Update on Replacing Navionics on my Phone

I went to the T-Mobile store online and found at least eight different programs supported by my phone that will give latitude and longitude. That's pretty much all the one I chose does, but it does so at the touch of one icon.

Then I went to Wal-Mart for something else in the electronics section, and found a plug-in power supply for my phone. The package says it will last "up to two hours." That would probably not be more than 30 minutes if running Navionics on it, but if one was smart in an emergency, and only used it for short phone calls and a quick lat and long check (skipping Navionics entirely), and turning the phone off in between, it might last much longer.

It does use a special dedicated battery, so after what I went through in the hospital with a dead phone and (stupidly) no paper list of important phone numbers, I got two spare batteries.

This gadget and its batteries will be dedicated to the boat. If I decide I need one for everyday life, I will get a second one to put in my purse or car (car batteries can cut out on you). It will also go with me any time I sail on someone else's boat.

I'm sure they make such apps for IPhone, and I'm certain they have a supplemental battery pack for IPhones as well.

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.

Wearing Gloves ...

or, Someone Really Could Die!

This happened in the marina I live in recently. A man was climbing up his very tall mast, with his wife on the halyard as a safety line.

I don't know what went wrong at the mast, but he slipped, and he needed that safety line to catch him. I also don't know what went wrong in the cockpit, but she did not have gloves on, and could not hold the line. It burned her hands and she had to let go.

He fell 70 feet.

What happened next was like something out of a movie. Instead of hitting the deck, he hit the Bimini. It gave just enough to cushion his fall. Then it split, and he fell through the Bimini to the cockpit, which hurt him more than the fall from the mast did. However, he was not seriously hurt.

I'm not opposed to wives handling the halyard when someone goes up the mast. I do it myself.

However: I always have gloves on, and I always hold the line firmly, with the assumption that this person is going to fall in the next split-second. I have his life in my hands, and that's how I treat it. 

But gloves aren't just for the tasks that are obviously hazardous from the beginning. Just about anything you do on a boat has the potential to become suddenly hazardous. Suppose you fall off your boat at the dock? It's remarkable just how common that is. If you have gloves on, your hands won't get cut by barnacles, and you'll have a much easier time getting out of the water. If you, say, broke an ankle going in, that could be important, especially if you're by yourself. 

I know someone else whose transmission on her smallish sailboat stuck in forward just as she was coming in to dock. She turned the engine off, and made her best guess about going in circles to slow it down before entering her slip, but she didn't get it *quite* right. Since she had gloves on, she was able to grab a line strung between the pilings and physically stop the boat. 

in a storm or rough seas, the stresses on the sheets multiply You can actually pull harder with gloves on than without them. Try it some time. As I've pointed out in other articles, weather can turn sour very quickly. If you already have gloves on, that's one less thing you have to do in the precious few minutes you may have before the ship hits the fan.

And ladies, shake the hand some time of an experienced sailor who doesn't wear gloves. Trust me -- you don't want your hands to feel that rough! If only for vanity's sake, gloves are the answer. They also help tremendously if the diameter of the line you have to pull on is small. My traveler would be an example of that, as is the line on many roller furlers.

While we're at it, I'm going to come down firmly on the side of wearing shoes -- and closed-toe shoes. Once again, if you fall in, you won't cut your feet on barnacles, and you'll have a much easier time getting out of the water. Now, I have a very dear friend whose opinion I highly respect, who can show you the research demonstrating that bare feet grip the deck best. That may well be, but that was only a grip test. It wasn't a "How many body parts can you injure in a storm?" test. I know someone who sailed to Key West in what should have been a good weather window, but he and his crew still got caught in a storm strong enough to knock them around. They came out on the other side of it with a concussion, cracked ribs, and a broken arm. Oh yeah -- the fellow in the open-toed sandals had a broken toe. They didn't have one person fit to sail the boat, although by working together they managed to get to a safe port.

Sailing gloves are like seat belts. When seat belts first came out, lots of people grumbled and said things like "You can't MAKE me wear it!" (Of course, now they can ...) but I was a young teenager, and my parents said, "Actually, yes, we CAN make you wear it." It became a habit, and now I'm not comfortable in a car unless it, and the shoulder harness, are on. I view sailing gloves in the same way. It's not something worth getting flapped over, and like my seat belt, they may never be the difference between life and death, but the restraint system in my car certainly was the difference between minor injuries and major injuries once. That's how I look at sailing gloves, and I urge you to make them part of your routine.

