermarine Spitfire. No less consumed by speed on the water, Scott-Paine founded the British Powerboat Company and campaigned a series of boats against Gar Wood and his supercharged Packards. In 1935, Scott-Paine designed and built 22 air-sea rescue (crash) boats of 64 feet LOA.
Officers’ quarters aboard an 80-foot Elco, spartan by most standards, plush for a PT boat.
With the renewed interest in heavily armed torpedo boats, he expanded this plan in 1938 to a design for a 70-foot boat carrying four torpedoes and powered by three 900-hp Merlin engines. Though the boat reached 44 knots on trials, Scott-Paine lost the contract to Thornycroft Vosper. The controversy surrounding the Admiralty’s decision left the designer bitter and in search of a buyer for his ideas.
The superior performance of the Scott-Paine boat was not lost on Assistant Secretary of the Navy Charles Edison. By January of 1939, virtually all of the domestic private and government proposals had proven flawed.
However desperate the Navy might have been to begin production, it did not want to appear to be selling out American boatbuilders by throwing in with the British Powerboat Company. In a clandestine meeting, Edison sought out Sutphen to act as a strawman to buy the Scott-Paine prototype and ship it back to the U.S. for trials. The boat arrived in New York two days after the outbreak of war in Europe.
Elco was granted a contract almost immediately to build two squadrons (24) of the Scott-Paine 70-footers. The boats were completed and deployed for testing in Florida in the summer of 1940. Some severe structural problems surfaced shortly after testing began. The decks had a tendency to crack at the beginning of the superstructure, and the hull-to-deck joint of one boat zipped open for over a quarter of the boat’s length. The forward underbody of the boat also proved weak and needed to be reinforced with additional frames.
At the same time, it became apparent that the British 70-foot design was overloaded by the larger U.S. 21-inch torpedoes. This prompted Elco to modify the molds of the boat by adding 7 feet to the transom for the second production run.
By the spring of 1941, a number of other prototypes had become available for testing. However, the structural defects that had been uncovered with the early Elcos only emphasized that there would be no opportunity to alter a design after it entered full-scale production. There was a proposal to run all of the new designs through a rigorous sea trial that July in Long Island Sound, with the winner being awarded the contract.
While the Navy was to test the boats for many practical details such as habitability, communications, and production standardization, it was generally understood that they intended to take fully loaded boats and kick the stuffing out of them in order to select the survivors.
The sea trials culminated with a 190-mile run around Block Island, the Fire Island Lightship, Montauk Point, and back to New London that has become known as “The Plywood Derby.” What was originally intended as a conventional endurance run became a free-for-all in 15-foot seas. The leader, an Elco 77, managed to finish in just under six hours for an average speed of over 39 mph.
Surprisingly enough, the small boat was able to hammer through the rough conditions and cross the line only minutes behind the destroyer Wilke, which had been sent out to pace the fleet at full speed. Virtually all of the leaders suffered some damage. Though they were fast, the Elcos pounded so badly that their decks buckled and cracked. Later models were fitted with large stringers on deck running alongside the house and onto the foredeck.
Higgins had fielded two entries that competed against each other. Veteran designer Graham Haddock had engineered the new PT-6 that replaced the failed S&S design. Though structurally superior to virtually all the other entries, it couldn’t keep up with the lighter Elcos.
The other Higgins boat, the 72-foot PT-70, was designed by the builder’s son. The new boat used lightweight construction with plywood topsides and deck and matched the speed of the Elco 77s. However, the plywood shattered early on in the race, forcing the boat to withdraw.
Higgins PT-6 during trials—a strong boat, but slower than the Elcos.
Higgins decided to build a larger version, using some of Haddock’s structural innovations (Haddock himself was pulled from the project and relegated to steel construction).
The Huckins entry proved to be an unexpected disappointment. The 72 PT-69 was notable for its plumb stem with deep forefoot, and a sharp entry that warped to only six degrees of deadrise at the transom. While she was able to reach a fairly good speed, the boat was reputed to have handling problems.
