How Long To Do Great Loop Sailing?

The Great Loop is a 6,000-mile nautical journey that takes boaters through some of North America’s greatest cities, historic sites, and heartlands. It is a seasonal route that can take about a year to complete, with the route being more popular during the spring when the Great Lakes are warm and Florida in the winter. Many Loopers spend the spring heading up the east coast, while the summer is spent in the Great East Coast.

Power boats are faster than sailboats and can cruise from 8 mph to 22 mph. Most Great Loop boats cruise at less than 12 mph to reduce fuel consumption. The route takes boaters up the Atlantic seaboard and covers a total of 6,000 miles. There is no right or wrong way to do the Great Loop, as long as safety is maintained for yourself and others around you.

The Americas Great Loop Cruisers Association (AGLCA) answers frequently asked questions about the maximum beam (width) for a Great Loop boat and the fuel range needed for your boat. The Great Loop is a hodgepodge of canals, rivers, lakes, oceans, gulfs, and sounds, all sewing together into one giant connected 6000+ mile channel around the US.

To plan your Great Loop adventure, plan for a minimum of 120 actual cruising days, considering factors such as no wake zones, speed limits, bridges, locks, and weather conditions. The journey typically takes 8 months and 8 days, 6,202 miles, and 144 stops, with 81 marinas, 43 anchorages, and 20 free docks.

The Great Loop is typically completed by retired people after working on their boats. The minimum length of the Great Loop is 5,250 miles, but it can be thousands of miles more. Most Loopers average around 6,000 miles.

What is the smallest boat to complete the Great Loop?

We can see that trawlers are the most popular, followed by cruisers, with catamarans and trailerable trawlers also making the list! The largest boat to complete the Loop in recent years is 59′, the smallest was 12′ (a PWC), and the average size is 40-41 feet.

Can you do the great loop in a sailboat?. You may notice that no sailboats are on the list above, and they are much rarer, but it is possible. Firstly, boaters must remove their mast for both the Erie Canal and Mid-West waterways (some companies can help ship your mast). Secondly, sailboats frequently come with higher than recommended drafts, depending on the boat. All this said, many people do the loop in a sailboat.

The Best Great Loop Boats. Every boat is a series of compromises, so to determine your best Great Loop boat, you should get acquainted with other popular Great Loop boats. Here are some of the best Great Loop boats, as we saw during our 2021-2022 Great Loop.

What is the smallest boat to do the Great Loop?

We can see that trawlers are the most popular, followed by cruisers, with catamarans and trailerable trawlers also making the list! The largest boat to complete the Loop in recent years is 59′, the smallest was 12′ (a PWC), and the average size is 40-41 feet.

Can you do the great loop in a sailboat?. You may notice that no sailboats are on the list above, and they are much rarer, but it is possible. Firstly, boaters must remove their mast for both the Erie Canal and Mid-West waterways (some companies can help ship your mast). Secondly, sailboats frequently come with higher than recommended drafts, depending on the boat. All this said, many people do the loop in a sailboat.

The Best Great Loop Boats. Every boat is a series of compromises, so to determine your best Great Loop boat, you should get acquainted with other popular Great Loop boats. Here are some of the best Great Loop boats, as we saw during our 2021-2022 Great Loop.

How fast do boats go in the Great Loop?

And for those who like to play mind games with numbers, it is easy to see that slower boats take longer to make the same distance as faster boats. There are dozens and dozens of examples to use for this analysis. Boats that average 8 mph generally take 775 to 850 hours to do their Loop (the difference being how many miles their Loop was. Not everyone wants to go everywhere). Boats that average 12 mph often completed the Loop in under 600 hours, while those few boats that averaged much higher speeds (17 to 19 mph) only ran their engines around 300 hours. But the majority of boats cruised at 7-8 mph.

The above is not scientific analysis, but it is simple enough to see that for a given total distance traveled, knowing the average speed and engine hours confirms the total miles and provides enough information to understand how much fuel was burned. And how many oil changes were necessary and other maintenance.

Most important for those looking to determine projected costs, each boat owner is asked how many miles they expected to run each day, as well as how many days per week they plan to be on the move. This is very helpful to determine the necessary logistics. Most Loopers shoot for 50 miles a day, some a bit higher or lower, but mostly 50 miles per day and on the move between 3 to 5 days a week.

