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.

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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The Coolest Halyard on the Planet

The other day a club member proudly showed me a very clever modification he has made to his boat, and it's worth passing on. He calls it his "geezer halyard." This sailor is in his early 70's, not ready to give up sailing, but ready for some of the harder physical tasks to be a little easier.

Meanwhile I had heard from an old friend -- my long-lost first husband, actually, the man who introduced me to sailing and got me so hooked on it that I spent nearly 40 years daydreaming about returning to the sport some day. While he is generally in good health, he had to have rotater cuff surgery not that long ago, and was looking for easier ways to handle his boat. However, this adaptation isn't just for "senior citizens." I have a thirty-year-old daughter who has also had rotater cuff surgery. The truth is that any of us can have some sort of injury at any time that could make sailing harder for us.

If you look at the picture below, you'll actually see a couple of things this clever inventor has done to make his boat easier to manage. If you see the triangular thing sticking off the mast, that's one of a series of mast steps. With those mast steps, he can still climb his own mast.

Which he did. At the top, he used a pop rivet gun to attach a piece of hardware at the *very top* of the side of the mast. He attached an extra long halyard to that hardware. before leading that halyard through its sheave at the top of the mast, he first dropped it to near the bottom, and fed it through a block attached to a snapshackle. Then he took the halyard back to the top of the mast, through the sheave, back down the mast and through turn blocks to run it back to the cabin top and cockpit. (You don't have to run your halyards back to the cockpit, but it will make the boat much easier and safer to sail single-handed.)

In the picture below, the snapshackle for his halyard is run back to a loop on the top of his StackPack. If you're going to attach your halyard to a lifeline, that will require a little more length as well, so measure appropriately.

The "Geezer Halyard." You can see the extended halyard dropping

from the top of the mast, through a block, and back up again.

When he's ready to sail, he moves the snapshackle from his StackPack to the head of his sail. Because of the block attached to the snapshackle, he now has 2:1 purchase on his halyard. I tried it. His halyard is remarkably easy to raise. It certainly would make the task easier not only for those with shoulder injuries, but those with bad backs or arthritis in their hands.

This sailor put his block and snapshackle together from hardware he already had, but he's going to make a few changes.

First of all, the snapshackle he used is the type that swivels. This allows the two lengths of halyard going up to the sheave to twist, so it has introduced one more thing that can go wrong while raising the sail. Below are pictures of hardware I found at West Marine, a single block, and a non-swiveling snapshackle to attach to the becket.

Hardware used to connect your 2:1 halyard to the head of your sail

 It's still possible to get the two lengths of halyard twisted, but it's a good practice to eyeball the entire length of your halyard to look for things it might be hung up on anyway. The block costs about $36 at West Marine, and the snapshackle about $22. It's crucial that you use stainless steel hardware. You do not want your hardware to break at the top of the mast.

Besides the extra (but avoidable) chance of a fouled halyard, there are two other downsides to this adaptation. First, you'll have a lot of extra line in the cockpit after the sail is raised. Once your halyard is raised, you're going to have extra halyard in the cockpit. One option is to take a moment and hank the dangling halyard. If your halyard has a dedicated winch, you can put a loop over the winch, and the halyard will be stowed neatly. You can also find "line bags" on line you can hang near the bottom of your mast or in your cockpit to catch that line.

Second, you will have increased the number of turns your halyard has to make as you drop it. You may find that you have to go to the mast and help encourage the sail to drop when you're ready to take the sails down.

There's one more thing you might want to note about the hardware shown above: the sheave in the block I photographed is black. It seems counter-intuitive, but black plastic is more resistant to damage from UV rays than white. A block with a black sheave in it will last longer than one with a white sheave.

Finally, make sure your halyard size runs freely through the block, and that the snapshackle is large enough to attach easily to the head of your sail. If you choose a piece of hardware with a pin in it, make sure it's of a type where the pin can't be completely removed. The halyard hardware on my first boat used a pin that could fall out, and it did within five days. Then, of course, it bounced on the cabin top and into the marina. If a crucial piece of hardware can free itself it will, laughing all the way to the bottom.

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More Than One Way to Dock a Boat

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Various Updates

     Or, New Information on Old Topics

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

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

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

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

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Docking Single-Handed

     or, Always have a "Plan B!"
 

Believe it can be done!
(fortune cookie)

Earlier I talked about how to handle your boat by yourself if you need to.

Once you’ve sailed your boat back to your marina by yourself, you’re going to have to dock it. In an earlier entry, I proposed a scenario where your sailing companion has sprained his ankle and can’t help. If you have your slip set up for such an eventuality, that won’t be a problem.

First, you have to be very familiar with handling your boat under low speed. That can be tricky because the wind (and current, if any) will have more effect on where your boat goes. So, it’s a good thing to practice.

To bring your boat into the slip, you have to maintain enough speed to have steering, but you don’t want to come into the dock any faster than you're willing to hit it. So once you’ve turned into the slip, you no longer need speed for steering, and commonly, skippers put their boat into neutral and then into reverse (don’t just go from forward to reverse, skipping neutral.) Reverse is the closest thing you have to a brake when docking.

With two people, one person can be out of the cockpit with a boat hook to grab a line, but your companion is sitting with ice on his ankle. So here’s what you do.

