how far out is reasonable in a 21 foot center console once the winter fronts start, Gulf side

different ocean, same question. i'm on a 23 Whaler with one Verado and i've made the run to the Coronado Islands, about 15 miles, maybe forty times. my rule came from a guy who ran sportboats out of Point Loma for 30 years: whatever the forecast says for the afternoon, assume you get it at 11 am.

the other thing is fuel thirds. a third out, a third back, a third for when it goes wrong. on a 21 with a 70-something gallon tank that's a shorter leash than people think once you start trolling around looking for birds.

i survey boats in Stuart for a living so take this with that in mind. i see what happens after the trip, not during it.

the boats that come back with a story mostly had two problems at once. a single engine problem is a tow. a single engine problem plus a dead VHF because the antenna base corroded, or a battery switch nobody knew how to set to both, is the part that ends up in a report. on a 2006 hull i'd check three dumb things before i worried about mileage: the fuel pickup and anti-siphon valve (old tanks collect junk and these boats starve at the worst time), the battery switch, and whether your VHF has a working DSC button wired to a GPS so it sends a position. a lot of them don't.

and carry a PLB on your body, not just an EPIRB bolted to the console. if you go in the water, the boat's EPIRB stays with the boat.

in January off Galveston i don't go past the 20 fathom line in anything single engine, and that's with a guy i trust running another boat within sight. you've got a lot of oil platforms off Texas that you can tie off to and wait, which is a luxury you don't really have off the panhandle once you go east of the pass.

my numbers if you want them: 3 foot or less forecast, period over 6 seconds, wind under 15 and not out of the north on a falling tide at the jetties. north wind against the outgoing tide at a pass is how 21 footers get stood up on end.

leaving the link here because nobody posted one. the Coast Guard's boating safety site has a free float plan form and the current list of what a boat your length has to carry: uscgboating.org. print the float plan, fill it out, leave it on your fridge or text it to somebody who will actually call when you're late.

for what it's worth, i don't run my 21 past about 12 miles from November to March unless the forecast is boring for two full days. i have a husband who asks where i'll be and i'd like to keep giving him the true answer.

New York perspective, so a little different. my boat is shrink wrapped right now and will be until April. but in October we get the same deal with fronts, and the thing that changed my habits was watching the buoy reports instead of the forecast. the NOAA buoy closest to where you're going tells you what the water is doing right now. if the forecast and the buoy disagree by more than a foot at 6 am, i believe the buoy.