Can you do the Great Loop by yourself?

What you need to understand is that cruising the loop solo is not a big deal. Yes, there are challenges, but if you plan on cruising for 6000+ miles on a wide variety of waterway types in a wide variety of conditions, you should already have the skills to meet these challenges. (One of the things I’ll do with my Captain’s License is teach people how to extend their cruising skills to be able to single-hand their boat.) The only thing a solo looper lacks is the assistance and companionship a second person on board could provide. (My dogs are good for companionship, but they are sorely lacking in the ability to assist.)

In my world, I’ll pick solo cruising over cruising with a difficult “crewmember” any day. If you’ve been reading this blog since its inception, you know the story of my first loop experience, when I was on a Ranger Tug R-27 with a captain and other crewmember. I had no trouble with the captain, but the other crew member was childish, difficult, rude, and downright annoying. (Is that enough adjectives? I could probably come up with a few more.) I got sick enough of her to leave the boat after five weeks — three weeks early. (You can read the progression of this situation in the posts about Cruising with Captain Paul.) Even on my boat, a Ranger Tug R-29 CB, the crewmember situation wasn’t ideal, especially for the second half of that Inland Rivers segment when my crewmember was definitely unhappy and there was nothing I could do about it except be unhappy with her.

I was chatting with a looper friend just yesterday about couples who break up because of their looping experiences. She’d heard rumors from a dockmaster of at least two couples who broke up at his marina, with one of the pair leaving the boat with all her possessions. And we know of at least one other couple that’ll likely break up when they finish their loop.

What is the fastest time for the Great Loop?

Captain Red Flowers has completed his own Great Loop Challenge in 19 days, 19 hours, and 50 minutes.

Flowers’ journey sets a new record for the fastest time to ever complete The Great Loop.

While there is no official record keeping, the fastest previously known trip was completed in 34 days by pontoon boat in 2022. Most boaters who undertake the 6000 mile (9700 km) trip, which is a complete circumnavigation of the eastern half of North America, typically take 10-16 months aboard a larger vessel like a yacht or cruiser.

Flowers and his team departed from Florida on June 15th and pulled back into the Sunshine State less than three weeks later.

Flowers completed the unbelievable task in a modest 28-foot center console from Canyon Bay Boats that was specially outfitted for the journey. His custom 28H Model ran with a single outboard engine and held strong as Flowers, plus several crew and their gear, raced around the continent.

How long does it normally take to do the Great Loop?

How long does it take to complete the Great Loop?. KR: The amount of time it takes to complete the Great Loop can vary a lot, but it’s still common to do this in about a year. The route is seasonal because you want to be on the Great Lakes when it’s warm and Florida in the winter—so many Loopers spend the spring heading up the east coast, the summer in the Great Lakes, the fall on the inland rivers, and the winter in Florida.

More and more, we’re seeing Loopers take multiple years to complete the route so they can do lots of side trips and take their time visiting the big cities and small towns around the Loop.

What are the best types of boats to do the Great Loop?. KR: First and foremost, the boat must be able to handle some rough water since you’ll be going through the Gulf of Mexico, the Great Lakes, and various sounds and inlets then can churn up some waves.

How many miles per day is the Great Loop?

Cruising NumbersStatTotalSoloCruise Hours/Day4.23.9Cruise Miles6,498.44,270.3Avg Miles/Loop Day17.215.4Avg Miles/Cruise Day33.731.9.

After more than 365 days on the Great Loop — including a “boomerang” journey from the Annapolis area to Key West and back — I take another look at the statistics and finances of this trip.

May 6, 2024 marked a milestone: it was my 365th day on board Do It Now on the Great Loop. I was just returning to the boat from my second time away — this time, just a month while I went to Texas to see the eclipse and then home to prep my house for summer. (You can read about my crazy month of April in my personal blog soon; I’m hoping to write that post today.)

While most folks think they can finish the Loop in a year or less — and many folks actually do — some of us have lives that draw us away from cruising now and then. I’m one of those folks. I was not in a hurry to finish the Loop. I took two breaks totaling about seven months and then backtracked all the way down to Key West over the winter. So this is my second year on the loop and I’ve already done more than 6,000 miles. I expect to finish it up in August 2024 in Chicago.

How big of a boat do you need for the Great Loop?