Before you set sail, tie a long line on the piling at the far end of your slip. Stretch it out and decide what spot you want to use on your boat to temporarily hold it. At that spot on the line, make a figure-8 loop with a carabiner in it. Clip it on to the boat, and then

My docking line latched on to my toe rail 

secure it with  cleat hitch near the bow of the boat. Your goal is to have that carabiner or loop get tight and stop the boat before you hit what's in front of it.

Correctly tied cleat hitch

If you don’t have a toe rail, you can use a stanchion base, as this is a line used only temporarily for docking. Or, if you have a mid-cleat, instead of putting a carabiner in the figure-8 loop, make the loop big enough to slip over that cleat without a struggle.

So you come into the slip slowly, have the boat hook handy, grab that line, and attach it to your boat. Your boat is now quite safely secure, and you can take your time putting your permanent docking lines on. When you’re done, dis-attach your temporary docking line. It should be too tight to stay on the boat through tidal changes.

You will probably have to grab that double-ended docking line in your hands sometimes and pull the boat a little forward or a little back to get that loop or carabiner in the right place, but that’s not too hard to do.

On the other side of my slip, I also have a line from a middle piling going to the front dock at about a 45º angle, above the waterline. If the wind is from the north, it tends to blow my bow over toward the next boat. This diagonal line prevents my bow from swinging into the boat next to me.

By the way, you can be sure the fellow with the ice on his foot will be back-seat driving again, and it can be very distracting at a very stressful time. Tell him ahead of time what you’re going to do, and … of course … PRACTICE it before you need it. You may have to tell people at the dock that you’re practicing doing it by yourself, and you will still have a hard time keeping them from helping by grabbing the bow or something similar. Thank them for their help but explain that you’re practicing doing it single-handed.

And that brings up a final point: help is good. If any of those helpers live in the marina, it might be smart to have their phone numbers. If you come in single-handed while the marina is open, marina staff may be very willing to help you. I know they would here at Twin Dolphin. However, after hours if you call a marina resident, odds are he or she would be glad to come out and “catch your bow.”

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How to Single-Hand Your Boat in a Pinch

     Or, "Do you really think it's sprained? You can't help me tack this thing???"

One person, two sails – how do you do that, exactly? Remember, this blog isn’t for highly seasoned sailors who are looking for tricks to get every last tenth of a knot out of their boat in a race. This is just basic sailing tips for newer sailors.

It may be that you intend to never sail your boat by yourself. I have heard many newer sailors say that – that they aren’t confident enough to sail by themselves. They “never” single-hand.

At least, that’s their plan, but reality sometimes has a way of messing up our plans. Suppose your sailing companion sprains his ankle? What if he sprains his ankle, you’re five hours from port and you’re low on fuel?

You really should know how to manage the boat by yourself, which really means how one person can control two sails.

Here’s the big tip: the headsail does most of the work when you tack. This means that you can leave the mainsail to its own devices while you handle the headsail. However, you don’t want the boom swinging over whenever physics decides it’s time. So, here’s what to do.

First of all, build up some speed, sailing close to your no-go zone. If you can see the shore, spot something that is at the starting edge of the no-go zone and something that is where you expect the end of the no-go zone to be. In the graphic below, the fat black arrow represents the wind direction, and the pink area is the “no go” zone, where the boat is too close to the direction of the wind to sail. If you stay in that area, the boat will slow dramatically, and eventually, fall off back into the wind, or if it continues toward the direction of the wind, stop.

Bring the mainsail in nearly to center and lock it off. Have your winch handle out and near what will be the new working jib winch.

Have both port and starboard sheets ready, one ready to be loosened and the other ready to be tightened.

Turn the boat through the no-go zone. Watch two things in particular: where the clew of the headsail is, and where your estimated end of the no-go-zone is. Loosen the previously working sheet completely, and be ready to pull the new working sheet in.

As the clew swings across the front of the boat and the sail begins to fill on the new tack, pull in the new working sheet as efficiently as possible so you’re not pulling in a heavily-loaded sheet. 

Don't forget to end your turn! That's why you spotted the other side of the "no-go" zone. Lots of people have ended up going in a circle when trying this for the first time. No matter -- just do it again, and tell the guy with the sprained ankle to stop being a back-seat driver already!

When you have the headsail over on the new tack and not luffing, lock it off. Now release the mainsheet and let it move over.

You will probably have to tweak both sails, but by controlling them one at a time, tacking (or jybing) can be managed by one person. If you’re gybing instead of tacking, the steps are the same except that you can move through a jybe more slowly, because there is no “no-go” zone in a gybe.

If for some reason you can’t manage the tack, just do a gybe for 270º. You'll come out in the right direction. It isn’t hard. You can do this.

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Source for graphic: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4b/Points_of_sail.svg/300px-Points_of_sail.svg.png&imgrefurl=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Points_of_sail&h=300&w=300&sz=29&tbnid=HRpPHA2QBKhaPM:&tbnh=91&tbnw=91&zoom=1&usg=__0C0bFzDNXCYiMo60T843yNcte04=&docid=B_dastTk9kJ-4M&sa=X&ei=NbeaUZK0NIjo8gT8mYHgCQ&ved=0CEAQ9QEwAg&dur=9913