The Huckins boat was unique in being powered by four Packard engines rather than the customary three, a complexity that the Navy did not consider favorably. Ultimately, only two squadrons of the Huckins boats were built, and these were consigned to defending the Panama Canal.
The First Elcos in the Pacific
With their clipper bow, reverse sheer, and swept-back superstructure, the early Elco boats possessed the most flamboyant aesthetic character of all the PTs. The styling and structural details of the boats embodied the aero design concepts of the era—to the point that the first squadrons were fitted with domed plexiglass machine gun turrets. Armed only with their torpedoes and several defensive guns, the boats and their crews seemed to possess an innocence and overconfidence that would evaporate during the first bitter campaigns in the Pacific.
Elco PTs were dispatched immediately to buttress the Pacific fleet. In fact, there are accounts of men from Squadron Two who fought off Japanese planes at Pearl Harbor while their boats were still stored on shipping cradles. Squadron Three was sent to aid in the futile defense of the Philippines.
Faced with a determined and vastly superior invading force, the boats struggled on with dwindling supplies and spare parts. The early shortcomings in the PT program were due to operational and support problems rather than hull design. The small boats were not self-supporting, and so had to be deployed with mobile bases that would include engine shops, floating drydocks, and massive fuel and ammo dumps.
This interdependent network compares more closely to an airfield than it would to most naval detachments deployed at sea. The maintenance was typical for any wooden boat, and the construction actually lent itself to quick field repair and modification.
PT actions during the defense of the Philippines in the spring of 1942 and off Guadalcanal later that year proved that the boats were ideally suited for hit-and-run tactics. Teams of four boats would set out after dark on long-range patrols. Each boat ran on a single muffled engine. After contacting the enemy (often at ranges well under 400 yards), a PT would fire all torpedoes simultaneously, light up all three Packards, and throw the boat into a series of evasive maneuvers to escape.
Plagued by poor communications, only fair support, and notoriously defective torpedoes, the PT sailors would come to prize performance as their greatest defense. In fact, the boats were so hard to hit that by the end of the war, only eight PTs had been lost due to enemy fire. (By comparison, 18 boats had to be scuttled to prevent capture following grounding. Enemy aircraft were a greater threat than surface ships, for they could home in on the phosphorescence thrown off in the PTs’ wakes.)
These early clashes with the destroyers of Rear Admiral Tanaka’s Tokyo Express also demonstrated that any argument regarding the fragility of the wooden, gas-powered PTs was essentially moot. While riding into combat on top of 3,000 gallons of aviation fuel hardly inspired confidence in PT crews, they knew that the rapid-fire 5-inch cannons mounted on the Japanese destroyers would be able to track a larger diesel boat and would vaporize it just as quickly. It is for this reason that continued PT design efforts concentrated on seeing that the boats would not get hit in the first place.
Elco and Higgins—The Great Rivalry
The early experience of Squadron Three in the Philippines proved that the 77-foot Elco hull needed several major modifications. The boats were still subject to structural failure, primarily buckling at the deck and clamp, due to the severe compression loads incurred from hammering through seas with a full warload. Without stopping production, Elco reengineered the design and eventually launched the first Elco 80, PT-103, in May 1942.
The new boat had a radically different profile from her forebear. The clipper bow of the smaller boat was given up for a simpler raked, spoon stem. The plans show that the extra length was gained by adding a station at the bow. The chines were swept up to the new stem almost four feet above the waterline. The “nose job” gave the Elco 80 a finer entry with more deadrise, all in an effort to smooth the pounding of the original Scott-Paine design.
However, the deadrise from the transom to approximately three-eighths of the boat’s overall length (that portion of the hull where the underbody sections are still fully immersed when the boat is up on plane) remain precisely the same as the 77-foot Elco. This is interesting in that, while the new boat displayed wider beam at the chines and deck throughout, there was an obvious attempt toretain the speed and planing characteristics of the original.