Are You Really Gaining Experience ....

or are you just getting experienced at being lucky?

Most people who live along the Gulf of Mexico will remember an incident from several years ago. Four football players went out fishing on the Gulf of Mexico with tragic results. While the four men were missing but not yet found, one of the wives said, "I'm hopeful, because they're experienced boaters."

As it turned out, they weren't experienced in boating safely. They were experienced at being lucky, and on that day, their luck ran out.

At my sailing club, we were all surprised to hear they were 50 miles or so off shore -- at their favorite fishing spot -- because we had all known for days that a major front was coming through. It was March of 2009, and it's just a fact of life in Florida that fronts can come through and get the Gulf all riled up. Sailors and boaters should never ignore the weather, but especially January through March, when the fronts from the north can really make a mess out of the mostly shallow Gulf of Mexico.

But apparently these fellows were not aware of the fairly severe weather forecast. We noted at the club that not one person there had taken their boat out. In addition, the four fishermen were on a center console fishing boat. These boats are not designed for offshore use. They had been lucky in the past regarding the weather, and that luck had extended to using a boat inappropriate for the fishing they wanted to do.

Their luck ran out in March of 2009. They added to their problem by trying to retrieve an anchor that had set itself so hard that they couldn't get it back up. That can happen in rough water: the bow rises and falls, and with each rise and fall, the anchor sets itself more strongly. This can be a very good thing. You don't want your anchor dragging if you have to use it in a storm.

They compounded their problems by being determined to retrieve that anchor. When they couldn't get it up from the bow, they tied the end of the anchor rode to the stern of the boat, and then drove the boat forward. This can work ... when you're pulling a bush out of the ground with your car. (This is one more example of how driving a boat is completely different than driving a car). It can be a really bad idea in a boat. Boat vs. anchor, and the anchor won. It pulled the stern under (probably the waves helped), and the boat completely capsized.

If a sailboat capsizes, it is likely to right itself. The rigging may be destroyed, and you may have sailors injured and/or in the water, but they typically right themselves. This is not true of power boats.

So now they had four people in the water clinging to an upside down boat. One of the men dived under the boat and retrieved PFD's and water (they should have had their PFD's on already in rough water). Very sadly, three out of the four men drowned.

You may be doing something over and over that is a really bad idea, even though it has not made problems for you -- yet. One example might be running your engine harder than it should be run. My engine manufacturer tells me to never, ever run the engine above 3600 rpm. So I watch the RPM gauge, right?

Not exactly. I allow for a margin of error, because I'm not guaranteed that that RPM gauge is completely accurate. A friend just had his engine worked on, and one of the things the mechanic did was use a separate, digital tool to test how accurate his RPM gauge was. They discovered that his gauge was off by 400 RPM: when it read 3200, the engine was really running at 3600 -- redline for his engine also.

You might not be in the habit of routinely securing loose things below. Then a storm pops up unexpectedly, and you have damaged belongings in your cabin. Or, very commonly, you don't visit your boat often enough. I know of one person whose boat almost sank over a split hose, and another person who did have her boat sink over a split hose. These people aren't checking and working their seacocks, either, because they're not at their boats to do it. They're also not periodically starting their engines. Diesels love to run -- under load, not just idling -- and not doing this is not a good thing. I looked at a boat that was sailed often but not maintained well enough. The oil, when the engine was cold, was literally as thick as peanut butter. No way was I going to buy such a boat. The owners had gotten lucky and not had any serious engine issues because of their neglect of the oil. However, I wonder how the person who bought that boat fared. I know someone else who had a lot of water in her cabin. She didn't have time to sail, so she wasn't checking her boat. Her stuffing box was leaking, and the float valve on her bilge pump was sticking. Her boat also could have sunk. Her problem was spotted because she did the responsible thing and hired someone to do some basic maintenance.

You may be doing things as you sail that are not only inefficient but dangerous as well. Your best protection if you're a newer sailor is to actively network with other sailors. Don't be embarrassed to tell about the things that have gone wrong. Walk away from someone who sees this as a chance to look down their nose at you (they're out there), but cultivate the people who can show you what to learn from your experience. There is no more valuable friend a newer sailor can have.


https://www.facebook.com/boldlygosailing?skip_nax_wizard=true 

Dirty Fuel

or, Good heavens -- you have to clean EVERYTHING!

