So last weekend I was out drinking with a few of my boating buddies and we got on a discussion of taking 10 days or so boat trip from approx. St. Louis area to NOLA. I thought it might have just been drunk talk but it sounds like everyone was serious and still talking about it now that we have sobered up lol. Anyone done this or a similar trip down the Mississippi? Anyone know how many locks and how long we should plan for is we are able to cruise at say a realistic 40ish mph? Also, my biggest question is this, I am a midwest inland lake and Lake Michigan fresh water boater, I so not have a closed system on my boat, will the brackish and salt water on the lower Miss and Gulf wreak havoc on my motor and cooling system? Keep in mind we will probably only have our boats in the salt for a couple days.

You'll be fine. You'll be fresh water flushing the whole way up the river on the return trip. Lol.

Not to mention you're talking minimal minimal salt. The river always flows south. No current entering it. So you're not getting much if any salt until you're in the gulf

I grew up boating on the Mississippi river in Vicksburg, MS, and you could do it, but you would have to really watch for floating logs, shallow sandbars, whirlpools around bridges, and large wakes from the tugs and barge traffic but otherwise it would be a fun trip.

It would be a one way trip, one of the guys going with owns a large trucking company and he would either send drivers down with our tow vehicles and trailers or actually ship them down there on trucks. As much as I'd like to make it a round trip my job and family would not allow for being away much longer than 10-12 days, I have a great wife who is cool with me doing "guy" stuff but I don't want to push my luck.

Anyone have any idea of how long this trip would take? I've poked around on the web and seen anything from 5 days to 3 weeks, I am assuming the 3 weeks is either for a barge or a canoe lol. The locks appear to be the major delay factor. It appears we will have to navigate 13 locks if we splash in just north of St. Louis.

Look up bob the builder threads. He has done it I think, may have been the Tom Tom

From head of the passes which is where you would pick a pass to get to gulf to Chicago is 770 miles as the crow flies. River winds so there will be more. I'm not gonna route the whole River to give exact distance but can easily be done on a plotter. So let's use 800. At 40 mph that would be roughly 20 hrs of run time. If it's 1000 at 40 would 25 hrs run time. So I can easily see 3 days or so depending on how you long you run and all the locks involved which would also would be on a plotter.

It depends on the locks... barge traffic takes precedence, so you need to plan on hitting the Locks at good times. I have a book called quimbys... tells you all locks, dams, and marinas on inland water ways. Mile markers, cellphone contact, vhf contact....

I used to float up and pull the chain for the lock but with the quimbys you can call 10 miles out and If you are clear alot of the lock masters will have the chamber open waiting on you.

The biggest problem I see is navigating the rivers at night can be very dark in some places. So if there is much debris you'll be stuck running just during daylight.

plot out the gas stops. not many places down south here have gas a at the docks

I know a guy that did it last year. I'll see if he will chime in...