The outboard profile of the Elco 80 is marked by a simplified, low-profile, stepped house mounted well aft. By 1945, the deck profile was cluttered with a myriad of deck guns, radar, and auxiliary equipment. Despite its similar underbody, the 80-foot boat bore none of the streamlined aesthetics of the Scott-Paine design. This purely functional aspect of the Elco 80 design is borne out of the fact that virtually every design change was the result of field experience, and demands that the PT boat fulfill a wider spectrum of roles.
The end consequence of these modifications was that, while the first operational 77′ Elcos displaced 46 tons, the last Elco 80s tipped the scales at more than 60 tons. With more than 300 boats built, more Elco 80s were produced than all other designs combined. The reason for the design’s popularity is that Elco was able to fill every contract ahead of schedule, modify the boats on a continuing basis (to the point of overloading), and still come close to original performance criteria.
The boats were liked by their crews, in no small part due to the well-laid-out accommodations as well as performance. Nevertheless, the Elco 80 retained several notable weaknesses. The new boat was not nearly so maneuverable as the Higgins, it still tended to pound, and it was several knots slower than the smaller Elco.
The insignia for PT Ron (squadron) 29. Each boat in the squadron was named after a character from Al Capp’s “L’ll Abner comic strip. The author’s uncle commanded Daisy Mae (PT-556)
The success of the boat rested in its ability to strike the best compromise. Given the distinctly unforgiving demands placed on the PT fleet, it is no surprise that the design with the fewest vices took the lead.
The Higgins design bore no resemblance to the Elco 80. Where the Elco boat gradually evolved from the original Scott-Paine design, the Higgins 78-footerwas designed in-house by Frank Higgins and Teddy Sprague. The Higgins 78-footer was the second major PT design to see operation, with close to 200 commissioned by the end of the war. As with Elco, Higgins had come out with a smaller prototype, the 72-foot PT-70.
The Higgins 78 was designed not only to answer the Navy’s request for a larger boat, but also to redress the serious structural problems of the prototype. The improved Higgins boat was planked with double-diagonal Philippine mahogany on the topsides and decks, where the earlier boat had used sheet plywood.
The internal structure of the boat was heavily reinforced, especially on the bottom. Most underbody members were tied together with bolted galvanized steel angle or plate. While the new boat was extremely strong, it was also more than 20,000 pounds overweight. Unable to make the Navy’s requirement for a top speed of no less than 39 knots on shakedown cruises in September 1942, Higgins was forced to suspend production.
By June 1943, the Higgins testing facility in Miami reported that boats with a full load were still limited to only 33 knots. Though engineers continued to develop a “crash diet,” the Higgins 78 would always be plagued by lower top speed than the Elco boats.
The Elcos and the Higgins designs had straight buttock lines aft with a deadrise of 14° under the center of gravity at the engines. This agreement on the shape of the planing hull is most likely attributable to the Navy’s 1937 tests on warped, stepless V-bottomed hulls. The Higgins underbody had sharper deadrise forward, and carried it farther aft. This striking difference of the Higgins forebody allowed it to drive through much heavier seas. It is probably this virtue (along with the failure of the first boats to reach an adequate top speed) that led the lucky sailors of Squadrons 13 and 16 to be stationed in the Aleutian Islands.
Designed late in World War II, the 70-foot Higgins Hellcat proved fast and refined but never entered services. She could run as fast as 57 mph.
At the same time, the deeper vee of the Higgins kept it from burying its lee chine forward when the boats were thrown hard over into a turn. The Higgins could turn much tighter than the Elco. As evasive tactics were the single greatest defense of the PT, it is not surprising that the Higgins crews touted their maneuverability compared to the Elco boats. Even the steering arrangements of both designs showed a different philosophy.