I have had this experience with both outboard and diesel engines. I've never had a gas inboard (ex: Atomic 4), so I can't speak to that.

You wouldn't think anything could grow, thrive and even make huge problems in something that seems as noxious to us as diesel fuel, but unfortunately (as the fellow said in JURASSIC PARK) -- life seems to find a way.

There are critters, most typically a type of algae, who think your tank of diesel is heaven on Earth. Unfortunately like all life forms, they reproduce. Unfortunately like all life forms, they also die.

Once they've died, they settle to the bottom or stick to the sides of your tank, where they may make no problems for years. They may not show up as dirt in either of your fuel filters. They may, however, gather in your fuel line.

You may have no awareness of this until something disturbs either your fuel lines or your fuel tank. 

I have often said that my experience is not as extensive as many, but I have sailed intensively since I started, and I have had several experiences with dirty diesel fuel. Fortunately for me, the first time it happened, I was on someone else's boat. He had been in a three-day race in early January. Now, sailing off Florida in January can be pretty dicey, because when fronts come through from the North, they often pack a punch. On the East coast, the northern wind pushes against the Gulf Stream, which flows roughly from south to north at a pretty good clip. When the two collide, very large waves (especially for newer sailors like us) can be the result. You want to check the weather carefully before crossing the Gulf Stream any time, but in winter it is often a problem.

On the west coast where I live, we have a different set of problems. We get the same north winds, this time blowing over lots of open, relatively shallow water. A minor front can create 8' waves in the Gulf of Mexico near the shore, with even larger waves further off shore. 

But none of this mattered to my friend, who is a master sailor and ardent racer. Nothing stops him, and with his experience he has a solution for everything. One race unfortunately coincided with a stalled front, and winds were high and the waters rough throughout the race. When one of his crew members got so seasick she was dizzy and disoriented, making bad judgment calls and a danger to herself, the rest of the crew simply tied her to the mast so there was no risk of her going overboard. 

His boat performed well in the race, but then he had to move his boat from Clearwater back to Gulfport. It was still too rough to go outside without a full crew, so I went up to Clearwater just to keep him company as he brought the boat down via the more sheltered Intracoastal Waterway. This man loves to teach and pointed out a lot of valuable information to me.

Then came the unintended lessons: right as we were about to go under a bridge, his diesel engine died. He steered the boat through the bridge, glided over to the side of the waterway, and put an anchor down. The problem was immediately obvious: both his Racor filter and his engine filter (often called the "secondary" filter) were black with dirt. He put a plastic red Solo-type cup under the Racor and drained the fuel. He passed the cup to me, and I set it on the nearby galley counter. He changed that filter and the engine filter, and we were shortly on our way. About a half an hour later he pulled the boat over again, put the hook down, and checked the filters, which were clogging up again. He has some clear tubing in his fuel system. He looked at the fuel going to the engine, and it seemed clean, so he started her up again. Eventually she sputtered, but we made it back to Gulfport with just one more round of filter changes.

Unfortunately, it's a very bad idea to drain fuel into a Solo cup. Diesel dissolves that kind of plastic, and we had a mess to clean up in the galley. Keep a glass jar (maybe the size spaghetti sauce comes in) with your engine tools, wrapped against breakage, in case you have to drain your Racor filter.

So then the question was "why?" My friend believes that the rough three days of racing sloshed the fuel around with vigor, essentially scrubbing a lot of dirt collected over years of use back into the fuel. Diesel engines are very sensitive to supply interruption. A tiny air bubble can bring it to a stop, which is why your manual explains how to "bleed" the engine of air bubbles. A tiny bit of water can stop it, which is why you should have a Racor-type filter, which catches water as well as dirt. Dirt in the fuel can stop it. This is all because of the way diesel engines work: very small jets spray a very fine mist of fuel through injectors. Because that spray is so fine, the smallest (noncombustible) thing can replace the diesel, depriving the engine of fuel. Gas engines aren't as sensitive to these things as diesels are. My friend got rid of his fuel and cleaned his tanks, and solved the problem, at last for then.

