Article by Capt. Mark Sampson
Recently, while heading out of the inlet with a strong outgoing current, I was reminded of an event that occurred one day a few years ago when I was heading in and noticed a small boat floating upside-down about 20-yards off the tip of the south jetty. Since there were no other boats around and I hadn’t heard any Coast Guard warnings on the VHF radio about the hazard, my first thought was “this has just occurred and there might be people in the water.” As I called the Coast Guard, I slowed the boat crawl, alerted my crew to look for victims, and headed to the stricken vessel. In just a few moments we were able to spot three men swimming for the rocks.
As none of them were wearing life-jackets we were relieved to watch as all were able to safely climb up on the rocks. My boat was too large to safely approach the south jetty so the best we could do at that point was to hold our position and monitor the situation until more help arrived. It didn’t take long, in just a few minutes a Maryland NRP, a Tow Boat US, and a Coast Guard boat came zooming in on the scene which gave us the opportunity to break-off and head home.
About an hour later as we were heading out the inlet for an afternoon fishing trip, we saw the tow-boat bringing the stricken Boston Whaler back in tow. I never did hear exactly what happened that put those fellows in such a bad way, but I can only imagine that it had something to do with the prevailing sea conditions at the mouth of the inlet that day. There was a fairly good ground swell coming in from offshore, which made for some big surf along the beach, but since the winds weren’t blowing much the ocean and bay waters were quite calm. The problem was the fact that we were at the bottom of the falling tide and the current was going out very hard. That day the inlet was a perfect example of what happens when an incoming swell crashes into an outgoing current.
The inlet and the ocean were both smooth, but right where the two met there were tall, steep, standing waves running very close together. By “standing waves” I’m referring to waves that don’t travel across the water like most waves do but instead they simply hold in one position for an indefinite period of time, in this case the waves would remain until the current eventually goes slack. Standing waves created at the inlet can be 3-5 feet tall and very steep, which means that they’re not like swells that a boat going slow can gently “ride over” but are more like walls of water that boats traveling at any speed will simply “slam into.” Large boats with high bows can stay above such waves but the typical small runabout (like a 17-foot Boston Whaler) is going to have real problems when they encounter standing waves.
To make matters worse, since standing waves at the inlet are created by a strong outgoing current, even with her engines in neutral an outbound vessel is going to be pushed into the standing waves at speeds of up to 6-knots just by the current alone. So there’s almost no way for a small boat not to take a wave or two (or three, or four) over the bow if they find themselves in the wrong part of the inlet at the wrong time. Over the years many boats and a few lives have been lost due to standing waves.
The good news is that there is usually a way for even small boaters to avoid the perils of standing waves at the Ocean City inlet. By taking a hard look at one of the buoys inside the inlet and noting the speed and direction of the current before they venture out, boaters will have an idea what they’ll be dealing with when entering the ocean. If the current is coming in everything should be good, but if it’s going out a skipper should transit the inlet with great caution and be ready to do a quick U-turn before they reach the waves if conditions at the mouth appear too hazardous. Sometimes it’s just a matter of waiting until the current changes.
Ironically, following the buoys and running the inlet the way it’s marked sends a vessel through the most hazardous stretch of standing waves. The worst of the standing waves typically occur at the southern two-thirds of the inlet’s mouth, so much of the problem can be avoided by transiting through the Ocean City (north) side of the inlet. Though this is not the “marked” channel there’s plenty of water on that side for all but the largest of boats.
By the way, as I noted, the fellows in the stricken boat were in the water but not wearing life-jackets. I imagine that things happened so fast that they didn’t have time to don their PFD’s before finding themselves in the water and swimming for the safety of the inlet jetty. Obviously if they were wearing their life-jackets before the trouble ensued there would not have been as much risk of tragedy.§
