Charts vs. Chart Plotters -- Yet Again

If you read my entry "Seasickness," you know that my last sail had its ups and downs. That's putting it midly. I became extremely sick. The Coast Guard rescued me from the boat I was on, and raced to me to shore to a waiting ambulance. I spent about 48 hours in the hospital, and my doctor and nurse practitioner are still following me closely for lingering effects.

The whole experience -- when I wasn't hanging my head over the side of the boat, that is -- was an interesting display regarding the debate between chart plotters and older methods of navigation.

The skipper of the boat I was on, Samantha Ring, is an unapologetic geek when it comes to navigation skills. We recently found out that our late friend Al Davis often used her as an example of one of the best students of celestial navigation he had ever had. Now, Samantha is young in years compared to me. She hasn't yet had the opportunity to do more than weekend hops on her boat. She teaches during the year, and anyone who has taught knows that this does not necessarily mean that your weekends are free. During the summer where she lives, while it is technically possible to sail, the winds are so light that it can be hard to travel any distance. In addition, the risk of afternoon storms combined with the dangers of coastal sailing in a storm off west Florida (lots of shallow water) mean that you go out early and come in early. That also limits the distance you can cover.

So the only reason Samantha had to learn celestial navigation was curiosity. This is a trait she holds in abundance, however. She has also learned extensively about coastal navigation.

In spite of this, I have been urging her to embrace the idea of adding a chart plotter to her set of tools and skills. She has actually been one of the people who believes that the cognitive skills of navigation are superior to electronic support, and after my most recent day on the water it would be hard to disagree with her.

Nevertheless, I talked her into having a chart plotter cable installed on her boat so she could do a test trial with my chart plotter and see if she might find it a useful addition. She was skeptical, but also is making a big leap shortly in the distance she's sailing, so she went along with it.

Unfortunately the installer connected it to dead wires and did not have time to correct this mistake before we left. But my goal was to show her that the two skill sets -- coastal navigation and using a chart plotter -- could work together, so I did the best I could with Navionics on my cell phone (it may be great on an IPAD or computer, but I have used it twice now on my phone and don't recommend it when used that way. IMO it's too clumsy for the small gain in information, but YMMV.)

Rather than try to snake her way through the many islands south of St. Petersburg without the rapid information a chart plotter provides, Samantha chose to go out to sea a bit and then angle in to our goal, Longboat Channel into Longboat Key. It was an ambitious plan for three reasons:

1) We had a much later start than anticipated

2) We had unexpected mechanical problems with the mainsail

3) The fuel gauge (which proved to be markedly inaccurate, as I understand it a fairly common occurrence on sailboats) led us to believe that we were much lower on fuel than we actually were. (I hope I remember to suggest to her to see if she could simply use a dipstick approach to her fuel tank. I can't on my boat, but she might be able to. I was too sick to go into the cabin, so I'm not really quite sure if her new fuel tank configuration would allow that.)

In the meantime, I was getting more and more sick. As skipper, it was Samantha's job to figure out the best way to get me to help, and trusting her to do this, I did not override her judgments. That turned out be very smart on my part.

I should state now that I also did not at any time look over her shoulder to check her calculations. Any movement made me more sick, and she was using my chart book, which suits a small cockpit better than larger charts. I was interested in protecting my chart book from my current medical state.

Samantha went below, knew immediately where her navigation aids were, and returned with dividers, hand bearing compass, parallel rulers, protractor, and two rotating wheels which she described as a "sailing slide rule." That last one is not something I'm familiar with but very curious about now. Some time when it is less likely that I would soil it rather badly, I want to get a look at it and what it can do. It wasn't covered in the coastal navigation class I took, which unfortunately emphasized ... chart plotters.
 
Using these tools while the 15 year old Sea Scout who was with us quite competently handled the boat by herself (in spite of never having single-handed before -- more about her later), Samantha was able to locate our position with remarkable precision. We know this because my phone had just enough battery left to confirm our location.

I have two observations about all of this, done when it really mattered (thanks, Samantha! You saved me from being a lot more sick than I already was.)

First, Samantha did a truly excellent job of navigating when it really counted.

Second, neither Boat US nor the Coast Guard were at first confident that she actually knew where we were. Why? Because we didn't have a chart plotter. THEY seemed to be so reliant on electronic aids that they did not believe Samantha when she reported our position using things like dividers and paper charts. They may well have had good reason for this. It is my suspicion that an awful lot of people don't know how to do it. I don't believe I could have done it as well as Samantha did (assuming I hadn't been sick).

I believe that part of what convinced the Coast Guard that they should come and get us was that over a half hour they got three reports from Samantha of our location, and that the three points reported made sense. By the way, Samantha was loathe to draw lines on charts that weren't hers, adding a new layer of complications that did not prevent her from doing the job well.

