As many of us know by now, there was a tragedy this weekend on the Columbia River Bar here locally, which is that very dynamic area near the mouth of the river where it meets the ocean.

A recreational boat overturned on Saturday morning. And of the five people on board who, from what I read in news reports, were assisted by nearby charter fishing boats and the Coast Guard. One is dead and two are missing, one of whom is a child. The Coast Guard called off the search on Saturday night after an extensive search for the missing people.

Pull Quote

If you are going out on the river in a boat, be aware that the experience demands something of you, that you watch the tides and the weather and that you learn before you go, that you pay attention, that you know what you are doing, or take someone with you who does and that you respect the river at all times.

Of course, there’s been some discussion about this on local social media. And after seeing some comments from people to the effect that they went across the bar once and it was calm, implying “what’s the big deal?” I thought that it might be a good moment for me to talk a bit more about the dangers of that part of the river and why this boat may have gotten in trouble that area at the mouth of the river.

Most dangerous

The Columbia River bar, I’m sure you’ve heard this, has been termed the Graveyard of the Pacific because of all the vessels that have wrecked there throughout history. Even now, with dams and jetties in place to control the river, the Columbia River Bar is considered to be among the most dangerous river entrances in the world, if not the most dangerous. In The World. So no one’s kidding here or exaggerating. Where we live is world class dangerous.

Why is that? And why isn’t it terrible all the time? Well, there are many technical nuances of why the bar is so dangerous. I don’t know them all. But from a broad perspective, you have at the river’s mouth one of the world’s largest rivers, slamming into one of the world’s largest oceans. That’s a lot of water moving fast. A lot of force. And remember that a cubic meter of water weighs a ton.

So there is great turbulence when those two waterways meet, especially when the tide is about halfway through the cycle, when the tide is falling and the river is racing towards the sea at speeds of about seven knots or more in some places.

It was during one of these “max ebb” tidal times that this incident occurred.

Complex waters

Then you have the added turbulence on either side of the channel near the jetties, those areas outside the channel near Clatsop and Peacock spit on either side of the river entrance — they can get like dangerous washing machines of unpredictable turbulence under those conditions.

I don’t know where this boat was located when it capsized, but if it was outside the main channel in either of those areas, the turbulence could have just been too much for the boat to withstand or the people on it to control it. And so it flipped, capsized.

At other times during the tidal cycle, like during slack water between tides or even on a rising or flood tide, as they call it, the river is often calmer and so is the bar. Knowledgeable mariners watch the tide tables and time their crossing for the calmest water possible. So it’s possible to cross the bar when the water is relatively calm. I’ve done it several times in boats. It’s a matter of timing.

So this accident happened during the max ebb period, the absolutely most dangerous and turbulent time to be on the river in the area of the bar. Once a person is in the water, the cold, 60 degree water survival becomes a challenge.

A tragedy

So I wanted to explain that briefly without much other comment. This is a tragedy for the people on board and for those who assisted them out there. My deep condolences to those who have lost loved ones and to those whose lives have been permanently altered by this tragedy. But a reminder to us all that our river is nothing to be trifled with, and your best protection is experience, knowledge and applying that knowledge in terms of timing, equipment and judgment to stack the deck in your favor when you were out on the mighty Columbia.

If you are in the wrong place at the wrong time, bad, irreversible things can happen even to those who are trained to handle it.

So if you are going out on the river in a boat, be aware that the experience demands something of you, that you watch the tides and the weather and that you learn before you go, that you pay attention, that you know what you are doing, or take someone with you who does and that you respect the river at all times.

I know I say it over and over, and there are always those who seem not to hear, but I will keep saying it. For as long as I can. And for as long as it needs to be said.