Your in big water when...........................
 

I boat mostly on Lake St Clair which is 430 sq miles. Been out there in 5 footers that I stuffed my boat into. Been out to Lake Michigan which is 22,394 sq miles and hundreds of feet deep 1/4 mile offshore and those waves are interesting because the spacing between them was so large. That is big water to me. Near me is Oakland county which has a lot of small lakes but they are small (under 1000 acres). I find it kinda humerus when people tell me they are going boating on these small lakes (the small lakes have a max speed limit of 55 and you can only go in a counter-clockwise direction and you cant be on them after 9:00pm), that is like splashing around in a bath tub. I define a big lake as something that takes at least 45 minutes to get across it at cruise speed. How do you define a big lake?

I agree big is a relative term. We do most of our boating on an inland lake in Michigan - and yes you are absolutely correct that it is counterclockwise - but to the best of my knowledge we don't have a speed limit - at least that is enforced.

However, we do have a chance to get out to Lake Michigan - and I would definitely say that is big water. In my opinion anytime you can drive in a boat for more than an hour before turning is a "BIG WATER".

3pointstar

I was in big water after a storm front in Galveston Bay saw me surfing my 28 footer down the backside of each wave in the ship channel, hitting the bottom of the trough was so violent that the engine would stumble (something it has never done since). I have worked in Oceans around the world and know there are much worse conditions. However this storm was marked by very high frequency waves at an angle across the channel that made it extremely challenging to get the boat home in one piece, couldn't leave the channel as there was a real risk of hitting bottom in the normally 6-8 foot deep bay.

A big lake is one that I don't have enough fuel to get across.

I think most of you on here are spoiled and have no idea what a "small lake" is. Here in Denver, the two local reservoirs are barely a mile long with a speed limit of 40 mph.
If you drive an hour and a half north or south, you can have a reservoir that is 3-8 miles long (1/4 mile wide), but still a speed limit of 40 mph. The closest "big lake" is Lake McConnaughy in Nebraska at 22 miles long but it usually has 3' whitecaps from the constant wind, and nobody goes there since they made it a "dry" lake.
So what I would consider "big water" is Lake Powell which is 8 hours through some really big mountain passes, or Lake Havasu which is 16 hours one way.

A Big lake is one where you can actually get to your top speed!

What I'd give to have a big lake nearby!!

How far away is LOTO from you?
Or Grand Lake in OK?

I do most of my boating on Lake Michigan out of Chicago. I think most people don't realize how big Lake Michigan is. I have a good friend who lives in Orange County California so he does his boating on the Pacific ocean out of Newport Beach in a big 40 foot cruiser. He was in town last summer and I took him out on Lake Michigan. I don't have a slip so I traileredand put in on the Chicago river which feeds into the Lake, when the doors of the lock opened up and we cruised out onto the lake he just about **** himself, he said "damn, this is like the ocean, this is not what I was expecting". We cruised out about 8 miles and he was even more floored by the size of the lake once he looked back to land. I put it into perspective for him and told him Lake Michigan has 1660 miles of shoreline, California only has about 850 miles of coastline and if you add up all the Great Lakes it's something like 4500 miles of shoreline. Lake Michigan is just a fresh water ocean and the conditions can be far more treacherous than anything the Atlantic or pacific Oceans can dish out with the exception of Hurricane conditions. If you think you are good behind the wheel of a boat but have never boated on Lake Michigan then you truly have not been tested.

Lake Michigan Waves...Not my video just something I found on You Tube. Maybe this is a OSO member?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttN2stWdoeg

Why would anyone do that???

Was that a planned trip out in the rough or did you get caught by surprise?

Not that I have experienced anything huge...8-10 feet in the Gulf of Mexico just 12 miles offshore from Clearwater was as big as it gets. However for big water just look at some of the stuff off of the north coast of Scotland where the oil and gas rigs are. The supply ships there deal with 60-70 ft waves for four months of the year and down south of New Zealand there are some big waves. No Offshore Powerboating there. Atlantic Coast has bigger water than the Gulf and Long Island north has worse water than down here in Florida.