The Coast Guard found us efficiently, and something that has to be kept in mind in all of this is the nature of the typical coastal Coast Guard vessel. They are not really equipped for medical rescue. There was no stretcher or back board and it would have been a very bad idea anyway. There was no room in their little cabin for such apparatus. In the back of the boat, lying down simply was not an option. I needed all the physical strength I could manage to muster to be able to sit and hang on to that gun turret or whatever it was (it might have just been an incredibly stout stanchion for lines with a big hole drilled in the top for some other reason than a gun mount). If Samantha had delayed calling, I'm not sure I would have had that strength. I did crash somewhat later in the hospital, but that's a far better location than on a sailbot some miles off shore -- or even on the Coast Guard boat. She got me rescued in a timely way.

We knew the chart plotter wasn't going to work as we left the dock, but they can and do sometimes malfunction some distance into a trip, suddenly and unexpectedly. If I had been on a boat where no one had good coastal navigation skills, I could have ended up much more sick. No solution is perfect. Often it will be the skipper who has these skills, but what if it's the skipper who is sick? We could have just as easily gone on my boat, and I would have had no guarantee that my crew had these skills.

If that's your situation, get a backup chart plotter. I really dislike the handheld chart plotters, but they will give you latitude and longitude, which is all that's needed to get emergency help to your boat. I really do not recommend counting on your phone. You may be too far off the coast to get a signal, but in addition, the lack of sub-menus makes it much more difficult to find something as basic as latitude and longitude.

In fact, the difficulty of finding latitude and longitude in the Navionics program points to something else about the philosophical approach to the design of electronics navigation. Navionics, for instance,  focuses far more on establishing a route and using it as a track (something a modern chart plotter does fairly easily) than in just telling you where you are. I'm going to look for an app that just gives lat and long, because that's really all we needed. With rapid access to latitude and longitude, we could have confidently snaked ourselves through Mullet Key, Egmont Key, etc. At the push of a button we could have told the Coast Guard where we were.

Finally, Navionics depletes the phone battery quite rapidly. We did not have a DC charger with us (it's an easy thing to forget), and when it was dead, it was done. Using Navionics in the open Gulf we could turn it off, but near the shore you would want to leave it on.

I have seen people use Navionics on their phone quite effectively, but it has a steep learning curve, it doesn't do it nearly as well as a chart plotter, it is hard to see to program it in sunlight, and it uses a lot of battery up pretty quickly. Except in an emergency it gets a thumbs down from me.

I'll look and report on what I find regarding lat/long apps, but since I use an Android and most people seem to have Apples for smart phones, people should look on their own as well. T-Mobile, for instance (my provider), recommends that I use only T-Mobile tested apps, and my experience has suggested that this is true. While an I-Phone supposedly gives lat and long, it is also buried in the phone. The Coast Guard tried to lead Samantha through her phone to find it on her phone, apparently not trusting her navigation skills, but in Samantha's view it's the phone that failed. She never did find it and -- smartly -- asserted her status as skipper and insisted that they use the position she had plotted the old-fashioned way.

The weekend's experiences enhanced my opinion that both chart plotters and skilled use of paper charts are crucial, and not just for "serious" sailors. Going out on the water is a little dangerous, and it isn't right to abuse the system by forcing the Coast Guard to do a costly and time-consuming grid search because you didn't know how to figure out where you were.

Seasickness

Or, I Didn't Know it Could Happen to Me!

Somewhere in this blog I said once that seasickness can turn into a true medical emergency. I wish I could figure out where I said that so I could quote it now.

Last week my sailing club, BCYC, went on a three day sailing trip, Saturday through Monday. We planned to sail to Moore's Crab House on Longboat Key on Saturday, and then on Sunday go on to either Sarasota or Twin Dolphin Marina.

Meanwhile, age had started to catch up with me. I had an extremely sore knee, which my doctor's office determined to be caused by arthritis. Because I don't tolerate NSAIDS (as in, they could kill me), they put me on Prednisone. I was prescribed the standard blister pack, with a big dose the first day and then tapering off over the next five days. The Nurse Practitioner was sure my knee would be better in a few days with this.

That was Wednesday. Wednesday night and Thursday I took the big dose, and by Friday I had started tapering off. Unfortunately the blister pack fell out of my purse Friday night at the grocery store, so I missed a dose, but the pamphlet explained how to handle that, and the grocery store returned my pills to me Saturday morning, so I left on the weekend trip as a guest on someone else's boat. I was looking forward to it. She has a Catalina 27' and they can be a lot of fun to sail.

Unfortunately, the boat didn't have a chart plotter, and as three boats including my boat and her Catalina were planning on a 10-day trip in a few weeks, I convinced my friend to try my chart plotter. Another friend put in the cable at the last moment, but unfortunately soldered it to dead wires. He didn't have time to re-wire it before we left. So we had no chart plotter.

Samantha Ring, the skipper, is a good navigator, but we had gotten a late start and we wanted to get in before dark. "No worries," I said. "I have Navionics on my cell phone. I'll use that, and it will take us right to the entrance of Longboat Key Channel." It's a tricky entrance, and Samantha was glad to be able to be very precise about where it was.

So as we went out the Pass-A-Grille Channel, I huddled in the cockpit, with head down and hat shielding the sun so I could see the screen. This version of Navionics has few menus, probably to save on space, so it was a job to figure out how to do it, but after about 20 minutes I finally got a route in and it started tracking our boat.