Eventually my friend needed a new engine, and then he suddenly had fuel interruption problems again. He had his tank cleaned, and got rid of the old fuel (if your boat holds a lot of fuel, there are companies that will "polish" it for you and clean it up) -- but the problem persisted. What my friend eventually discovered was that his fuel lines were so clogged with dirt that it didn't matter how clean his fuel and tank were. He replaced those hoses and had no more problems.

Later on, I also had the same problem, again stemming from sailing in rough water, but in spite of my previous experience with my friend, I didn't realize what the problem was at first. All I knew was that the engine would unexpectedly die. The first time it happened, someone suggested that my propeller had caught a piece of line floating in the water and then released it. He said, "Sometimes that happens." When it happened two more times, however, I discounted that theory. I didn't picture a stray rope catching on my propeller *and* spontaneously freeing itself three times. Each time I bled the engine, and each time the engine started up. I was thinking I had a little air leak in the fuel system somewhere, but I took a "wait and see" attitude. Then one evening while taking the boat out for a moonlight sail on the Gulf with friends, she died completely, and bleeding didn't get her going again. Now, on this engine, parts had to be taken off the engine to get at that filter, and the Racor was in an inaccessible place (if your boat is like that -- move it!) I thought I was out of fuel. With no fuel gauge, it can be hard to know when getting fuel is crucial.

At the fuel dock, the boat took only five gallons. That's when it dawned on me -- dirty fuel. 

Several days later, a friend climbed down into the very deep lazarette at the back of the boat, we pumped out all the dirty fuel, and he cut a hole in the tank. We started passing him pieces of oil pad. My oil pads are about 24" square, and we cut one into fourths. We passed a piece down to him, and he passed it back up soaked up at least 2 lb. of sludge -- and he had barely begun. What a mess, but it had to be done.

This is a big pile of oil pads, sometimes called "engine diapers," but that is also the correct name for

something else, so at the store I suggest you ask for oil pads. You lay one under your engine to catch

oily drips so they don't go into the bilge. Unless you have a big clean-up, if your engine is running properly,

you should just put one under your engine, check it periodically, and replace as necessary. One may

well last a year or more. The material they are made of absorbs petroleum products but not water,

making them very good for cleaning up small petroleum spills. You can buy them in smaller quantities

and for most people, having three or four on hand is plenty.

I was lucky, and my fuel hoses were OK. We had a fabrication shop make a cover for the hole in the fuel tank, with a diesel-resistant gasket (I had them make me a second one to have on hand just in case something happens to the one I have, since it was custom). Surprisingly, that fabrication was inexpensive.

It was a real hassle to do all of that, but I don't worry about getting caught in rough water now. Think about it -- as I've said before, when the ship hits the fan, turning the engine on and being ready to use it can be a good strategy, especially for newer sailors. You need to be sure your tank isn't all clogged up with gunk.

However, I urge you to check with your engine manufacturer and find out which algae-controlling additive they recommend -- and then use that specific brand (and do use it)! I say to check with the manufacturer because part of my problem was that I just picked something off West Marine's shelf. I knew no anti-algae agent had been in the fuel, so I followed the  instructions on the bottle to "shock" the tank by using a larger dose than usual. As it turns out, that can be a very bad idea, because if you have lots of live algae in the tank, they will all die at once, and sink to the bottom, which is where your fuel line picks up its fuel. My problem started when I shocked the fuel with this stuff. When my friend cleaned the tank, he found extra heaps of sludge around the fuel pickup. We had to pass him other tools to clean that area out well.

My Yanmar manual actually states not to use the product I used (sorry but I don't remember the name), so I went to the Yanmar dealer. They showed me exactly what to use and made sure I knew how to use it.

Check both your Racor (a valuable and relatively inexpensive engine protection) and your "secondary" filter (the one built into the engine) periodically as part of sensible routine engine maintenance.



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Backing into the Slip Revisited

Or, What Did I Just Say -- Practice! It Helps.

I just read a comment elsewhere from someone struggling to back his boat into a slip. His slip is at the far end of the fairway. If he wasn't at the end of the fairway, he could go past his slip and then turn the stern in from a different direction, using prop walk to his advantage instead of having to fight it.

He has a Catalina 30, and most people with that boat want to back in to the slip because it makes boarding the boat much easier from a short fingerdock. But this boat is notorious for backing up very badly. I'm not sure why; I'm not a naval architect. It has a fin keel and a spade rudder, like mine, and mine handles this problem much better. It's not only a problem for Catalina 30's, but I know a number of people with that boat, and they all complain about it.