The Elco had three small elliptical rudders, while the Higgins used two larger, squared blades. Although the larger rudders of the Higgins were more effective in initiating a turn, the tip vortices detracted from high-speed performance and contributed to stalling.
The topsides of the Higgins 78 are conical in section and show no flare. The only understandable reason for such a lack of shape points to the prototype, PT-70. The original boat was noted for its lightweight plywood topsides and deck, which would require a conical mold.
When the 78 was built, it appears that the topsides were not redrawn to add beam at the forward deck. The result was that the Higgins was slab sided and would throw spray straight up over the foredeck and into the cockpit (which was situated well forward). This helm location was also noted for poor visibility to the sides, as it was flanked by the machine gun turrets.
The argument of maneuverability versus speed and accommodations still rages between Elco and Higgins PT veterans. I learned early on in my research that it wouldn’t be a good idea to point out design shortcomings of their own boats, or attributes of the other boats, to anyone who had fought on either PT.
Wearing wartime camo, she pierces through the darkness.
Variants and Adaptations
The role of the PT gradually evolved, requiring a boat that could cut off enemy supply lines and reinforcements. The result was that the PTs became armed more as gunboats than as pure torpedo boats. Whether modified at the factory or literally strapped on deck by the crew, every manner of mortar, rocket, bazooka or cannon was tested to increase firepower. The adaptability of the hulls and their ability to perform even after severe overloading explains why PTs saw action in every theater.
Higgins continued to refine the torpedo boat concept with its introduction of the 70-foot Hellcat later in the war. The new boat reached speeds of 57 mph, and could reverse direction in a third of the time of its predecessors. Though certainly the finest small attack craft of the war, the Hellcat was simply too small and could only act as a pure torpedo boat. The Navy decided against disrupting current production lines to put the Hellcat into service.
Elco continually modified its boats to maintain performance levels. Two fascinating innovations were the addition of the Elcoplane and Elco “slipper.” The Elcoplane consisted of a series of wedge-shaped steps that were fastened to the underbody, a modification that made
the boats’ top-end speed jump from 42 mph to 56 mph! However, this came at the price of substantial turbulence when the boat was off plane.
The slipper was a set of plywood bottom panels that extended past the transom. The panels were adjusted up and down with screws to alter trim and attitude, probably the first set of high- performance trim tabs.
Epilogue
The Navy was faced with the daunting prospect of mothballing and maintaining the PT fleet at the end of World War II. With their mission complete, most of the boats from the Mediterranean were given to the USSR under lend-lease, and the Pacific boats were gathered and torched on the beaches of Samar in the Philippines. While this seems a particularly tragic end for such charismatic craft, it only underscores that the boats were indeed expendable.
With their extravagant design and high profile, it is easy to overlook that one of the greatest assets of the wooden wonders was that they were inexpensive. For the price of one destroyer, the Navy had been able to build three full squadrons of PTs (36 boats). Given its relatively low budget, the PT boat program made a major impact and lasting impression. It serves as a symbol of the achievement made in mobilizing the labor and resources of the wooden boat building industry.
The refinement of high-performance V-bottomed hulls continued in the postwar years, with milestone designs from such names as Huckins, Rybovich, and Ray Hunt. This development chronicled the scientific approach to studying powerboat performance and loading. The details of this evolution, as well as its legacy in naval architecture, ironically have been overshadowed, though the aura of the PT boat has been enshrined in modern mythology.
To see this story as it was originally published in WoodenBoat magazine back in 1996, follow this link.
LOOSE CANNON covers hard news, technical issues and nautical history. We feature some great author’s like today’s Jonathan Klopman. Subscribe for free to support the work. If you’ve been reading for a while—and you like it—consider upgrading to paid.
Bulkley, Capt. Robert J., Jr. (Ret.). At Close Quarters. Washington, DC: U.S. Govt. Printing Office, Naval History Division, 1962.