Unfortunately, the channel had been quite rough, and I started to feel pretty sick. Next thing I knew, I was hanging my head over the leeward side calling -- several times -- for Ralph. It was fortunate, I thought, that I had eaten breakfast so early. My stomach was empty. I figured that was the end of that.

Well, it wasn't. Turns out that Prednisone has a tendency to trigger nausea. I got sicker, and sicker, and sicker. It didn't go away. Eventually I had dry heaves. I couldn't say two words without calling for Ralph in between them. Samantha was beginning to worry. We had had some mechanical problems with the boat that had delayed us. While the boat was now sailing very well, we didn't really know why the mechanical problem had happened, and we were afraid it might happen again. The fuel gauge said she was low on fuel.

I wasn't in a state of medical emergency yet, but it was close to 5PM, I was still retching, and it would be several hours before we got to shore. We both thought I might be in pretty rough shape by then.

Samantha triangulated a precise location for us and called the Coast Guard.  The Coasties initially weren't certain they needed to come, but after some debate (their flight surgeon finally said "Go get her!"), they came out and got me.

While I am extremely grateful to them, it was a terrifying ride. Their boat was moving at at least 50 mph forward (and about 80 mph up and down!) I had declined riding in the cabin because I saw nowhere I could call for Ralph without making a mess in there. I said I would ride in the back, and one of the Coasties rode with me, holding on to my life jacket. I was glad -- we were bouncing all over the place. I nearly landed on the floor a couple of times, and there was an open space in the gunnels I would have fit through! I looked inside the cabin. Those chairs had huge shock absorbers, and the three crew in the cockpit gently bobbed up and down. Meanwhile I was in the back, bouncing hard -- BANG! BANG! BANG!  I clung to what I think was a gun turret, very glad the gun wasn't there as it would have gotten in my way. I was soaked from ocean spray.

Somehow I made it in to the Cortez Bridge Coast Guard Station without soiling their boat. An ambulance was waiting to take me to a nearby hospital. I was glad to be on land!

We did not call for help too soon. While I seemed to finally be done bellowing for Ralph, I hadn't had any food since 6:30 AM, and had only had about 6 oz. of diet soda to drink since the boat had left the dook about noon. My blood chemistry was a little off, and the ER doctor invited me for an overnight stay. I really had no choice. I was in south Bradenton; I had no wearable clothes (never mind why); my car was up in Gulfport; and all my friends were 15 miles south of me. They had no cars either, but it didn't matter, because the battery on my phone was dead (Navionics uses up a lot of battery power) and I couldn't call anyone to bring me clothes and give me a ride home.

It was a good thing I stayed in the hospital. In the middle of the night they drew blood again, and I got the news Saturday morning: my blood chemistry had continued to go sour overnight, and I was now very sick. They were very glad I had opted for admission.

It was 3PM on Monday afternoon before I was released.

It turns out that Prednisone's tendency to trigger nausea is multiplied if you don't finish the blister pack. Oops.

Here's my point: even if your doctor tells you lots of information about what you're taking, even if the pharmacist buries you with details, you still don't know everything about that medication under all possible conditions. Or you might not be on any medications at all, but also not realize that you are about to come down with strep throat or a bladder infection, both of which can make you nauseous. At any time, there could be events sneaking up on you that could turn a minor bout of seasickness into a serious medical problem.

My seasickness did not become life threatening only because I got to the hospital when I did, but ... even though I was very sick on the sailboat, I did not have the classic symptoms of someone about to crash from dehydration. Only a blood chemistry analysis let the doctor know that I was actually headed for a medical cliff, and because I was already in the hospital, that was prevented. If we had waited for the classic symptoms of serious dehydration, I would have been in a whole lot of trouble by the time I got to the hospital. The flight surgeon knew something we did not: moving from "Oh spit I really don't feel good" to "How do you call 911 from a sailboat?" can happen very, very rapidly.

Talk to your doctor about how to manage seasickness. Experiment and find out how you react to Bonine, to Dramamine, to the little wrist bands (they don't work for me but some people swear by them), etc. Know yourself. If you're going on any kind of extended trip, have your crew try these things ahead of time as well.

Then talk to your doctor about the realities of sailing (in particular, being some hours from medical help) and ask what you can stock on your boat. I know they make rectal suppositories that can turn off nausea when someone can't keep anything in their stomach long enough to help. If we had had those suppositories on the boat, it might have saved me 2 days in the hospital, with, I think, a $125 deductible for each day for me to pay, plus $250 for my share of the ambulance. If I could have gotten the nausea under control, I could have drunk Gator-Ade, which includes the potassium I needed so desperately. It all might have been a non-event.

This, by the way, answers, forever for me, the question of whether I should *ever* use Navionics on my phone. Never. Again. Ever. Never. Using the chart plotter, you can still see the horizon. If you can see the horizon, you're less likely to get seasick.

