Ten Minutes to Prepare

     Or, This makes a good case for practicing!

See the last article titled "Storm!" It describes a fast-growing and fast-moving storm that lasted for hours. Such a situation requires quick action to get through the weather safely and as comfortably as possible.

Suppose you only have ten minutes to prepare for a storm? Here are some things you can do, in no particular order. Some of them won't be appropriate for you and your boat. There may be things you would add to the list. The point is that you must have a plan for how to handle storms. When it's bearing down on you, that's too late to be thinking about it for the first time.

So pick and choose from what I've listed. Think creatively, put them in the right order of importance for you (you may not get through it all) and add ideas as necessary.


* Make sure you have a knife, on a tether, tied to your clothes. Everyone who has a knife should do this.

* Set your marine radio to the weather channel.

* Put EVERYONE in PFD's.

* Encourage all crew to put on gloves. Wet lines will be harder to get a good grip on.

* Offer seasickness medication to everyone and encourage them to take it.

* Secure any pets. Put them in their carriers and tie the carrier down.

* Consider whether sailing or anchoring might be your best plan. 

* Assign specific adults to see to the safety of any children aboard.

* Put one or more reefs in your mainsail.

* Furl or partially furl your roller furler, or,

* Put a smaller hank-on headsail up (check that you led your sheets correctly. You don't want them to malfunction in a storm!) Or,

* Put up your Gale Sail if you have one. Or,

* Douse your headsail and put up your staysail.

* Check your chart and chart plotter. Is there any chance of being caught on a lee shore? (Remember, wind direction can change dramatically during a significant storm.) Move the boat to deeper water before it's a battle (or impossible) to do so.

* Use the head.

* Put something to eat and drink in the cockpit.

* Make sure all hatches and portholes are securely closed.

* Close the companionway securely.

* Set up the most comfortable arrangement you can for yourself at the helm.

* Put on foul weather gear.

* Get a swim mask handy in case the rain is intense, so you can see better.

* Police the deck and make sure it's clear of obstacles. Anything left on deck will be harder to see in a storm and be a much greater tripping hazard.

* Police the cockpit. Get lines coming into the cockpit neat and ready for easy use. Clear it of anything unnecessary, but think twice before putting useful things below.

* Enter your lat and long in your log, and keep it updated. If possible, have someone mark it on the chart so you have a visual representation of how the boat is moving.

* Check the perimeter of the boat for loose lines, and start the engine. You can keep it in neutral. Turn it off if the boat is consistently heeling more than 10º because after that point the engine can't move protective oil reliably.

* Suspend "destination" sailing. Your plan now should be to get your boat and your crew through the storm as safely and comfortably as possible.


Gee, that's a lot to do in ten, or even twenty, minutes. Plan with your crew ahead of time who will do what. Issuing expected reminders are much easier for people to follow when things get tense than brand new instructions they didn't expect.

Practice ahead of time, especially things like changing sails, reefing sails, and doing things like raising Gale sails.

Go to our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/boldlygosailing?skip_nax_wizard=true

Storm!

      Or, You can't see over the horizon ...

Seven weeks ago last Sunday (mid-September), we had a heck of a storm here. I was up at Boca Ciega Yacht Club (BCYC) sitting on the patio, watching sailing students out on the little 16.5’ Catalinas, their first time on the water. Their instructors were teaching them to do the most basic things – notice where the wind was coming from, steering with a tiller, and tacking.

Now, BCYC is careful about the weather when we have sail school. The Catalinas are far more stable than most instructional boats because they have full-sized fin keels. However, they can’t be reefed, and are easily overpowered by what would be moderate wind on a larger boat (we send students in when we see sustained wind of 15 mph or more, and actively encourage members to not take the boats out on windy days as well).

But this was a beautiful mid-September afternoon, and “storm season” (not hurricane season) was just about over. Except … September was exceptionally warm this year, more like August.

The prediction for that Sunday was a 30% chance of rain. There was no prediction for particularly bad weather. But it’s Florida, and when it’s 90º on the coast, it is often 95º inland. Very often we get a sea breeze that forms in the afternoon from the west, which hits the stronger prevailing east wind coming off the Atlantic and across that hot interior. Thunderstorms can be the result. Two walls of wind colliding with lots of heat and humidity often means thunderstorms. However, they typically form at least a little inland from the coast, especially by September.

