The Dreaded Wilkerson Bridge: ICW Part 4

We pulled up the anchor this morning for a hop to Bellhaven, NC… only one thing was standing in our way… the fabled Wilkerson Bridge.. the ICW bridges are supposed to have 65’ clearance… this one is 64’. The tide boards read just at 64’, so I went through very, very, slow. In fact, the boat was gently in reverse as we drifted under the first 3 spans successfully. Unfortunately, she needed some forward momentum and I put her in gear, as we passed under the 4th and final span of the bridge, we heard metal on metal, and Nick saw the VHF bend quite far and scraped along the bottom of the bridge. The good news is that we’d taken off all the breakable bits from the top of the mast and no harm was done. This should be the lowest bridge we must go under, but we are definitely not going to be taking any bridge for granted. We estimate the mast made it under by 6”. So, we are back to believing the previous owners reports that our mast is indeed 63 1/2’ tall.