I might have gotten sick anyway. I am now on a new blister pack of Prednisone ("You are NOT going sailing while you're on this, right?" the NP asked.) No ma'am. I've learned my lesson! Maybe because I have just been through so much, this round of Prednisone has made me a little nauseous. I've taken Prednisone before without any nausea, but not this time.

Seasickness really can turn into a medical emergency. I never thought it would happen to me, but it did. It is something to be prepared for.

...

Oh yeah -- one more piece of advice, probably something everyone on the planet with a cell phone except me knew: keep a list of emergency numbers with you. If I had done that, I still could have called a friend from the hospital phone. It wouldn't have changed my medical condition, but would have relieved me of the vision of me walking out of the hospital bare-assed!

T-Boned!

Or, This is why you should have a ditch bag!

In the photo below you'll see a sailboat that, until recently, was a racer frequently used by its owner. The owner did not belong to BCYC, but he frequently raced this boat in our races. You can see that the boat was taken care of. Although it might be due soon for a new bottom job, that bottom was squeaky clean.

About three days ago, he was sailing his boat in Boca Ciega Bay when he was suddenly T-boned -- hit right in the middle -- by a pontoon boat!

This is the result. It took less than two minutes for his sailboat to sink.

As sailors, we often talk about "right of way." In fact that isn't the phrase used any more. The Coast Guard now talks about the "stand on" vessel and the "give way" vessel. In the case of a sailboat under sail and a power boat (such as a pontoon boat) under motor power, the law is crystal clear: the sail boat is the "stand on vessel," under normal circumstances expected to maintain its course and speed. The "give way" vessel is the one under motor power, and is required to change course in order to avoid a collision. 

However, things are rarely that cut-and-dried on the water. The over-arching rule from which all other rules branch is, "Do everything possible to avoid a collision." This means that you can't "stand your ground" and say "but I was the stand-on vessel!" Even if you are the only person on your boat, you are required to keep a lookout. That means swiveling your head like an owl -- constantly -- when you're by yourself on your boat. It may be that this sailor's view of the oncoming vessel was blocked by his headsail, a common occurrence. But it is then his responsibility to move about the cockpit or do whatever else is necessary to know what is on the other side of that headsail. "The headsail blocked my view" is an incictment, not a defense.

On the other hand, the driver of the pontoon boat had the same responsibility, and no big sails to block his view. I've heard this story from several people who all repeated the same details, so I suspect it's true: when he hit the sailboat, he had dropped his cell phone and was searching the bottom of his boat to retrieve it. 

"Don't text and drive" applies every bit as much when on the water as it does when behind the wheel of a car.

Both skippers will probably be found to be at fault to some degree; that is nearly always the case under maritime law. However, it is possible that the pontoon boat was coming so fast at the sailboat that the sailor had no chance to change course and avert a collision. If that's the case, the blame will be entirely on the operator of the pontoon boat.

The rules regarding which is the "stand on" vessel and which is the "give way" vessel can be complicated, but always keep the #1 rule in mind: do whatever is necessary to avoid a collision -- if you can.

Sailing in Gusty Winds -- a great link!

People who have sailed for many years mostly know this information, but this blog is for people with less experience, and one of the more challenging situations for newer sailors is when the weather turns gusty. You could be unexpectedly caught in gusty weather for a number of reasons. You might have expected to get back in long before the bad weather hit, but something goes wrong and you don't make it.

You need to know how to handle gusty weather. Not only will you and your companions be uncomfortable otherwise -- someone could be hurt. They could be moving toward the head when a gust hits and fall in the cabin (fall in the cabin and you're very likely to have a bad fall), or sprain something when thrown off balance, or be hurt while moving forward to deal with something.

The webpage listed below covers what to do extremely well. I'll just make a few comments in case the information doesn't quite make sense. Here's the website:

http://learntosail.hubpages.com/hub/Three-Sailing-Tips-for-Less-Heel-in-Gusty-Breezes

And here's the core, with my comments in blue:

"1. Luff up on a Gust
Watch the water to windward. Look for dark, ruffled spots that signal the arrival of a gust. Point up toward the wind just before the gust arrives. This will luff the forward part of your sails and depower them--but keep the boat driving and on her feet!"

 Start learning to read the surface of the water now. The surface does change as the wind changes. On a light wind day, you can see puffs of stronger wind coming to take advantage of them. On rough days, you can see them coming and strategize.

So what does "luff up" mean? It means to make the sales "luff," or shake. It typically (but not always) starts at the luff, or leading edge, of the sail. You make the sail luff by steering more directly into the wind. A sailboat pointing into the wind can't sail because it can't catch any wind, and it can't use the sails as an air foil. The boat is depowered, which is what you need in too much wind. You need to depower the sails. This is one way to do it, and if the gusts are significant, you need to be in position before the gust hits.

You can also steer into the wind as you feel the wind rising. Gusts often occur on a curve -- the first increase will not be the peak, and you still have time to ease its impact on your boat, but also learn to read the waves.

What does "still driving the boat" mean? The writer is suggesting that you don't point the boat completely into the wind -- just enough to weaken the effects of wind on your sail. You're still moving, and the boat is "on her feet" -- not heeling excessively.