This day was going to be different.

There were probably 15 people on the patio. The “Waterfront Director” is the person who makes the final decision about whether or not students should be called in due to weather, but none of us saw any signs of trouble … except for one man. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me that day, but we had a similar weather pattern the next day, so I took my camera up to BCYC the next day like a storm chaser, hoping to get lucky – and I did.

This first picture is very like what we saw that Sunday, a little before 4PM: clouds, but relatively formless, and not threatening-looking at all. They kind of looked like cotton candy.

Innocent-looking "cotton candy" clouds. Only one person realized they
were actually "blow off" from a huge storm just out of sight over the horizon.

Only one person on the patio looked at the clouds suspiciously. He went to the club’s computer and checked the weather radar. The radar (which you can get on your cell phone if you’re close to the coast) showed a massive gathering of angry-looking red and orange. I couldn't take a picture of the radar on Sunday, but I saw it, and it was huge, moving west and bearing down on both Pinellas and Manatee County – and just over the horizon -- out of view on land. The clouds we could see from the patio were pretty. The radar, however, was scary.

He and the Waterfront Director talked, and they quickly called the student boats in. We got all the students in ten minutes before a wall of wind of at least 40 mph hit us. We would have had five student boats out in a terrible storm if one person hadn’t realized that those sweet fluffy clouds we were looking at weren’t sweet at all – they were an alarm warning.

Here are photographs I took of the next day's storm. First I’ll show you what was happening on the radar. Each picture was taken less than five minutes apart, so on Monday, as on the previous Sunday, we had a rapidly building storm. It didn’t cover as much geography as the one the day before had – but it could have.

Rapidly after seeing the first innocent-looking “cotton candy” clouds, we saw something like this:

Still not terribly threatening looking, but it rapidly (and I mean, within minutes) developed into something like this (actually, all of these pictures would have been more ominous on Sunday):

And then this:

See how the “cotton candy” clouds are still there in the background? But they’re higher now. You don’t have to be a meteorologist to see that you’re looking at turbulent air. Turbulent air and sailboats? Not the best combination!

The storm was rapidly building. Within two minutes, the sky looked like this:

Those are clouds to pay attention, to, aren’t they? They’re well organized, and growing both vertically and horizontally. At this point, you would be checking weather radar if you had it available to you. Here’s what you need to know about weather radar: the images you see may be 15 minutes old, and when faced with a rapidly growing and intensifying storm, data that is 15 minutes old may be misleading. It may not yet be showing you that rapid intensification. Your eyes and your senses may be much more valuable at this time. By now, you should be preparing for a possible storm, because that storm may move toward you, and even if it doesn't do that directly, it may expand to the point that it envelops you.

Actually, we should have been on high alert from the first glimpse of the “cotton candy” clouds. Why? Because they represented a CHANGE in the weather. Along with an unexpected change in wind direction, temperature or force, an unexpected change in the clouds should get – and keep – your attention.

Within a few minutes the storm was nearly on top of us, and the sky looked more like this. Monday, however, BCYC was on the edge of the storm. Sunday we were in the thick of it, and there were no patches of blue sky showing. The wind was starting to pick up significantly.

From the radar on Monday, it was clear that the bulk of the storm today was going to hit south, in Manatee County, so I went south and crossed the Skyway Bridge. Approaching the Skyway Bridge, this is what I saw:

The wind was gusty, although not as bad as it had been the day before. This storm was smaller and not as bad as the one on Sunday, but you wouldn’t want to be out unprepared in this one, either.

Something should jump out at you at this point: there are no waves. You must be thinking, “What is she talking about? That’s just rain. You’ll get wet, but it’s not a crisis.” You’ve probably seen descriptions of how to judge the strength of the wind by looking at the surface of the water. For instance, at around 12 mph, white caps start to form. By the time the wind is up to 15ph, you’ll see a lot of whitecaps.

Except.

It takes a while for the waves to form. When a storm is rapidly forming, the wave development will lag behind the wind. This storm, as well as the one the day before, grew rapidly, and the wind on Monday, which I estimated to have 30 – 35 mph winds, was plenty strong enough to concern any newer sailor, even though it wasn't as bad as the day before. Monday's storm also didn't last nearly as long as Sunday's did.

Another thing you may have been told is that these storms pop up in Florida but don’t stick around very long. That can be true (see my story, “Oh Dorothy!” for an example of strong but short-lived storms).