He says he also has to fight a "slight" wind, and "slight" current.

That says something to me. He is still struggling with basic docking procedures. Because docking makes him nervous, he doesn't want to give the throttle enough power to overcome his "triple threat" -- prop walk, wind, and current.

The solution for him is partly in learning the skills needed, but even more, in practicing the skills needed.

The truth is that sailboat engines are much more efficient in forward than reverse. This means that when you're in reverse, forward is a more efficient brake than vice-versa. You can goose that engine enough to overcome those three factors, get the stern solidly in the slip, then move from neutral to forward and stop the boat before it hits your dock box.

But where do you get the nerve to do that?

By practicing.

If you belong to a sailing club, they probably have racing buoys. Borrow two and take them out into open water. Place them in the water to approximate the entrance to your slip.

Then practice driving the boat in reverse. Practice a lot. Specifically, include giving the boat power in reverse, and then using forward as a brake. Find out exactly how your boat responds to this, trying different speeds in reverse. And practice doing it while facing the stern instead of the bow. Facing the stern can work extremely well, but it is unusual enough that doing it can increase your level of stress, something you really don't need while learning to dock.

One of the hardest stressers to get over when learning to dock is the stress of giving your boat more speed right as you are deliberately aiming it at something hard (the main dock, in my case, a cement one. OUCH if I screw that up!)

This is why I'm writing this blog at this time. I am still new enough to sailing that I remember these fears/concerns/stresses in vivid detail. But even though I'm not an expert sailor, I look like one when I bring my boat into a slip, or dock it at the T-dock by myself, or pull it away from the T-dock by myself -- because I have practiced.

This is no different than playing a violin. Take up the violin by reading a book and never practicing, and you'll sound like a cat with his tail caught in a fan. Practice and you'll sound better. Practice a lot, and you'll get better far more rapidly. The guy who only read the book and never practices will always sound like that screeching cat.

This fellow has no choice. He needs to back into his slip, without hitting anyone else, with three forces working against him -- and that wind won't always be "slight." He really needs to be on top of his game for this maneuver, and he's smart enough to know that, which is why he's nervous.

The answer is to practice in open water until it just doesn't throw him. The first day, do it in light wind, and then repeat it again another day when the wind is stronger.

And get comfortable steering while facing the stern. Where the stern goes, the bow will follow (although just like parking a car, you occasionally have to look in all directions). One of his concerns was that the best approach might be backing up to the slip to begin with, but he doesn't trust his ability to steer the boat in reverse for 300'.

I can relate. I've had that fear.

The answer is simple.

PRACTICE.



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Modification to How I Use My Gale Sail

Or, WHY I Keep Saying Practice is So Important

As I reported before, in my first entry about my Gale Sail, the instructions say to wrap the sheets only once around the sail before raising it.

Well, here's the rub: with my continuous-line roller furler, wrapping the sheets once isn't enough to keep it tightly furled, and if it isn't tightly furled the Gail Sale won't slide up the sail easily. Sometimes it won't slide up it at all.

The sheets also need to hang straight down, and not be secured by being led back to their cockpit-area cleats.

The solution came with the sail. The sail came with a sail tie, to tie up the folded sail and make it easier to slide it into its sail bag. You don't need it for that while the sail is deployed. It has a great advantage over line in that it's flat. I loop it through one of the sheets, counter-wrap the sail a couple of times, pulling tightly so it does not add bulk, tuck it through the sail tie and let it hang down straight.

That holds the sail tight long enough to get the sail up, which is all I need.

Several people have (quite correctly) pointed out to me that installing a second forestay close to the main one could be a great help in a storm. A small hank-on sail can be remarkably easy to deploy -- easier than a Gale Sail, certainly -- and is actually in a better position for storm sails, slightly closer to the mast.

I suddenly had an image in my mind of a boat with a Gale Sail on the roller furler AND a slightly larger storm sail on an inner stay, which with other options, such as a third reefing point, might reallly increase a skipper's options in foul weather.

I don't know if anyone has tried it, and since I'm a coastal cruiser, I would have very limited *real* need of an inner forestay. But if anyone knows of someone who has done this and actually used such a sail plan in foul weather, it would be interesting to hear about it.