So what this is really about is steering. Now, steering is easier when the boat is in balance, which is covered a little further below.

"2. Ease your Sheets / Back your Blocks
Move the mainsheet car down the traveler track to leeward. Ease the mainsheet a few inches. Then, set your headsail sheet blocks back a few holes along the Genoa tracks. These actions cause the top of your sail to open--or twist--to spill high octane wind up high. This keeps heel down for a more balanced boat."

What's the "mainsheet car?" I could show you a picture of mine, but yours might look different. The "traveler track" moves across the beam of the boat. Sometimes it's across the cabin top, as mine is. Sometimes it's in the floor of the cockpit, right in front of the companionway. Sometimes it's at the back of the boat. Some smaller boats don't have travelers -- my little 25' Irwin didn't have one.

If you have a traveler, you release both traveler lines, and then pull on the leeward line. If the wind is coming over your port side, you pull on the starboard traveler line, and move the sail controls to starboard. This causes "twist" at the top of the sail. You can spot this because the curve of the leech -- the back edge of the sail -- will now have a more exaggerated curve in it, especially toward the top. This makes the sail more inefficient. It's an easy and quick way to depower your mainsail. If the gust was significant enough to make your boat heel too much, she should immediately settle down and heel less, what the author means by "keeping heel down."

But what does a "more balanced boat" mean? Without getting technical, the more balanced the boat is, the less physical exertion it takes to steer the boat. But it *also* means that the boat is more in control. Using the traveler to move the sail to leeward is a quick and effective method to "spill the mainsail" so it can't hold as much wind. You have effectively, temporarily turned your mainsail into a smaller sail.

OK, so what does "back your blocks" mean? The sheets for your headsail come back to the cockpit after being led through a moveable block that sits on a long track. The position of that block can dramatically affect the shape of your headsail. When the winds pick up, adjusting your mainsail as described above may not be enough to get your boat back in balance and sailing easily (which you judge easily by the amount of effort needed to steer her). If you move those blocks back toward the stern, you ... twist the headsail as well, causing wind to spill out of the top, and in effect, making your headsail smaller. 

Now, this isn't as easily (or as safely) done as adjusting the traveler. To move the blocks you have to first notice where the load is. Which is the working sheet? Well, in the scenario above, the wind was coming across the port side of the boat (a "port tack"). This makes the STARBOARD sheet carry the load. The port sheet is slack. So that's the one to adjust first, even though it won't change the sail. Slide it back as much as you think you need. Now, if you've gone out and practiced, you'll be able to make an educated guess. If you haven't practiced that yet, then your rule of thumb might be -- the stronger the gusts are, the more you should move it back.

Now you have to move the loaded block, and that can be more dangerous. You have two choices.

First choice is to switch to a starboard tack. The problem with that choice is that tacking isn't a lot of fun in rough water and winds that are overpowering your boat. It's not impossible, but make sure there's no one in the cabin and that everyone is secure (they do have PFD's on, right?) After the tack, your starboard sheet will be the "lazy" sheet and you can move the block toward the stern easily.

If tacking seems like a bad idea (whoever works the sheet is going to have to pull hard and fast on the new working line, and the helmsman should watch his or her progress, and not complete the turn until the new working sheet is under control and tight enough), here is how to move the block while the sheet is under load:

Always remember: ONE HAND FOR YOU AND ONE FOR THE BOAT. Don't use both hands doing this in rough water. 

Step firmly on the working jib sheet FORWARD of the block. Keep the tension on that sheet with your foot, hold on to something firm (not just a life line, but a stanchion or cabintop handhold, or bimini frame if it's very secure), and slide the block back. If you have to do this more than once to make sure you are holding on to the boat, so be it. You can do this twice. 

If you have two people on the boat, that second person should be on the helm. You'll be standing on the high side of the boat, and that will make it easier for you to do this.
 
"3. Reef your Sails
Combine the first two actions with sail reefing. One of the great misconceptions in sailing is that reefing is a heavy weather tactic. Nope--it's a balancing tactic. Reef earlier than you think necessary. Reduce or change out the headsail. Tuck a reef or two in to the mainsail. Reefing keeps the boat on her feet and the helm light as a feather."

 If you're going to change your headsail, please be aware of the weather before you are in it, and change the sail before it's actually needed. Changing a headsail can be extremely dangerous in high winds and/or rough water. When a boat is out of balance, the bow bounces around and moves unpredictably. If you slip up and the sail goes into the water, do you know what you have to do? You have to whip out your knife, cut the sail free and let it go, because a sail in the water at the bow can sink a boat. 

So do it while the winds are low.

Another option is to partially furl your roller furler, but understand that if you do that more than a couple of times it will permanently deform your headsail. This is not something covered by insurance, even though it's weather related. The result is that your headsail will always perform more inefficiently, and your boat will slow down some. Well, that's life -- safety first, but if you pay attention to the weather, you may avoid having to use your headsail in this way.