However, the Sunday storm was different. It kept growing, and reforming, and re-strengthening, and here’s an example. Two members of BCYC, well-experienced sailors, and another couple who were just along for the ride, were about four miles out on the Gulf of Mexico when the Sunday storm hit the coast. They were trying to return to Gulfport, but their boat’s engine could make no headway against the storm, and they had their hands full managing the boat. Their friends could not be much help.

At 11PM they were still caught in the storm. They were exhausted, and wet, and hungry, and they threw in the towel and called for a tow. The towboat was able to fight the waves and the wind and get them safely home. It is not typical for afternoon storms to last that long – or, for that matter, to develop with so little warning. But it does happen.

So what are you to do?

What you should NOT do is print out this article and look for these kinds of clouds. You won’t always see “cotton candy” clouds before a storm. What you should watch for is changes in the weather that might be an early warning system. In addition, you should tune your radio to the weather channel. A weather advisory was put out very early for the Sunday storm, and there’s a lot you can do to prepare for a storm, even when you only have a few minutes. See the accompanying article, “Ten Minutes to Act,” for things you might get done if you have ten minutes warning before a storm hits. 

Go to our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/boldlygosailing?skip_nax_wizard=true 

Gale Sails!

      Or, The Inventor is One Clever Dude!

One important strategy if you get caught in a storm is to have less sail up. It makes sense – if the wind is pushing and pulling your boat harder, it will take less sail area to move the boat when the wind is strong. If you have too much sail up for the weather conditions, we say that your boat is “over-powered.” The boat will heel too much, travel sideways as well as forward, and, if the situation becomes serious, become significantly unstable. It could even tip over a full 90 degrees (called a "knockdown"), possibly damaging the rig and with the real risk of injury to you and your crew. The bow can swing around wildly with the boat rocking forward and backward as well as side to side, an unpleasant ride. It’s important to reduce the amount of sail you have up if you’re in a significant storm – and to me, “significant” means any storm where your standard sail plan overpowers your boat.

In addition to reducing sail surface, reducing the size of both sails helps to keep the boat in balance. When the boat is in balance, the amount of sail up matches the weather conditions, and the headsail and mainsail are working well together. Neither one is too big. A boat that is in balance will respond more reliably to the helm and give the people on the boat a more comfortable ride. You might not think that is important, but some storms last a long time (we had a big storm here about seven weeks ago that lasted for hours), and seasickness is more than nausea – it can make you dizzy and even disoriented. It can seriously incapacitate you or valued crew members. I know a skipper who actually tied a crew member to the mast for her own safety once when she became so seasick, and so disoriented, that the rest of the crew was afraid she might not be able to keep herself on the boat.

On most boats, it should be easy to reduce the size of your mainsail with a good reefing system. The headsail, however, can be more problematical. If you have a hank-on sail, it means going forward, taking the old sail off, and raising the new sail. That’s going to be tricky if you’re by yourself, and best done before the wind picks up (which may happen before the full storm hits you.)

If you have a roller furler, you have different choices. It can be tricky to change sails. You can usually partially furl your headsail, but if you do that often, it is likely to deform your headsail in a significant way, stretching it out and making a pouch in it where there should not be one. Sail fabric near the clew is very stretchy because it’s on the bias, and it will stretch out, especially in a strong wind.

On my boat (and many other boats of that era), it’s more complicated. My roller furler cannot be partially furled. Even if I wanted to take that step, I could not. No matter how you secure the lines, it will fully deploy, a bad thing to have happen in a storm.

But in addition, on boats where the headsail can be partially furled, one has to use the furling line to keep it partially deployed, and that line takes a lot of strain in a storm. Unfortunately, one has to use small-diameter line for the furling line because it all has to fit on the drum. It’s not as strong as thicker line. Sometimes that line breaks, and then you will have an uncontrolled headsail in a storm, not a good situation.

My solution is the ATN Gale Sail. To use a Gale Sail, you completely furl your roller furler, wrapping it only once and letting the sheets hang straight down. The Gale Sail has a leading edge that wraps around the roller furler and is secured with stout barrel clasps. A pendant attaches it at the bottom (I use stainless steel hardware through a hole already drilled into the anchor roller). Five barrel clasps (on my sail) wrap the orange leading edge securely around the roller furler. A spare halyard or spinnaker halyard is used at the top.

