Banks Channel
NOAA ENC chart tiles · planning aid, not for navigation
Right now at this spot
oldest reading 37 min agoSmall boats will get beat up. Pick your heading and slow down.
The sea state in that call was measured 5.6 nm away at NDBC 41110 — that is open water, not this basin.
What that call is built on
- · Observed wind N 7 kt gusting 11 — NDBC JMPN7 · Wrightsville Beach
- · Observed seas 2.6 ft — NDBC 41110 · Masonboro Inlet
The stretch of water behind Wrightsville Beach itself. Popular anchoring and raft-up water, but the current runs hard on both tides and boats swing on it, not on the wind. Give your neighbours room.
The tide today
4.2 ft right nowBest window to be here. Aim for the window around high water at 04:41 or 17:06 — this spot is tide-sensitive.
- It is a sandbar — the ground under you changes with the water.
When is the sand out?
You have missed it today. It was out 8:35am–1:15pm, and it does not uncover again until about 8:45pm, and then stays out past midnight — after dark, which is not a sandbar day.
The tide is coming up. Nothing you put on the sand now will be stuck, which is the opposite problem: an unattended boat floats off. Set an anchor up the beach and check it, don't just run the bow up.
This is the Wrightsville raft-up. The current runs hard on both tides and boats swing on it rather than on the wind, so a bar that is comfortable at slack is a different place two hours later.
Walkable below about 2.0 ft of tide, properly dry below about 1.0 ft — the same rule of thumb we apply to every bar on this coast, because none of them have been surveyed.
This is a rule of thumb, not a survey. Nobody has measured the height of this sand to a datum, so the times are the tide curve run against a threshold we chose — treat them as give or take three quarters of an hour, and tell us if we're wrong.
Tide curve: NOAA 8658163 Wrightsville Beach, six-minute predictions, MLLW. Height of the sand: No threshold of our own. Corridor rule of thumb. The shipped knowledge line for Banks Channel is about current and swinging room, not about the sand.
What’s biting here
All speciesPeak month, and 71°F is right in their band.
Min 18" total length · 1 per person per day
Peak month, and 71°F is right in their band.
Min 14" total length · 3 per person per day
Peak month, and 71°F is right in their band.
Unlawful to possess right now.
Ranked on the month and the measured water temperature. Limits are North Carolina’s current rules — confirm with DMF before you keep anything.
Depth
Getting there
from Wrightsville BeachWhat else is out here
straight line, true bearingLive from the water
Know before you go
Comments
Conditions, tides and alerts are live from NOAA CO-OPS, the National Weather Service and NDBC. Distance, run time, fuel and clearance are calculated from your boat profile. Member depth reports are corrected to the datum at the moment they are filed. Planning aid only — not for navigation. Carry current charts.