There's a hidden, important message in all of this: how the helm feels may be your best sign of whether it's time to twist the sails, and if that doesn't do the job, to start reefing.

What this all means is that you mustn't be shy about taking your boat out, little by little, in stronger winds than you're used to. If you're used to 10 mph winds, take her out in 15. Sail her on all points of sail. Make judgments about whether your boat needs to be reefed at this point. Some smaller boats probably should be reefed at 15 mph. 

Then take her out at 18 mph, and then 20, etc. Most people are not this methodical (and it's not typical for me, but I realized that sailing was a little more risky for me than some other people, and I just made myself do it. I am now convinced it's a good idea for all newer sailors.)

Three simple tips in that article -- simple for experienced sailors, that is. As you take your boat out for recreational cruises, pick one new skill to practice each time. Then when the ship hits the fan, you'll already know how to execute the excellent tips in that article. 



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Your Autopilot Could Throw you in the Drink -- Really!

I'm a big fan of autopilots. Some people call them their "invisible crew member" or some other crew nickname that shows just how valuable they can be. If you're single-handing, for instance, the autopilot can keep your bow pointed into the wind while you raise the sails. No one ever told me what I'm going to tell you now, though. I heard "You should have an autopilot" over and over, but not one person said, "However, it can throw you in the water" -- until I said it. Then others agreed with me. I think it's just a good rule of thumb that anything you put on your boat will bring risks as well as benefits.

There's a saying about sailing that the number of errors equals the number of crew members -- squared. This includes your autopilot, because they can malfunction, and they can do so unpredictably and at just the wrong time -- just like humans.

An untended autopilot caused another boat to hit mine once. My helmsman had turned the helm over and was on my cabintop photographing the boat that ended up hitting me at the time, so we know exactly what happened. The "skipper" of the other boat 1) had his boat on autopilot, and 2) wasn't at the helm. The photos very clearly show him sitting on a side bench next to his cabin top, nowhere near the helm.

Sorry, but autopilots aren't really crew members, and a human has to be at the helm at all times. If common sense didn't tell you that, maritime law does.

Why is this important? His boat was sailing very fast, at least seven knots. He was only about ten feet away from us, silly really since we weren't racing and there was plenty of room.

So when his autopilot suddenly hiccuped and turned his boat 90º to port, at his speed even if he had known what was going on, he wouldn't have had time to steer away. His boat went right across the stern of my boat, leaving his bottom paint behind. His anchor hit my split back stay. It probably would have pulled the whole rig down except that the stay had a plastic PVC cover on it. The anchor, thankfully, rolled off the stay, damaging only the cover.

Autopilots can do that. They can be steering the boat dependably for quite some time. Then a wave hits the rudder wrong, or the power hiccups, or -- you won't always know why, but the boat suddenly makes a hard, lurching, and completely unpredictable turn.

If this happens to your boat and you're on deck somewhere instead of in the cockpit, and you're moving at 6 - 7 knots, that sudden turn can throw you into the water.

So what do you do? Because we all know we're not going to give up our autopilots.

First of all, any time you're relying on autopilot while you move around the boat, slow the boat down to the minimum speed you need to maintain steerage. That's whether you're going on deck or below decks, because you don't want to be thrown around in the cabin either. I suggest that you slow down  even if you have someone at the helm, because humans can control for things like errant waves in ways that electronic gadgets cannot. It's all about keeping the person who is out of the cockpit safe.

Second of all, always remember the old rule, "One hand for the boat, and one for yourself." Don't be up on deck doing something with both hands, and nothing to hold on to. If you have to use both hands, then you should be tethered. For instance, if you're reefing the boat, clip the tether to your PFD, wrap it twice around the mast if it's long, and then clip it to your PFD again. I know someone who did that as a storm approached. The wind hit before he was done reefing, and his boat heeled over nearly 90º. He was knocked off the cabintop but stayed on the boat, which saved his life.

Autopilots are terrific. They let you go down to the head, or grab a sandwich, or get that CD you want. Used intelligently in open waters (not near other boats, for instance -- please, I don't want to be hit again, and you really don't want to hit another boat), they are a tremendous asset. Just remember that they introduce a new element of risk along with all that tremendous convenience.

Beyond this, ALWAYS ask yourself when you get a new piece of equipment: "OK, I know the good it can do -- what can it do that's bad?" A preventer can keep you from a dangerous jybe when you're sailing downwind. I don't know how many times I've heard that. However, only one person ever pointed out that if you attach it to the boom in the wrong place, it can bend (destroy) your boom.

We're all newer sailors here, but I know for a fact that people who have been sailing for more than 60 years are still learning things. Complicating this process is the fact that we don't know what we don't know. So we don't know that the autopilot can send us for a swim, or that the preventer can bend the boom. Take all the things you have on the boat and make sure you know the downsides as well as the upsides. The internet can be a great help, but use it with caution, as the internet is packed with misinformation, some of it dangerous. As you keep poking around, you'll start to get a sense for what is and isn't likely to be true.

This one is true: your autopilot can pitch you in the drink. Turn it off if you have crew and put someone on the helm before you leave the cockpit. If you're by yourself, slow it down to steerage speed.