 The ATN Gale sail, with its trademark orange

wrap-around luff, deployed

I tested mine last week when we were having a lot of wind. I had an injured back, so although my main was reefed, I did not raise it. While waiting for a bridge to open I was in a wide, deep space, and I sailed the boat around using just the 60 sq ft Gale Sail, the size recommended for my boat.

I was impressed with two things. First of all, it was remarkably easy to handle the sail in the 25 mph winds I was experiencing. My 135% headsail by comparison is a real handful under those conditions and takes considerable strength to manage, even with self-tailing winches and a good winch handle.

More impressively, that very small sail moved my boat at up to 4 knots. What this means is that the sail can pull its weight and really help keep the boat balanced in higher winds.

The Gale Sail does have one drawback: it isn’t a piece of cake to put up (the advertising suggests otherwise). You had better pay attention to the weather and give yourself time to get it deployed, and practice using it before you need to. The more wind a sail is designed to take, the heavier the fabric used is, and the Gale Sail fabric is stout and extremely stiff. It’s tricky to learn how to maneuver the barrel bolts and it won’t go up quickly the first time you use it.

I suggest you use snatch blocks if you can to guide your sheets back to the cockpit. If your boat has rear blocks, as mine does, make sure the sheets you put on your Gale Sail are long enough to use them, because that rear block assures that whatever line you’re using will come to the winch at the proper angle, helping to avoid winch wraps. A winch wrap would be a dangerous complication in a significant storm, another reason to practice how you’re going to handle this sail.

My Gale Sail folds easily and easily fits in its storage bag.

I go a little for the overkill when it comes to safety, and I will keep the Gale Sail on deck, lashed to the starboard lifelines (I keep all obstacles, including spare rope, fenders, etc., on the starboard side, and then know I can always go up the port side unimpeded.) I don’t want to have to use precious time going below and digging it out from under a settee.

I am going to practice with it more and will post an update about how fast I can reasonably expect to get the sail up by myself. Even sailing with someone else, that person would be on the helm while I was putting this sail up. Unless three people are on the boat, I could not be certain I would have help with it.

I am not unequivocally recommending the Gale Sail over other solutions. Most people won’t practice putting it up and might not have enough time to get it up, especially if they haven’t been paying attention to the weather (and unfortunately, many people do not).

A quicker solution is to use a staysail on a second forestay between the mast and the bow, but this is also complicated. That second forestay has to be installed properly, and the added stresses on the mast have to be accounted for. You can’t just put another stay on your boat, then put a sail on it in storm conditions, and not look at the effect on your overall rigging.

However, if you choose this option, you can then have a hank-on sail already latched on to the stay and held over to the side with a bungee (it would be the starboard side on my boat to keep the port side clear) if you anticipate possible bad weather. In a sudden storm, you can get a hank-on sail up faster than you can get a Gale Sail over your roller furler. There’s absolutely no doubt about it.

A staysail has another advantage because its position, slightly closer to the mast, can be a more effective spot for a storm sail than one deployed from your forestay or attached to your roller furler. However, that advantage may be a small one, important if you are a racer but less significant if your goal is simply to get through a storm as comfortably and safely as possible.

If you don’t have a roller furler, the Gale Sail is not suitable for you. But you can have a smaller headsail secured and ready by your forestay. You may even have room enough on the forestay to have that smaller headsail at least partially hanked on before you leave the dock. That depends on the cut of the headsail you use most of the time.

Before making a choice, educate yourself fully regarding how you want to modify your sails in a storm. Don’t just take someone’s word that you “have” to have a staysail, or that hank on headsails are “best,” or that the ATN Gale Sail is the right answer for everyone.

The important thing is to have a storm plan. If it’s warm enough for most people to be sailing, there will often be at least a small chance of a storm. See my soon-to-be-finished entry titled “Storm!” Only a 30% chance of storms was forecasted for that day. It wasn’t typically a time of year where we experience strong storms here. But we experienced a very significant storm that lasted for hours with very little warning. Storms happen, so have a well-thought-out plan.

Go to our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/boldlygosailing?skip_nax_wizard=true 

Chart Plotter or No Chart Plotter? Update ...

     Or, Ooops -- I Just Ran Aground in the Center of the Channel!

