Let’s say I decided to sail from Memphis to New Orleans on a small wooden raft. Just an idle day dream from today. What kind of issues would I run into in this attempt?
Would there be any legal ramifications? Any special license I would need to pilot the raft such a long distance?
How long would the trip take sailing 12 hours a day, and pulling the raft onto a bank to sleep and relax the other 12?
Would a person be able to carry enough food and water on a small raft? Would they have to catch fish on the way to supplement? What about water, maybe river water with chlorine tablets or the like?
Do people do this regularly?
I have NO intention of doing this and think it would be the height of boredom. Was just playing with the old ideas in a modern setting.
You’ll need a license. You’ll encounter (and be endangered by) barge traffic. If you’re not an experienced sailor, I think the odds are you’d drown. It’s a major waterway with a fairly swift current, and very deep at some points.
If the average speed of the current is 3 knots, you could cover 36 nautical miles in a day. It’s roughly 400 miles, so 12 days. The amount of food and water you could carry depends on how big your raft is.
I don’t know much about the Memphis section but the Mississippi gets really big once you get to Baton Rouge and beyond. The lower Mississippi can handle almost any ship including cruise ships, large barges, and aircraft carriers and there is a lot of huge traffic you would need to avoid. I don’t think a raft would be maneuverable or fast enough enough to do that safely for anyone involved. The current is very strong as well. People don’t usually swim in the lower Mississippi because of those two issues.
You might be able to do it as a stunt if you stayed close to shore and pulled over when traffic was a factor. A reliable small boat could certainly do it but you couldn’t just float down the lower Mississippi without getting in trouble or killed because of all the large traffic.
Its not as dangerous if you are in a relatively manuverable craft like a canoe or kayak. You can stick close to shore and stay out of the channel which is clearly marked.
There are probably hundreds of people who canoe the entire Mississippi every year.
The biggest problem you will have with a raft is that it isn’t very manuverable. You will likely drift into the barge traffic eventually. More pressing, you will be surprised at how slow you will go and that the wind will tend to blow you around (often upstream).
If you are going to do a raft, make sure you have good propulsion, otherwise stick with a canoe.
I’ve canoed over 500 miles on big rivers like the Mississippi
I don’t believe you need a license, and may only need to register the craft if it is above a certain size or has a motor on it…it depends on the state.
And, if I recall correctly, Huck and Jim got into some trouble when their raft was run over by a paddle-wheeler and they were forced to swim for their lives, so it is not like this is a new problem on the Big Muddy.
I haven’t done it, and I think it would be a nice trip, however, I think its been done so much that I would want something more unique.
I knew a guy who started at the Statue of liberty and kayaked to the Pacific ocean, portaging over the great Divide. I still have his trip notes and wish I could find him again to see what happened to him (it was 1992).
The journalist Eric Severied canoed the Red River in N. Dakota north to Hudson’s Bay in 1932.
Since I was young, I’ve always wanted to rent a war canoe, and canoe across Lake Ontario (from Toronto) to Rochester, etc. (ETA: with a bunch of buddies, of course!) Lock the canoe up to a tree in a public park, and go drinking (hopefully meeting many a fair maiden with the tale of such pioneering bravery,) and get a hotel/pass out in a park if the weather is good, and head on home the next day.
Too bad post 9-11 one’s ass would be in deep grass if caught attempting such a stunt.
I’d like to do something like that myself. On a small scale, every year there is an article in our paper on people who canoe or kayak on Onondaga Creek which flows almost unnoticed now through downtown, under bridges and behind buildings. It’s filthy dirty and filled with junk, but it looks so cool and green and peaceful.
What about the locks? I once went through a bunch in a 16’ outboard boat on the Allegheny River. There a whole bunch of people from a club. I am not sure the lock keepers were amused on what usually would have been a slow Sunday afternoon.
In the 70’s, my hi-school best friend and I had a similar idea. Fix up an old wooden boat, and travel the Miss to the gulf (we lived in central AR at the time). This was one of our many hare-brained schemes about which I should start a separate thread… but we actually did a portion of this one.
We acquired an old wooden ChrisCraft with twin screws and set about getting her sea(river)worthy. We managed a few short voyages up and down the Arkansas river in preparation and learned to negotiate locks before we discovered we didn’t have enough money. (Hey, we were only 18; Financial planning took a back seat to enthusiasm. :p)
With no radio, at the time it was necessary to motor up near the lock gates and pull on a chain to get the lockmaster’s attention (I assume this sounded a chime or alarm in his office). Then we skedaddled away to await horn signals and the eventual opening of the gates. This required holding station some distance away as we had no idea what was in/entering the lock from the other side. Eventually the doors would open and we entered. We discovered there were a few “holy shit” moments in this. One, when the water drains out it seemed there were a lot of scary whirlpools around. These looked dangerous to us, and made our craft seem pitifully small. Two, being sent into the lock along with a big river barge was frightening. I’m pretty sure one wrong movement on the part of the giant craft would’ve crushed us like paper.
I don’t know how the lockmasters handle tiny craft like rafts or kayaks, it seems that locking through would be problematic and fairly frightening.
I realize there are no really useful facts here, just reminiscences, but I wanted to throw out the lock question.
Probably furthering the notion that old men shouldn’t be allowed to reminisce, I found a pic that old boat in a cabinet here.
Here we’re getting ready for one of those test voyages, with a few friends watching the departure.
The old boat actually looks pretty good. We varnished the wood and shined all the brightwork in preparation. Turned out later we should’ve spent all that time on the engines. (but that’s another story)
Not a raft, but a few years ago a Doper posted a link to his blog about taking a small sailing boat down some of the river. Some of that seemed quite scary.
Don’t recall his name though.
(but that’s another story)