And have fun out there!

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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. 

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IT'S A BIRD … IT’S A PLANE … IT’S A … FREIGHTER???

     Or, DANG – those things move fast! 

_______

May 2, 2013

     A loaded supertanker traveling at normal speeds takes 20 min. to stop.

Unless you sail only on smaller inland lakes, sooner or later you’re going to have to deal with narrow shipping channels. Shipping channels are dredged out to be deep enough to let freighters and cruise ships travel from port out to sea, or through the Great Lakes, or up and down major rivers, without risk of running aground. We have an important shipping channel in and outside of Tampa Bay.

You may not have yet taken a boating safety course. If you haven’t, you may not know it, but these very big ships always have the right of way in those channels. You, as the smaller boat, cross those shipping channels (and you do cross them, not use them) at your peril.

There may be a shipping channel near to where you typically sail. If so, you have probably seen large freighters, or perhaps cruise ships, from a distance. Here’s what you need to know about them:

They move very, very, fast, and

They stop very, very slowly.

As the quote above says above, it can take a freighter 20 minutes to come to a full stop. What’s more, if you’re close to them, they cannot see you. Even if they could, they couldn’t do anything to avoid you. They can’t leave that channel. If they hit you, they will not be considered at fault.

Many sailors have heard that boats under sail have the right of way, and that motorized vessels must give way. Up to a point, that’s true, but that rule is true because of the bigger rule – right of way is determined by how maneuverable each boat is – not how it is powered. Generally speaking, a sailboat is less maneuverable than a powerboat of comparable size. But freighters and cruise ships aren’t very maneuverable at all when they’re in a shipping channel.

I photographed this freighter as it was moving toward the Skyway Bridge and the Port of Tampa. As I approached the shipping channel, I could see it off in the distance. I did not use any zoom on this photo. Very rapidly, this freighter was not far from me at all. If I hadn’t been paying attention, I could have ended up in the shipping channel with a huge ship steaming down on me, unable to stop. Either I would get out of the way, or it would crunch me and my boat into little bitty pieces.

Any time you are anywhere near a shipping channel, scan early and often for those big babies. Shipping channels use the same markers as the channels used by pleasure craft (in other words, us), so they’re easy to spot. You do the same thing you do to make sure you’re in your channel: you spot two red or two green, and line them up. That will show you where the shipping channel is. It will also be clearly marked on your chart plotter.

As you approach the shipping channel, turn your engine on (make sure no lines are dragging in the water first). You can leave it in neutral, but if you should suddenly realize there’s a big ship near you, you can use that extra power to maneuver. Never try to beat a freighter or cruise ship: that’s like trying to beat a train at a railroad crossing. It’s just not worth it. Tack, or gybe, or use your engine, and just get out of the way until that ship has passed. And take a good look at how fast it’s really traveling.

Do You Want Your Keel Under the Boat or IN the Boat?

     Or, the coast is not always your friend!

In rough water, or in rough weather, you need to move away from the shore. I’m not kidding. This is serious stuff.

I know. It’s counter-intuitive. Most newer sailors want to stay close to shore, and especially in a storm, which is scarier than sailing in calm weather. A lot of newer sailors worry about falling out of the cockpit when the boat heels, and shallow water feels safer. How many times did your mother tell you not to go into the deep end of the swimming pool when you were little?

But you’re not in a swimming pool. You’re on a sailboat. You’re not going to fall out of the cockpit (even in a bad storm there are very good ways to keep that from happening, honest!) And, in your swimming pool, if a storm develops, you just get out of the pool and go inside. It isn’t quite that simple on a sailboat in a storm.

Storms are not static, and they’re not completely predictable. They can pop up on what seemed like a perfect day to sail. They can move or remain stationary. They can expand, contract, and even rotate. They can join other storms. They can develop right over you. The point of this is that you can’t necessarily predict where the wind will come from (unless you are a very unusual beginning sailor with lots of weather forecasting experience), and the fact is that the wind direction can shift on you during that storm.

Why does that matter? It matters because you need to keep your boat in deep water during a storm. You don’t want to be caught near what is called a “lee shore.” That doesn’t mean the storm is on the other side of the island. It means the wind is blowing you toward the shore. The wind is to the windward side, and the shore is to the leeward side, of your boat. The wind is pushing your boat toward shore. Even if you don’t have a lee shore right now, the waves may be pushing you toward the shore, because it takes a while for the water to change direction after a wind change. In other words, the wind may be pushing you in one direction while the waves push you in another (and in shallow water, that situation is a real mess!) Either way, it’s not an ideal situation. And, you can’t assume that the wind direction you have now will remain where it is. A wind shift could suddenly put you next to a lee shore, and you might have a hard time getting out to deeper water. Better to move there sooner rather than later.ß

So then, think about scary things you’ve seen about boats: they can break, and then they sink – or have you not seen the movie “Titanic?” Water doesn’t break boats -- "Poseidon" is a fiction movie. Boats hitting hard things break boats.

