Skipper demonstrates skill maneuvering 80ft boat under 65ft bridge
When the crew realized that the vessel was too tall to fit, they didn't turn away, but instead came up with a surprising solution.
General mathematical rule of thumb: an 80-foot yacht will not fit under a 65-foot bridge. But if you're Hunter Parrot and his crew on Aratinga, there are ways around this conundrum.
In a video shared by the sailor to YouTube, his crew was trying to navigate the Intracoastal Waterway on the yacht in the United States when they came upon the obstacle.
Instead, the crew strapped two water-filled bags to the mast, with each bag holding approximately a ton of water!
A turn to either starboard or port swings the bags away from the center mast, and the roll is slowly controlled by letting the bags out slowly and allowing gravity to take over.
The result is an incredible lean to either one or the other side of the vessel, significantly decreasing the height and allowing the yacht to safely coast underneath the previous too-short bridge.
Answering the bewildered questions of people in the comments section, Parrot explained that there was plenty of calculation in the experiment, and that the video was actually their second run after a much slower first attempt.
As impressive as the maneuver was, Parrot did express that this should only be performed under certain conditions, and that it isn't a trick that would be smart to test at sea.