For A Boater The Potomac Is A Four Season Waterway

By: Kevin Trainor/ Managing Editor


The marina on Daingerfield Island sits just to the right of the southbound runway of Reagan National Airport.  Across from the last airport beacon lies a shallow, weed filled body of water with one clear channel leading from the boat basin of the yachting class to the open waters of the remarkably cleaned up Potomac River.  The same river John Smith, and crew, he of Jamestown Settlement fame circa 1609, sailed up.  They marveled at the oysters.  Oh, the oysters.  So visible from the decks through the clear waters then mostly fresh, or salty, depending on the tides.  Later, oceangoing cuttys, and other maritime pliers, could still tie up at Georgetown.  That harbor locale named for King George II, and not his problematic descendant King George III of the American Revolutionary era.  The arrival of civilization redirected the navigable river channel.  Later, the most upriver port was Alexandria, just downstream.  There the oyster trade was practiced through the late 1800’s when water quality, and over-harvesting, killed off the beds.  After that a dry dock was constructed building wartime vessels in 1917 and 1918 which never saw a day in battle as the First World War was over before any were commissioned.  These days the freshwater/saltwater divide is some fifty miles south.  However, the tides are still present, and more than a few miscalculations due them, especially on a windy day.

Daingerfield Island sits off the George Washington Memorial Parkway.  A bike trail runs through it linking the Washington Monument, and George Washington’s ancestral home at Mt. Vernon.  Plus a marina, and yacht club.  On a mid-autumn Sunday all is quiet except for the mid-range jets taking off surprisingly nearby.  For one thing, the weather is cloudy and damp.  Another is the Redskins and Cowboys are renewing their epic rivalry.  The sailing camps are over, George Washington University’s accomplished sailing team has their sheets furled, and boat renters are onshore until the first warm spring day.  The personally owned boats, big and small, float silently.

Even during the winter? “Yes,” says marina supervisor Joshua Hapurtsuren.  “Some take them out for the season, but we have de-icing.”  What?  Indeed.  The still water is prevented from icing up by a cadre of propeller machines.  One would think cold water sinks, and warmer rises, but no, apparently.  “The warmer water is on the bottom,” says Joshua, “colder water is on the top due to exposure.”  The de-icers are literally underwater propellers that mix up the two degrees of basin water preventing icing.  Such icing can damage a hull, and compromise integrity.  Plus active water doesn’t usually freeze up.  Lake Superior a notable exception.  Daily during mid-winter Joshua walks the docks checking on the boats, and gassing up the clunky machines.  All part of the yearly docking fee.

There is activity in the winter, though.  The Potomac River Sailing Association (PRSA) sponsors “Frostbiting Regattas.”  Some local universities keep their rowing shells at the ready.  “They seem immune to the temperatures,” Joshua says, with a hint of indifference.  Other boats sit on land lined up like memorials to the best laid plans of their owners to maintain.  Some on trailers.  

So, yes, there is year-round boating on the Potomac River. Some that you see underway are due to Joshua’s lonely, daily pilgrimage to the docks, making sure the lines are secured, the equipment weatherized, and those propellers are ever a churning.