Ferrell, Bob. The United States Mosquito Fleet. Memphis, TN: PT Boat Museum and Library, 1977.
Fostle, D.W. Speedboat. Mystic CT: Mystic Seaport Museum Store, 1988.
Friedman, Norman. U.S. Small Combatants. Washington, DC: Naval Institute Press, 1987.
Friedman, Norman. Destroyers: An Illustrated Design History. Washington, DC: Naval Institute Press, 1982.
Johnson, Frank D. United Stales PT Boats of World War II. Poole, Dorset, England: Blandford Press, 1983.
Roscoe, Theodore. U.S. Destroyer Operations in WW II. Washington, DC: US Naval Institute, 1953.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank the following individuals and institutions for their time, knowledge and access to their archives:
Al Ross, Coastal Forces, 136 West Broadway, Bangor, Maine 04401.
Hart Nautical Collections, The MIT Museum, 265 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139.
P.T. Boats, Inc., National Headquarters, P.O. 38070, Memphis, Tennessee 38183, Alyce Mary Guthrie, executive vice-president.
USS Massachusetts Memorial Commitee, Inc., Battleship Cove, Fall River, Massachusetts 02721, 508-678-1100; Donald Shannon, PT Program Coordinator. March/April 1996 • 45
Bulkley, Capt. RobertJ., Jr. (Ret.). At Close Quarters. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, Naval History Division, 1962.
Ferrell, Bob. The United States Mosquito Fleet. Memphis, TN: PT Boat Museum and Library, 1977.
Fostle, D.W. Speedboat. Mystic Connecticut: Mystic Seaport Museum Store,
Waterparks? Open. Inclusive Swim Nights? ON! People with disabilities and their families and caregivers can enjoy accessible, sensory-friendly evenings in the waterparks all season long. Check out the schedule of events and book your tickets!
Try a Tri
Ready to test your mettle? Dive into a Charleston Sprint Triathlon! Challenge yourself to a 600-yard swim, a 12-mile bike ride, and a 5K run through beautiful James Island County Park. The 2025 season starts June 15 with the first of four scheduled races. Register today!
Calling All Explorers!
On May 23, beat the crowds to Beachwalker Park to enjoy nature stroll. You’ll accompany our naturalist to search for critters living along the shore, learning about each one and how they’ve adapted to life on the line between land and sea. Reserve your spot!
Beach Parking Tips
Our beach park lots fill up quickly this time of year! Save yourself (some of) the hassle when you:
Plan your beach trip for earlier in the morning or later in the afternoon
Be patient and remember the relaxation that awaits you!
Sponsorship Opportunities
Connect your company with our vibrant and growing community while supporting your Charleston County Parks! From family-friendly fun to cultural celebrations, sponsorship opportunities with our festivals and events offer excellent exposure and strengthen your brand. Learn more about sponsorship packages and how you can get involved.
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There was a subsequent correction published to this post:
New Anchoring Law Does Not Automatically Limit You to 30 Days.
Thanks to keen-eyed reader Sean Welsh, we’ve corrected a factual error in today’s Florida anchoring law story. The story was corrected to reflect that anchoring is not limited to 30 days automatically in Florida’s biggest four counties. The law gives the counties power to enact limits affecting anyone who has been anchored in the jurisdiction for 30 days. Depending on the will of local authorities it could very well be that you must leave after the 30-day limit, however.
Among other things, HB 481 designates the sections of Biscayne Bay lying between Palm Island and Star Island, between Palm Island and Hibiscus Island, between Palm Island and Watson Island, between Sunset Island I and State Road 112, and between the Sunset Islands as anchoring limitation areas.
“Time to move along, old-timer. Your 30 days are up.”
The state of Florida has officially taken sides. Cruisers are out of favor and need stricter regulations. Center-console people have become the cool kids and deserving of “freedom.”