Last Thursday I was bringing my boat through the Skyway Channel. At the south end, the piling for Channel Marker #2 had been removed, and there was a floating red nun with a 2 on it in its place -- or more accurately, halfway into the channel. I showed a picture of a similar change in that channel some time ago at Marker #10.

However, the combination of low tide and a lot of north wind had made things even worse, and I ran aground, fortunately in soft sand as it was still drifting, right by that floating nun.

The wind was to my back and there was plenty of wave action, and combining that with careful use of the engine, I was able to get off. It was dicey, though, because apparently even my rudder caught a couple of times, judging by how the wheel acted.

Now, on the chart -- and on my chart plotter -- there appears to be much deeper water -- 10 - 12 feet at low tide -- just west of that part of the channel. It would appear to be a better way in and out.

But here's the problem. Obviously paper charts aren't updated unless new surveys are done *and* you buy the updated chart ... and your chart plotter is just as dated. It uses the same data.

So what do you use?

Your eyes. Shallow water looks different than deep water. I don't think there's anything I could have done that day, but if the tide had been a little higher I could have probably visually picked my way through that spot. In such a situation, if you have another person with you, put him or her on the bow, if possible with a depth line. I'll show mine soon. By the time your depth sounder reads water too shallow, your keel has either found it or will in the next second or so.

Inch your way through.

This was a potentially bad situation -- I lost my rudder once before to shallow, rough water, and I was in a real bottleneck in the channel. If a power boat had come through there with a big wake, first of all the skipper might have assumed I was moving, and second of all a big wake could have banged my rudder around. I really don't want to go there again! But because the day was so blustery, few boats were out. In the five minutes it took me to pick my way through that 100 feet or so, I didn't encounter any other boats.

Always be watching for shallow water, no mater what the chart says, and no matter what the electronics say. By the way, my depth sounder said I was in 20.6' of water while the depth line said 4'. I draw 4 1/2', and I know which measure I believe. Either this is another sign of my chartplotter malfunctioning or somehow the container that holds my transducer needs more fluid. That's easy to check, and I'll be doing that, but meanwhile, this is more proof that while useful, electronics are not the whole answer for a sensible sailor.

Go to our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/boldlygosailing?skip_nax_wizard=true

Climbing on to Your Boat at High Tide

     Or, You can make this one yourself if you want

My boat has what is called "high freeboard." "Freeboard" is the distance between the deck and the surface of the water. Because of this high freeboard, my boat can be hard to get on to at high tide.

To solve this problem, I got a nifty gadget called a "portable step." In the current West Marine Catalog it is item no. 1829522, listed as "DOYLE#STEP," also known as a "quickstep."

My sailboat has a very strong perforated toe rail, so I can hang this step anywhere I want. Where I hang it is in front of the shrouds, which just happens to be within an openable gate in the lifelines and right by a stanchion. There is a great advantage to hanging it below the shrouds, because the shrouds are strong. You can safely grab the shrouds as you climb up.

You may have to add hardware to your deck if you don't have a toe rail in order to be able to clip it on.

The point of this step, of course, is to get you safely on or off the boat, and there is a trick to that. When you step on the "quickstep," immediately stand up straight and push your weight against the side of the boat (my step has never left a mark on the boat). Grab the shrouds. Keep moving the whole time, and put your other foot on the deck of the boat. If you do this in one smooth motion, the step will be stable and secure and you will have no trouble getting on and off.

But as you can see from the picture above, at high tide in particular, you may have a line crossing the step. Take note of that obstacle before you use the step.

As you can see, my "quickstep" is not perfectly level. It doesn't have to be perfect for it to work well. You can see by the line hanging below it that I had to shorten its length. That's not hard to do, and perhaps one day I will get very particular and even the lines out, but it is perfectly stable as it is.

I don't often recommend making something when it already exists, but I'm going to make an exception here. The design of this item is quite simple and anyone who can use a drill at a basic level should be able to duplicate it with a piece of strong, water-resistant wood. I paid $10 for my portable step on sale. The price now is $32.95, which seems awfully high to me. Just don't go cheap on the hardware. Get marine-quality snaphooks. You may want to put a rubrail on the wood, as wood might leave marks on the side of your boat otherwise.

Go to our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/boldlygosailing?skip_nax_wizard=true

More Than One Way to Dock a Boat

     Or, "Is That Boat Going BACKWARDS????"