Most boats that complete the Loop measure 35-45 feet length,but the journey has even been done on a personal watercraft (PWC). Although the vast majority of Loop craft are powerboats, about 10 percentof people have completed the journey on sailboats. Sailboats find the Loop challenging due to their deeper draft (usually over five feet) and the height of their mast, which must be un-stepped and carried horizontally on deck.

Different people cruise the Loop differently. Some like to anchor out while others go strictly dock-to-dock. Some like to be near amenities every evening while others won’t set foot in a restaurant, preferring to save money by cooking aboard. Some people prefer to have luxurious accommodations and conveniences like an onboard washer/dryer so they travel with a portable “home,” while others opt for hotel or motel room stays and laundromats.

The number and type of engines on a Great Loop boat can include one to multiple motors, inboards, stern drives and outboards, and motors that run on diesel or gasoline. Displacement vessels will usually be propelled by a single economic diesel while planing hulls may have multiple higher revving, gas engines that deliver more speed but also cost more to run per mile. In some parts, the distances between fuel docks can be significant so a boat that has a range of at least a couple of hundred miles on one tank would be ideal.

What is the average cruising speed on the Great Loop?

And for those who like to play mind games with numbers, it is easy to see that slower boats take longer to make the same distance as faster boats. There are dozens and dozens of examples to use for this analysis. Boats that average 8 mph generally take 775 to 850 hours to do their Loop (the difference being how many miles their Loop was. Not everyone wants to go everywhere). Boats that average 12 mph often completed the Loop in under 600 hours, while those few boats that averaged much higher speeds (17 to 19 mph) only ran their engines around 300 hours. But the majority of boats cruised at 7-8 mph.

The above is not scientific analysis, but it is simple enough to see that for a given total distance traveled, knowing the average speed and engine hours confirms the total miles and provides enough information to understand how much fuel was burned. And how many oil changes were necessary and other maintenance.

Most important for those looking to determine projected costs, each boat owner is asked how many miles they expected to run each day, as well as how many days per week they plan to be on the move. This is very helpful to determine the necessary logistics. Most Loopers shoot for 50 miles a day, some a bit higher or lower, but mostly 50 miles per day and on the move between 3 to 5 days a week.

What’s the fastest someone has done the Great Loop?

The Great Loop has been done in as little as six weeks and in as much as 12 years. Traditionally, Loopers have spent about a year on the route. After all, it is a seasonal trip. You’ll want to be on the northern part of the Loop during the warm summer months, the inland rivers in the fall, spend the winter in Florida, and the spring following the warm weather up the eastern portion of the route.

We’re seeing a trend towards people doing the Great Loop in segments, cruising for a few weeks or months, and then returning home to take care of business or other responsibilities, and returning to the boat for another segment when possible.

The US. and Canada are usually part of the Great Loop, although one route option keeps you within the U.S. borders. Some Loopers do a side trip to the Bahamas as well.

Can you do the Great Loop without going into Canada?

How Many States/Provinces/Countries Are Along the Great Loop? The US. and Canada are usually part of the Great Loop, although one route option keeps you within the U.S. borders. Some Loopers do a side trip to the Bahamas as well.

The majority of the questions we receive are answered here. There are FAQs about the Great Loop route and about what the requirements are for a Great Loop-capable boat.

The Great Loop is a circumnavigation of the eastern U.S., and part of Canada. The route includes the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, the New York State Canals, the Canadian Canals, the Great Lakes, the inland rivers, and the Gulf of Mexico. “Loopers” take on this adventure of a lifetime aboard their own boat.

Because there are several points on the route where there are choices that may send you to different waterways, we recommend you examine our Public Interactive Map. However, the primary waterways on the basic route include:

How many people complete the Great Loop?

It’s hard to place an exact figure on the number of people who complete the circuit each year, but annually approximately 150-200 people report a completed loop to the America’s Great Loop Cruisers’ Association, said Kim Russo, director of the AGLCA. By doing so, boaters earn a gold flag from the association, signaling the accomplishment to other captains and “loopers.”

Ziggy, 67, and Joni, 74, completed the loop and earned their gold flag on a 50-foot 1989 Defever named Faith.

While some “loopers” purchase a boat specifically for the voyage, the husband and wife pair had been living aboard their vessel part-time for over a decade when they got underway Feb. 1, 2022.