On Tuesday, Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law House Bill 481 which expands an anchoring ban to even more of the waters at Miami Beach waters and limits anchoring to 30 days in a six-month period in Florida’s four most populous counties. This law was directed at liveaboard sailors in particular because their vessels are deemed most likely to eventually become derelict.
The law also increases from 100 feet to 300 feet the distance from the marked boundary of a public mooring field where boats cannot anchor.
Boating coalitions argued that local authorities could use existing Florida laws to prevent vessels from becoming derelict instead of passing new restrictions on anchoring. Proponents—including bill sponsor Miami Republican Rep. Vicki Lopez—shrewdly framed the issue in terms of safety and environmental protection.
“Current legislation leaves gaps that threaten the well-being of boaters and the health of our marine ecosystem,” Lopez said. By boaters, Lopez may be referring to the folks that own center-consoles, which they keep on a dock in front of their waterfront homes. These elite property owners have been the driving force behind a perpetual bid against anchoring in Florida.
On Monday, the governor signed the “Boater Freedom Act,” which forbids Florida police from pulling over and boarding recreational vessels without probable cause that a violation has occurred. Sure, this change applies to sailboats and trawlers, too, but in practice the vast majority of boaters being pulled over for safety checks were operating…you know it…center-consoles. That’s because there are so many more of them.
Florida center-console people often recreate in celebratory herds during events such as Boater Skip Day, sandbar rallies and boat parades for Donald Trump. On these occasions, it is also all-hands-on-deck for the water cops. Alas, they will now have to witness real-time idiocy before they can motor over close enough to catch a whiff of alcohol.
Meanwhile, in Miami-Dade, Broward (Ft. Lauderdale), Hillsborough (Tampa) and Palm Beach counties, the message will be, “Time to move along, old-timer. Your 30 days are up.”
A recent Boater Skip Day at Bayard Point on Florida’s St. Johns River.
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President Releases FY2026 Budget and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Releases FY2025 Work Plan
We are pleased to report recent actions in Washington, DC have led to more clarity for upcoming federal funding for the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway (AIWW) through the President’s release of the Fiscal Year 2026 (FY26) Budget and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) release of their work plan for Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25) funding.
Fiscal Year 2026 President’s budget request
On May 2nd, Russel Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, transmitted the FY26 President’s budget request to Congress. The transmittal package is available by clicking here or via the link below. This version is called the “skinny budget” as it only provides top line numbers for departments and agencies and further detail will be provided in a subsequent release. At this point, we are expecting less money will be proposed for the Corps than was enacted in Fiscal Year 2025, but this is common practice and Congress typically increases funding above the President’s budget request. Stay tuned!
On May 15th, the Corps released their FY25 work plan listing funding for projects between October 2024 and September 2025. We have good news to share. Once again, we have Operation & Maintenance funding for every state along the waterway! In addition, the final amounts match the FY25 President’s budget, and we are receiving $33.271 million total. Below is a brief summary of the allocations for each state.
Summary of appropriations in the FY25 Work Plan VA – President’s budget (PB) – $5.292 Million, Senate Appropriations Amount (Senate) – $5.292 Million, House Appropriations Amount (House) – $5.292 Million, Final FY25 Appropriations Amount (Final) – $5.292 Million NC – PB- $10.935 Million, Senate- $10.935 Million, House- $15.157 Million, Final- $10.935 Million SC – PB- $8.628 Million, Senate- $8.628 Million, House- $8.628 Million, Final- $8.628 Million GA – PB- $4.235 Million, Senate- $4.235 Million, House- $4.235 Million, Final- $4.235 Million FL – PB- $4.181 Million, Senate- $4.181 Million, House- $10.181 Million, Final- $4.181 Million
Total for AIWW – President’s budget – $33.271 Million, Senate Appropriations Amount – $33.271 Million, House Appropriations Amount – $43.493 Million, Final FY25 Appropriations Amount- $33.271 Million
Our New Jersey partners were a big winner and received $3 million more than the FY25 President’s budget.