Samantha Ring, my first sailing instructor, has continued to pass tips on to me from time to time. It was Samantha who taught me how to tack my boat easily by myself (I talked about that in the entry titled "How to Single-Hand Your Boat in a Pinch").

From her I learned some very basic things, such as tiller steering: to turn the rudder in the direction you want to go, you have to push the tiller handle in the opposite direction. In other words, to turn to port, you push the tiller to starboard.

She has also shared with me how she backs her boat into her slip very reliably every time.

It's so simple. I mentioned it to some sailors online who thought the very notion was absurd, but I discussed it with a true master sailor, and he explained that he still uses it, especially if it's a large boat. (Remember that I have said more than once that you should double-check every bit of advice you're given by others, and this is a perfect example.)

What Samantha does is simple: before she enters the marina she turns the boat around. She then faces the stern of the boat instead of the bow, and puts the boat in reverse.

Since she has a tiller, this requires a quick adjustment in thinking. Now the stern of the boat moves in the direction of the tiller.! The bow still moves to starboard, but since she's facing the stern, the boat now essentially steers the way a car does.

It's a little hard to see in the photo below but if you look carefully, you will see a sailor facing the stern, pushing the tiller to starboard. Sam makes a starboard turn to back into her slip. It's much easier to steer in reverse when you only have a few feet of boat in front of you.

This approach helps solve a number of problems. First of all, you have to deal with "prop walk" when in reverse. Prop walk is the frustrating tendency of a motor to pull the boat to one side or another, usually to port, when in reverse. When you only have to worry about where the few feet in front of you are going, the difficulties of dealing with prop walk are diminished. Ditto for the effects of both wind and current. All you have to do is get the stern in, and the rest of the boat will follow. When you're facing the direction you're moving in, it becomes much easier to adjust for all the forces acting on your boat.

However, people get set in their ways sometimes, and so some people think this approach is nothing short of ridiculous. Samantha actually heard someone shout to her once, "Did you know you're going backwards?" But Samantha let me try it, and I think it's brilliant.

Few things are scarier to new sailors than bringing their boat into the slip stern first, and being able to face the direction you're moving in really takes all the terror out of it. Wherever that stern goes, the bow is going to follow, and you will only have to make judgments about the few feet of boat in front of you instead of sitting with feet toward the bow, alternately looking over your shoulder and then the whole length of the boat, and havng to judge all that distance to your bow, along with whether or not wind, prop walk, or current will take your boat into another boat or a piling.

Don't try this for the first time in the marina, however. Like any skill involving maneuverability, you're much better off practicing in open water first. Just tie a fender to your spare anchor and drop it over the side. If you want to practice with great precision, put two fenders over the side to mark the width of your slip.

If you have a boat with a wheel, you can still use this trick. However, with a wheel you think about the wheel just as you would if you were facing forward.

There is a "negative" to this approach, and that is that the boat will have a lower maximum speed in reverse than in forward. But you don't want to move any faster than you want to hit the dock anyway, so that's a small limitation. You do have to maintain enough speed to have steerage, but that feels safer when facing the direction you're going in as well.

And don't forget -- now you will put the boat in *forward* instead of reverse to slow it. But since when you face the stern, reverse looks like forward, and forward looks like reverse, it doesn't have to be a complication. Just don't over-think it. Relax, take a deep breath, and you'll get that boat in the slip like a champ.

Go to our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/boldlygosailing?skip_nax_wizard=true

Various Updates

     Or, New Information on Old Topics

Remember when I said that going down your companionway steps is one of the most dangerous things you do on your boat? I just met a woman who knows this all too well. She fell going down her companionway steps a couple of months ago, breaking several ribs. Remember the corollary advice, that a cabin is a terrible place to fall into because there are so many things you can hit on the way down. I’m not happy that I was right about that one.

My chartplotter still doesn’t work right. West Marine told me the software needed to be updated. Someone with a PC loaded it onto a SanDisk for me. I put it in the chartplotter and nothing happened, so I took it all to West Marine. When they inserted it, a hidden window popped up that should have updated the software, but it didn’t happen. West Marine told me the SanDisk was empty, so I took it back to the fellow who had loaded it for me. He put it in his computer and found the software on the SanDisk. Meanwhile, the chartplotter’s depth sounder told me that I was in over 20’ of water – while I was aground, centered in a channel (that’s another story). So the chartplotter, which has an extended warranty, is going back to West Marine, and I am going to insist that they send it to Garmin. Stay posted and keep your paper charts handy! I know someone else who benefited from purchasing the extended warranty, and I am now officially recommending that.