Don’t break the boat. You avoid that by staying away from hard things that can break it, like icebergs … and the ocean’s bottom. In deep water, the ocean (or lake) bottom is farther away from your keel. That’s what you want.

Where I live, the danger near the shore is generally shallow water. (It’s even worse in some other places, where the shallow water includes hidden, big, sharp rocks.) When the water gets rough, a number of things happen in shallow water.

·      The waves tend to break. That makes rough water even rougher.

·      The waves tend to come closer together. That makes the water not only rougher, but harder to manage as well. The water can even get very confused, much like a giant, front-loading washing machine. Do you really want to try to pilot your boat through a giant, front-loading washing machine? No, I didn’t think so. The waves will be easier to handle, and you and your crew will be much more comfortable, away from shore.

·      The waves tend to push you toward ever more shallow water. If you have any other problems – and you may well have other problems by this point, because things often go wrong in clusters (see my personal experience story, “Out of the Bathtub!”) – it will be much harder now to move your boat back out to deeper water.

·      Now you’re really in trouble, because the waves have been bouncing your boat up and down, and other things have gone wrong, and now it’s all happening in shallow water. I know someone this happened to, and the breaking waves banged his boat against the bottom in the shallow water, and  drove the keel right through the bottom of his boat. His boat sank in four feet of water. No one was hurt, but the boat was totaled.

·      Many boats have unprotected rudders, and in these circumstances, your rudder may end up broken, and then you won’t be able to steer. Three guesses how I know …

So what do you do? Turn your boat away from the shore – and before all these things start to happen (using at least a 45º angle through the waves – experiment in calmer water to see how she goes through best, and you'll probably find that 45º isn't enough). If you’re scared, tell everyone to put on PFDs (if you’re scared, you should be more scared in shallow water). Employ all your other safety devices – tethers, drag line, etc. It’s very unlikely that you’ll need any of it, but you’ll feel better, and feel more in control. What you don't want is for the waves to hit the side of your boat. That will be the roughest, and the scariest, way to ride it out. If you have to make a big turn, do it between waves so you don't get caught with the waves "abeam," or hitting the side of the boat.

If there is someone on your boat who is highly experienced, don’t be ashamed to turn the helm over to him or her.

LESSON LEARNED: There’s a lot more you need to know about sailing your boat in rough water, even as a newer sailer, and you really do need to know it. Buy yourself a copy of Sailing For Dummies, and do it today. Then read it very carefully. It is an outstanding book for newer sailors, and as you’ll see in my story about the time this happened to me, it really helped me. I did turn the boat out to sea, over the protests of the equally inexperienced person with me, and it’s a good thing, because we did have a cluster of failures. But we didn’t get thrown into the water, no one got hurt, and we didn’t break the boat. That’s a good outcome.

Rough water doesn’t have to be a crisis. If you think there’s any chance of rough water, and any chance that you will get seasick, take something like Bonine in a timely way. Encourage your crew to do so as well. One or more people on the boat incapacitated by sea sickness is one of those things that can contribute to a “cluster of things that go wrong.” If you get caught in a difficult situation, you need everyone able to help out. It sounds trivial, but seasickness can completely incapacitate a person -- and even turn into a true medical emergency from dehydration.

Should you just try to get to safe harbor? Well, I’m assuming you paid enough attention to the weather that you know this is only a thunderstorm, and not a hurricane you thought you could just dodge. But thunderstorms can move at up to 60mph, and I’m pretty sure your sailboat can't go that fast. If you try to get into a safe harbor, there’s a very good chance that you will only succeed in putting yourself close to shore, or even worse, in a channel in very rough water. If your boat has an outboard motor, it’s an even worse choice, because an outboard won’t be any help in confused waters, and in fact you could ruin it as it keeps bobbing out of the water with no access to cooling. 

However, that's all a judgment call. If the storm is just forming and is currently far away, that's the time to head for safe harbor (which could just be a little cove sheltered from the likely direction of the wind). If you do that, put an anchor out -- two, if you have them (and you should have two). The storm might be parallel to you at the moment. I say don't do it, but friends did it in Biscayne Bay when I was on their boat. We headed in the moment the skipper saw signs of a storm forming -- he saw gathering haze and didn't gamble. We got in just before a really big storm hit. 

Riding out a storm may not be fun. You may get wet – but it’s just water. You may get seasick, but you won’t be sick forever. The ride may be rough, but the storm will end. You don’t want to be caught in a pounding surf with a keel under you and crashing waves abeam, with no way to turn the boat. Get your boat into deeper water in a timely way.

---

ß This is where you have to have that “I’m the skipper” attitude, because you cannot allow debates over whether or not to move the boat away.  Moving the boat away from shore may upset or scare someone on your boat. But it is your boat, and your insurance, and you are responsible for the boat and passengers’ safety – not the scared person who doesn’t know about lee shores in a storm yet. STICK TO YOUR GUNS and don’t allow a debate. YOU are skipper; YOU make the crucial decisions for your boat unless you are CERTAIN the other person knows more than you. Even then, I would still move the boat away from shore. It won’t hurt anything to do that.