While less than in previous years, this funding level is a relatively good outcome for the AIWW in light of all the other cuts in government. We fared better than many other projects that sustained funding reductions or no funding compared to the FY25 budget. Unfortunately, the continuing resolution did not allow for the Community Project Funding requests (earmarks) by Rep. Brian Mast (FL) and Rep. Greg Murphy (NC) that were in the House bill or we could have possibly received over $10 million more in federal funding for the AIWW.
One other highlight for the AIWW is that our final funding was the same regardless of the presidency since the FY25 budget was developed under the Biden Administration and the work plan under the Trump Administration. This demonstrates the value of the waterway to the nation is not a partisan issue and bodes well for future funding allocations.
With the release of the Corps’ FY25 Work Plan, our focus turns to the FY26 appropriations process. The next step will be for the President to release his detailed budget and for the House and Senate to develop their appropriation bills. The current FY25 funding ends on September 30, 2025.
We are working closely with our federal partners, and the AIWA board and executive director participated in 17 Congressional meetings with members and staff in Washington, DC in March and May. While the appropriations process would typically be further along by now, it was slowed to complete FY25 appropriations, and Congress is now awaiting the President’s detailed 2026 budget.
An important process that could have an impact on the appropriations process this year is budget reconciliation. Reconciliation allows for expedited consideration of changes in law to align spending, revenue, and the debt limit with agreed-upon budget targets. In this case, the Republicans in Congress are attempting to create a budget reconciliation package to address funding for their priorities and the priorities of the Administration since it only requires a majority vote and they have a majority in the House and Senate. It’s a complicated process and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has set a deadline of Memorial Day to pass the House version. The Senate would then consider the House bill. It is too early to tell if the GOP will pass a reconciliation bill, and more importantly for the AIWW, if the reconciliation process will delay the drafting of the annual appropriations bills.
We are proud to continue work with our Corps partners on execution of FY25 funding, and look forward to participating in the FY 26 appropriations process.
AIWA Participates in North Carolina Beach, Inlet and Waterway Association Spring Meeting
On May 8-9, Brad Pickel participated in the N.C. Beach Inlet & Waterway Association’s Spring Meeting on Emerald Isle, NC. This meeting is a high point each spring for the AIWA to visit with our NC waterway stakeholders, learn from our state and federal partners about current programs and initiatives, and offer an update on AIWA activities and what we are working on this year.
Our presentation this year covered ongoing federal actions and what we are watching in Washington. We are grateful to report that projects were completed or underway in all five states along the waterway in 2024 and 2025, and we hope this trend will continue in the coming years!
Photo above | Brad Pickel, Executive Director, and Dennis Barbour, AIWA and NCBIWA Board Member
Coast Guard Authorizes Temporary Schedule Change for Little River Swing Bridge Horry County, South Carolina
Important notice for waterway users migrating north for hurricane season:
The United States Coast Guard has authorized a temporary schedule change for the Little River Swing Bridge in Horry County, South Carolina. During this temporary deviation, the bridge will open on signal except from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday, except on federal holidays. The draw will open on the hour and half hour. Public vessels of the United States and tugs with tows, upon proper signal, will be passed through anytime.
Great News! The Dismal Swamp Canal is Open to Boaters
The AIWA is a national non-profit organization with the mission of securing funding and support for the maintenance of the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. We are the only organization dedicated to ensuring the future of the AIWW and proudly represent all stakeholders of the waterway.
Oriental is a wonderful place with friendly people and good food. And, if you do stop here, by all means, eat at our good friends at Toucan’s Grill and stay at Oriental Marina, a SALTY SOUTHEAST CRUISERS’ NET SPONSOR!
The purpose of this Marine Safety Information Bulletin is to educate the boating public on the electric distress light alternative and proper disposal of pyrotechnic visual distress signals (VDS) or marine flares.
alternative and proper disposal of pyrotechnic visual distress signals (VDS) or marine flares.
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