The Cruisers and Sailing Forum continues to talk about how small boats should just get out of the way of big ships. They have been debating the meaning of “impede” in the COLREGS, but more and more people are saying, “Oh for heaven’s sake. Just get out of the way!” So far, none of those people have been kicked off the forum that I know of. I am glad that those people have not been kicked off, and I’m glad they’re not being harassed for displaying obvious common sense as well as expressing the true intent of the law.

The little boat aground by the Skyway Bridge is still there. We’ve had extreme low tides here lately (part but not all of the grounding incident mentioned above) because of strong north winds just blowing the water south, and with the water nearly gone it’s clear that the entire keel of the little boat is buried in sand. That boat isn’t going anywhere until Pinellas County decides to cut it up and haul it away. Whoever is the registered owner will get a big bill when that happens, so if you sell a boat, make certain that the new owner transfers the title, or you might get a salvage bill some day for a boat you thought you no longer owned. At least in Florida, boat titles are not controlled as tightly as car titles are.

Go to our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/boldlygosailing?skip_nax_wizard=true 

Cleaning Your Boat

     Or, I Didn’t Even Know It Was That Dirty!

Boats get dirtier than houses and apartments do, and faster than other homes do. I’m sorry to tell you this, but it’s true. You don’t climb around on the roof of your house and then walk into your living room with bird poop on the soles of your shoes. I don’t even know where all the dirt comes from, but it particularly gathers right inside the companionway entrance. Boats have many odd cracks and crevices inside, and they seem to come embedded with some kind of dirt magnet.

To reduce your interior cleaning, keep the outside of your boat clean. You might as well have the best cleaner you can for the job, because gelcoat stains easily, and around here, birds seem to find that entertaining. We are soon entering blackbird season here, and that means boat-cleaning season, because blackbirds love to eat some kind of dark berry that does not change color between entering and exiting said blackbird.

And, they love to flock at marinas. I have no idea why, but when I had my first boat at Gulfport Municipal Marina, I was so excited. I was going to scrub it, and then wax it, a two-day job. So I scrubbed that boat and got every bit of bird poop off. I came back the next day with the wax – but went back to scrubbing. There wasn’t any time to do any waxing by the time I was done. The same thing happened the third and fourth day.

The fifth day, I came back with a couple of tarps from Wal-Mart, and I tarped that boat. Bird poop comes off the aluminum side of a tarp with a hose, much much more easily than it comes off a boat’s surface. Within a week, five boats in the marina were similarly tarped.

Where I am now, we aren’t mobbed by blackbirds – thank goodness! But the boat still needs to be cleaned often. A friend recommended Barkeeper’s Friend, a non-abrasive powder that does an excellent job of getting stains, including rust, off the surface of a boat. Sometimes you have to use it several times, but if you keep coming back to it, you’re going to get all the stains out. It will also clean anything else on the boat. Barkeeper’s Friend is very cheap and a little goes a long way.

Barkeeper’s Friend has now come out with a new product, in a spray bottle. The liquid is very thick, and as with the powder, a little goes a long way. I found the old liquid Barkeeper’s Friend unsatisfactory, but this new spray, with a spray nozzle and the word “MORE” across its front, is outstanding.

 I used it on the PfiferTex netting around my cockpit, scrubbing both sides with a stiff brush and rinsing thoroughly with a hose, and it came out looking brand-new. It also gets green algae out of fabric (it was appearing on the zippers and in the Sunbrella Bimini). Always test in an inconspicuous place first, but I’ve never found it to fade or stain anything.

Get yourself some Barkeeper’s Friend, both the powder (which is not in a waterproof can) and the spray. You’ll find that you use it for many tasks.

Go to our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/boldlygosailing?skip_nax_wizard=true 

Aground and Comfy

     Or, Yes, it’s possible. 

You are more clever than you realize.

Fortune cookie

I actually had some pretty rough times with my first sailboat. Silver Girl was a 25’ Irwin “Citation,” only eight feet wide. She was a lot of fun to sail, but I was a beginner, and when I bought her I couldn’t imagine what scrapes I would get into, but I was sure there would be some.

I was right.

