[Gerry Zagorski]

Welcome aboard Swank! A 17 foot boat with a 75 horsepower engine you are really going to need to pick your days and be very careful!

As mentioned before, the wind and wave forecast is most important and in general west wind is best. The reason for this is the land acts as buffer and because it's coming off land, the wind does not have as much of an opportunity to build waves over open water.. Point in case, it could be 20 knots out of the west and tight into the beach it will be like a mill pond. If however you get more then a few miles off the beach it will be noticeably rougher. The worst winds are East and North East and that's because the wind is blowing over the open ocean and those wind directions usually means unsettled weather. South winds are fairly common here and in general a favorable direction as long as it's not blowing too hard.

Until you get your feet wet and are more comfortable with running your boat and knowing it's capabilities and running the inlet, prolonged west winds or any variant of west like SW or NW with 10 knots or less and waves 2 feet or less is what I'd be looking for...

The inlet is going to be where you really need to watch yourself. Wind against tide and boat traffic can cause standing waves at the mouth of the inlet which can be very dangerous. For this reason you want to try and time your run at the inlet when the tide is either slack or the wind and tide are in the same direction. That means running at slack tide or an outgoing tide and west winds or east winds and an incoming tide. And remember once out of the inlet you have to get back in so you need to time both.

You asked if inlet conditions will be noticeable and the answer is yes.. If the conditions are unfavorable you'll see noticeable standing waves, in which case you may choose not to run it or wait from more favorable conditions. The last thing you want to be is tentative. If your gonna go for it then plan to go all the way since trying to turn around in a inlet puts the side of your boat into the waves and you want to avoid that and or not going fast enough so you don't loose steering. Point is case there was a video I saw this year where a boat much larger than yours made that mistake. They were inbound, got cold feet because of the conditions and slowed the boat down and were overtaken by a wave. Speed and power are your friends, especially when the waves are behind you. You need to be moving faster then the waves or you loose steering. If you get caught in those conditions you want to maintain just enough speed and stay in between the waves so they don't swamp you from behind or the side.

In addition to having towing insurance a VHF radio is a must and you should know how to use it and make a proper mayday or assistance needed call.

I'll put more info below this post to elaborate more on some of these subjects...

Bottom line.. Err on the side of caution, be confident in your boat and boat handling skills, be mindful of winds and tide directions and if you do happen to get caught out in unfavorable conditions, be prepared and know how to overcome them.