We have exactly the weather I got that Gale Sail for in west central Florida right now. I would have taken the boat out in the rising conditions leading up to this if I could have, but I know I will have other opportunities before the winter is over. I'll report back how the sail performs.



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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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Change Your Impeller!

I was sailing on a friend's boat one weekend for one of BCYC's monthly cruises. I use the word "sailing" loosely. My friend had sails up on principle, but since the winds were only about 2 mph, the engine was running.

He had put me at the helm and was giving me a variety of useful tips, so I wasn't surprised when he periodically walked by the helm on his center cockpit boat.

I didn't notice that his engine temperature gauge was installed on the side of the binnacle (the pedestal that holds the wheel), but one of the things he was doing was checking the engine temperature.

On one pass, he said, "The engine's overheating. Shut her down, and you'll have to sail her while my friend and I go below to see what's going on. Can you do that?"

His boat was 37' while mine was 25', but I assured him that I could sail the boat and that I would come get him if there was a problem. He and his friend went below.

Forty-five minutes later, he and his friend came back up. His friend looked as if he didn't feel at all well -- in the US we have s saying, "a bit green around the gills," for feeling nauseous. Well, he'd had his head in an engine for 45 minutes, smelling all those engine smells, while the boat gently rolled, so I wasn't surprised.

My friend held out his hand. There was his old impeller, broken into eight pieces.

My friend had been smart. He put down a paper towel on the cabin floor, and put the broken pieces of impeller on the paper. Then the two of them put it back together like a puzzle. That's how they knew there was still one piece of impeller somewhere in the cooling system, and they hunted until they found it.

Well, that was a bit of bother, wasn't it? What if he had been the only person on the boat? He still could have done it, but he would have had to put the anchor down, get to work on the engine, come up periodically to make sure the anchor wasn't dragging, etc.

Your engine manufacturer probably tells you right in the manual to replace the impeller once a year. Most sailors will tell you to "carry a spare in case it breaks."

That's two different pieces of advice, and it's the manufacturer's recommendation you should follow. It was hard to be that diligent on my old engine. You had to do a bit of engine dismantling to change the impeller, including taking the water pump off.

That makes it all the more important to replace that impeller *before* it breaks.

This happened to my friend's boat on a calm day. He didn't need the engine to get him away from a lee shore, or to fight a strong current, or to get through a bridge safely. There was no one injured we needed to get to shore. We were in open water. I had to tack the boat once to get it away from the shore, but that wasn't a crisis.

But it could have been.

Follow your engine manufacturer's recommendations on this kind of thing, because a simple thing like an impeller can contribute to a "cascade event" of things going wrong. Even if you have another person with you, he or she may not have the skills to maneuver your boat safely through a storm while you change the impeller you should have changed three months before.

Here's a good article from BOAT US on how to do it:

http://www.boatus.com/boattech/casey/replacing-impeller.asp

If it breaks unexpectedly, do what my friend did. Lay down a paper towel, put every piece on that towel, and make sure you got every bit of it.

Go through your manual, and make a time table for all these basic maintenance issues. We tend to think of our engines as something to get you out of the marina and on to the water -- but do you really want your boat adrift in a crowded marina?

No, I didn't think so.

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Too Much Sail Up!

I heard about a sailor the other day who, as they say, ended "up to his neck in alligators." I'll call him "Dick."

Dick had taken a several-day sailing trip with a couple of friends who had sailed some with him before but who didn't have a lot of experience yet.

Dick was the person at the helm. they were sailing with an asymmetrical spinnaker out. An asymmetrical spinnaker flies to either the port or starboard side of the boat, not out in front while running downwind, as a symmetrical spinnaker is used.

Asymmetrical spinnaker deployed on port side
Source for photo: http://www.yagersails.com/spinnaker.html

As you can see, that's a lot of sail. Now, there are some basic rules about sails.

• The heavier the weather for which the sail is designed, the heavier and stiffer the fabric will be. My ATN Gale Sail is only tricky to attach to the roller furler because the fabric is so stiff. But because it is stiff, I can make that sail completely flat, something you want in higher winds. 
• The higher the wind, the smaller you want your sails to be. This is why mainsails can be reefed. 
• The higher the wind, the stronger you want that sail fabric to be, so it can take the extra wind pressure without ripping.
• The higher the wind, the flatter you want the sail to be. A big belly in a sail catches a lot more wind than a hard, flat sail. Look at the belly in that picture above -- wowsa!

