A Close Call on Romer Shoal

[Gerry Zagorski]

It's October of 97. Striper fishing is just starting to come into it's own. We decide to take our boat the Saxatillis out one Saturday afternoon and drift some eels. She's a very seaworthy 25 Hydrasports cuddy with a hard top and curtains so it's nice and toasty. It's me, my brother Joe, George and his nephew. We head out of Morgan for a 1/2 hour ride out towards the tip of the hook. The 10-15 west winds at our back coupled with the anticipation of a nice fall trophy bass makes for a short ride to the fishing grounds.

Once out there we scope things out a bit and hit some of the usual spots. Flynn's Knoll, the Rips and a few drifts out in the Swash channel produce some nice fish. Our favorite spot Romer Shoal is close by so we decide to give it a shot. It's been producing for us for a number of weeks now but it's been a bit tricky to fish because of the rollers.

For those of you not familiar with Romer Shoal, it's about 5 miles or so off the tip of Sandy Hook due north towards the Varrenzano bridge. The area of the actuial shoal is flanked to the west by the white Romer Shoal lighthouse and to the east by the Ambrose channel and open ocean. The lighthouse was put there a number of year ago to warn incoming mariners of the shallow shoals. This area is surrounded by all deep water (30 -40 feet) and the shoals can come up fast into as little as 3-4 feet at low tide. Many larger boats and party boats avoid the area for fear of running aground so it's a great spot for us since it doesn't get much fishing pressure.

As we approach the area we can see that the rollers are working again today. The rest of the bay is flat but since we have wind out of the west and a strong incoming tide there are waves out there you can surf. The water rolling up on the shallow shoal causes the waves. They aren't those choppy waves or rips. They are the ones that come at you in 3s and have a nice curl and pipe before they break. On a calm night you can actually hear the breakers from the Knoll. It's a pretty eerie sound when fishing at night and you can’t see them but know they are there....

So...we decide to give it a shot. What we did was set up to the west of the breakers and let the wind drift us towards them. Once we were within 50 yds of them we'd turn around and head back out to the west and start the drift again. No way were we going to risk drifting through the breakers. We kept the engines running at all times just as a safeguard. Last thing you want to have happen is getting close to those breakers and your engines won't start. We did 2 or 3 drifts and caught a few nice hefty Stripers each drift. Just as planned we'd avoided the breakers and set back up for another drift.

On this particular drift we caught several nice fish a few into the 20lb range. Since we were in a bit of a cadence from the last few drifts we kind of sensed it was time to turn tale and head back for another drift. My brother puts the boat in gear but before he turns the boat around to do another drift he says to me " Where'd those breakers go ?". No sooner did the words leave his lips when we look up and see a 12-15 roller and it's cresting !!

Man I never had such a scare in all my days of boating . I thought for sure we were done. My brother Joe had the ware with all to act quickly. He points the bow into the wave and juiced the throttles some. We started climbing up the steep trough of the wave just as it crested. It felt like were were vertical and then we got slammed. The nose of the boat pointed down into the wave from the force of the curl. The water pressure instantly blew in the plastic curtains and were greeted wall of water. I was knocked back into the cockpit. My brother managed to hold on to the wheel and was at the helm. We punched out the other side of the wave with 2 feet of water in the cockpit pit riding low but we were afloat with the engines still running (Thank God) !! George and his nephew didn't know what hit them. He was almost washed out of the back of the boat and was knocked down in the back corner of the cockpit struggling to get back up but he was OK. We all start to regain our composure and here comes another one.

It was as big as the first and was starting to crest. Once again my brother Joe gets the boat pointed into the wave and pushes the throttle a bit. We climb over this one and watch it break behind us just as we make it over the top !! Here comes number 3 now but were in pretty good shape as we are a fare distance away from where they are breaking.... Schhhhhhhew!!

We again collect ourselves and steered out of the area with a belly full of water. Luckily our boat has a self-balling cockpit with scuppers so we get the bow pointed up and the water in drains out. We did have the cabin door opened so it was flooded but the forward and aft bildge pumps were taking care of that.

Needless to say we were done fishing that day and ran with the bilges and our hearts pumping the whole way home. Not much was said the entire trip home until we got safely tied up in the slip.

A few lessons to be learned here....First of all if your going to be fishing in the ocean or rough water a cuddy cabin is a must. If our boat were an open bow I am convinced we'd have been toast. Secondly, you need to be sure your boat has a self-bailing cockpit. On many boats the cockpit drains into the bilge and there is no way for the pumps to handle that much water. Thirdly, if you find yourself in an area of turbulent water (like the rips off Sandy Hook) don't shut your motors down. If we were dead in the water and were not able to maneuver the bow into the wave and then power up the trough we'd of been dead in the water too...

The most important lesson is to use use good judgment. In hindsight we should not have been were we were. It was too risky and although we had planned to avoid the breakers we got complacent and lost track of where we were. Lastly don't ever fish the shoals at night. It's too dangerous. The bay around you could be flat as glass while the shoals produce the monsters like we ran into.

While your out on the water err on the side of safety and never let your guard down. The one time you get the least bit complacent you could find your self at the nasty end of one of Mother Nature’s surprise left hooks.

[hartattack]

Wow Gerry, that was a close call !!

I was at Romer one evening with the King of the Knoll - on Captain Rhodes' Parker. Like you said - if you turn your back to the breakers you're toast. I looked up after netting a Striper and saw that wall of white water cascading towards us. Luckily Captain Larry was lightning fast to the throttle and we avoiding taking one over the side.

That's why he's King of the Knoll, and not King of the Shoal

[dreamon]

That was a scary story, I fish the lighthouse quite a bit but I never saw anything like that, luckily. Good luck on future trips. Al

[giantfan]

I have a spot over by there that produces quite well. We usually anchor and have waves breaking all around us. Not the best feeling in the world hearing the waves breaking and all you can see is the white crest of the wave thru the darkness and as the tide goes out the breaking waves get closer and closer.

Lots of fish over there but it sure does have a pucker factor.

Glad to hear you made it out of there in one piece, it could have been a lot worse.

[Capt. Lou]

Same set of circumstances however boat was a 25' CC. First in an inlet a crester caught me napping and engulfed the boat severly cavitating my twin OB's & partially turning the boat around. Second one caught us trying to back down on a Gt in MH during a NE day .
The inlet was head on, water ran down the boat and out over my splah well board pretty quick, the biggest deal here was to get my engines solidly in water and move away.
The second issue put about two feet of water awash to forward of the CC. while backing down on a GT.Hit throttles water evacuated beautifully. If I didn't hit the trottles fast we might have had issues. I agree to an extent that most express type boats will not allow as much water aboard,however the CC"s will handle plenty as well as long as your fired up. We always took out GTs forward on our Rockaway chair,however this was a hot hit and sreaming reels so backing down was our fistr thought . Never again this was middle of November waith minimum 5' seas w/ the occassional 6 plus breaking .
My larger express boat today runs through a lot that is white knuckle for different rigs. However the best boat everbuilt for it's size was the 233 Formula CC ,awesome sea boat,hell on anchor!!