I’d learned the basics of sailing. The basics of using an outboard motor? That was more like a trial by fire. Hopelessly trying to save money, I had bought a used outboard motor. That proved to be disastrous, but I thought that motor was the exception, and bought a second used outboard motor to replace the first one. The unfortunate fact is that we don’t always learn from experience.

Exiting from the dock about 3PM on that day, we had wind from the east and a very high sandbar just to the west of us. Now, I knew that sandbar was there. Unfortunately the outboard motor died just as I was alongside that sandbar, and the wind immediately blew us aground. To make it worse, the deepest draft on my boat wasn’t the shoal keel but the very exposed rudder.

The tide was going out quite fast, so I wasted no time and called Eckerd College’s Search and Rescue program (EC-SAR). They had a very short distance to travel and got there quickly, but the water was already halfway between their feet and their knees, and still dropping. They walked around my boat with a depth pole, determined what my best path out would be, and took my anchor out. By now the water was so low that all they had to do was stomp it into the mud with their boots to set it.

They took my companion back to the dock to limit the amount of extra weight on the rudder. They made sure I had not only food and water but also a book and light to read by. They told me it would be a long wait. They were unwilling to tow my boat off because of the risk to the rudder, and they urged me to not let anyone else tow me off, either. They said something about 2AM. I thought, “OK, I’ll have to come back in at night.” I had battery powered green and red lights, and crawled carefully up to the bow (didn’t want any weight to shift on that rudder) and attached the running lights. The boat was already listing severely, but fortunately it seemed that the side of the boat was supporting it, and not the rudder.

So I read, and ate the prepackaged tuna fish and crackers I had on the boat, watched the sun set, and read some more. The boat kept listing further and further, and I thought, “How the heck am I going to be able to sleep?”

What I finally did was take a cockpit cushion and put it abeam in the cabin instead of pointing fore and aft. It stretched between the two settees below and was supported in the middle by a companionway step. Lying with my head to the high side, I was reasonably comfortable. I set my phone alarm for 2AM to bring the boat home, and drifted off to sleep.

Well, 2AM came. It was a glorious night with a full moon. I looked around the boat … and saw mud in every direction for at least 50 yards. I wish I had had a camera, because the scene was spectacularly beautiful. But -- EC-SAR had been telling me when LOW tide would be, not high tide.

This boat is almost as severely aground

as my poor Silver Girl was.

The tide had gone to Alaska. What could I do? I went back to sleep.

I had already bought line and a weight (a round zinc), and in the morning I made a sounding line. I put a knot in it every foot, with a double knot every three feet. I was able to see the water slowly rising. High tide was at noon that day, and at 11:45 AM, my boat FINALLY floated free.

LESSONS LEARNED: First, go ahead and make plans if you must, but always have a Plan B. Carry more food and water than you think you need, and be ready to tolerate long waits in good humor, because sooner or later, the act of sailing is going to cause you some major delays. If you’re due to arrive home on Sunday and absolutely have to be at work on Monday, you might want to plan on returning on Saturday instead. Sailboats are fundamentally undependable modes of transportation, and a big cushion of time is a good thing.

Second, when you first start to sail your own boat, look at tide predictions carefully. Mother Nature can change what the real high or low tides are for a given day, and the only way to judge that effect is by being familiar with what is typical for your area. I experienced an extreme low tide on this sail caused by the moon and the sun being lined up along with a fair amount of wind. Weather can also make tides either extremely high or extremely low.

Where I live, typically there is about  a two feet difference between high and low tides. Occasionally it’s as much as three feet. When Tropical Storm Debby came through, she blew a lot of water in front of her, and for three days, high tide was so high I couldn’t safely get off the boat. “Low” tide was what we typically experience on a very high tide. There was only about an hour in each tidal cycle where I could safely get on and off the boat. For most people, that would make it impossible for them to go to work. If you’re thinking about moving aboard, consider whether the combination of tide and weather will ever keep you from reporting to work. Most employers wouldn’t be happy about that as an excuse for not showing up.

OTHER LESSON LEARNED: The great majority of sailors simply do not sell an outboard motor they have found to be reliable. There are exceptions; I sold mine because it was just too big for my dinghy; but most of the used outboard motors out there are well past their prime. Shop cautiously!

*Source for photo: http://yachtpals.com/sailing-sailboat-aground-9100


Go to our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/boldlygosailing?skip_nax_wizard=true