A spinnaker sail fails on all four points. Spinnaker cloth is just about the lightest-weight sail cloth made. When the winds pick up significantly, at some point it's time to take the spinnaker down, or "douse" it.

Well, Dick didn't pay full attention to what we call "rising conditions." Both the winds and the waves were picking up. All of a sudden his boat took off, racing on the overpowered spinnaker. The boat was out of control.

So now he had some decisions to make -- who does what? (Remember my article "Ten Minutes to Prepare?") Part of deciding who will do what is making sure that the person will know how to execute his or her designated task. Unfortunately, Dick is an optimist and did not anticipate this change in conditions. He also didn't assign tasks ahead of time, and he didn't train those people for their assignments.

But I know what the BIG thing is that went wrong for Dick -- he's a helm hog. He doesn't want to share the helm. Because of that, he did not have a skilled backup helmsman.

When he found himself overpowered, he had to go up to the bow in rough seas and douse that great big sail, keeping it under control and out of the water (having that sail go into the water would have been extremely dangerous. It could have pulled the boat over and then under like a submarine.) He had two relatively inexperienced people back in the cockpit, one of them on the helm. The person on the helm couldn't hold a steady course with the increased wind and waves, and who could blame him? You need to have someone else who can take the helm, but you have to teach that person and give him or her time to practice. Otherwise your backup helmsman is going to have a hard time. You have to share the helm if you're going to have an adequate backup helmsman in a pinch.

Dick called out instructions, but the new helmsman either didn't understand the instructions or couldn't execute them. It could have been a combination of both. In any case, they ended up with a line in the water AND wrapped around the rudder. When the people in the cockpit realized they couldn't steer, they started the engine. That is only a good choice if the helmsman and crew are certain that there are ... no lines in the water. The line then very efficiently wrapped itself around the propeller as well.

Again, this is a problem resulting from poor crew training and lack of time doing important things on the boat, what a friend of mine calls "time over water" (and not just as a passenger). There are extremely directive skippers out there, who give so many detailed instructions that the crewmember is just an extension of the skipper, doing no thinking for himself (picking a sex). The more prompts you give as a skipper, the less your crew member will actually learn.

Your crew has to practice these things under calm conditions, and "checking for lines in the water" needs to be drilled into everyone's head before they go *anywhere* near that engine -- in fact, all the time. That line wrapped itself around the rudder without any help from the engine. If you're going to take beginners out on your boat, you have a responsibility to teach them those basic things. If something happens, starting the engine is a very reasonable thing to do. They need to know how to do it safely.

He had to cut the spinnaker lines and let it drift away, but all's well that ends well. The skipper also had to go over the side to untangle that line from the rudder and propeller. That's not so good; he had to leave his boat for the water with crew on board who were already struggling. Again, all's well that ends well.

BUT:

You can avoid a lot of this by discouraging a casual attitude toward sailing on your boat. Make sure that your crew knows that it can be a little dangerous. Make sure they truly know how to perform the tasks you're going to assign them. Teach them patiently and give them a chance to practice.

I was on the sail school's safety boat one day when the students were learning to dock (those of us on the safety boat call that "target practice.") Each student boat made pass after pass, and we could hear the instructors giving tips and encouragement to their students. If the students were doing the docking, they should have been giving the directions to the teacher and other student, but each time, it was the teacher speaking.

Then one of the boats approached. I looked at the instructor, and she had her hands over her mouth! One student was in charge of the docking with the other student crewing. The student did a great job. Then they made another pass, and the other student executed the "mock dock." He did a great job too, and the teacher still had her hands over her mouth.

Hats off to her. She knows that unless those students can dock the boat without any prompting from her, they can't dock the boat. That's what you should do, too. If you want your crew to be able to tack the boat without your help, put one of them on the helm and one of them on the sheets -- and then zip your lips.

And for heaven's sake, don't be a helm hog. One day it could be your life on the line.

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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.

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Learning the "Rules of the Road"

 

     Or, "A collision at sea can ruin your entire day.”

In a great practical joke aboard the USS Buck, that fictive quote appeared
 on a bulletin board, attributed to Thucydides, a writer from ancient Greece!

 I’ve kind of been avoiding this topic because it’s so complex, but newer sailors need to know what the rules are, where they came from and how they apply to them. I’ve found a great website that does an excellent job of explaining what these rules mean, and that’s what you need. Many of us read a law and think we know what it means when we don’t. Maritime rules are complex, and one rule affects another, and one has more prominence in one situation than another, so understanding what the rules mean can be tricky.

For instance, although you’ll hear “right of way” – as in, “I had the right of way!” all the time, that’s a driving concept that doesn’t work on water. On the water, instead of “right of way” you have the “stand on” vessel and the “give way” vessel. The “stand on” vessel is expected to hold its course, while the “give way” boat has to take certain actions specifically to avoid a collision.

All of these rules are designed to avoid collisions. But since there are no highways on the water, no lane markings, no traffic lights – and because boats don’t have brakes – it gets complicated.

The formal name of these rules is “The 1972 International Regulations for the Prevention of Collisions at Sea," but mercifully that's been  reduced to “COLREGS.” The COLREGS cover virtually any situation you could face while sailing in the vicinity of other boats, but they are complicated, and written in legal style, which unfortunately means they are easily misinterpreted when people without a legal background read them.

Enter the “Handbook of the Nautical Rules of the Road,” which answers all the questions and translates the “leagalease” into everyday language that non-lawyers can understand and use to be a better and safer sailor. Written by Chris Llana and George Wisneskey, this book is online – for free – at this website:

http://navruleshandbook.com/index.html

For instance, there’s Rule 5, on keeping a lookout. Here’s what the rule says:

“International : Every vessel shall at all times maintain a proper lookout by sight and hearing as well as by all available means appropriate in the prevailing circumstances and conditions so as to make a full appraisal of the situation and of the risk of collision.” (Sometimes the rules change slightly for inland sailing, but this book explains that too.)

What does that really mean to a sailor? In the online book I'm recommending, that one paragraph is followed by an extensive but very clear explanation of the practical meaning of the rule. By “extensive,” I mean just under 2,400 words just explaining what it means to be a "lookout."

Is that too much for you? Too bad – really. You’ve chosen to sail, and you need to know the rules. Llana and Wisneskey make it an easy read. That’s the good news. Mind you, the 2,400 words I just described only apply in open water. If the other vessel is a freighter in a narrow channel, such as we see in Tampa Bay, well .. that’s a different rule. But no worries, this book explains that, too. This book explains it all. For free!

The bad news is that there are seven rules just in that section of the COLREGS. But really – this book is so well written that you will know exactly what is expected from you.

It will take a while to read it all, and absorb it all, and I suggest you read this book twice. The first time is right now. Then after you’ve been sailing for another six months or so, read it again, and you’ll realize “Oh yeah, there was that time …” and you’ll begin to see how the COLREGS apply to your day-to-day sailing.

A word of caution, though: the word “COLREGS” brings a state of mind in some people that could quite fairly be labeled “obnoxious.” There are a good number of sailors out there who have read the COLREGS, are certain they know what they mean, and will not hesitate to give you a very hard time if you don’t agree with them. You know how your mother told you not to talk about religion, politics, or your personal finances at a party? I would add to that, don’t try to discuss COLREGS with another sailor unless you know him or her well. 

Self-appointed experts are everywhere, and they can be quite aggressive about pushing their point of view. In my most recent experience with this, several people tried to set me straight. As it turned out, they were wrong, because they didn't understand the nuances hidden in the rules. These self-appointed experts are often wrong and they will do you no good service. Be polite, nod your head, say something neutral and change the subject. Knowing and understanding COLREGS is important – important enough that you should find out for yourself.

One more thing about that “right of way” phrase: if the worst should happen and you are in a collision with another boat on the water, you will find that a maritime judge will give some measure of blame to both parties (even if it's 99% blame to one party and 1% to the other), because the overriding rule, the one that is the basis for all the others, is “Do everything possible to avoid a collision.” While the COLREGS don’t specifically state that you should, for instance, deliberately run your boat aground to avoid a collision, it might be the best choice at that moment.

You have to read these rules, digest them, get some experience and come back to them, then get more experience and come back to them again. But don’t just read the rules. Read the very clear explanations in Llana and Wisneskey’s book. There are other books out there, but this one is very good – and the price is right!

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