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.

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.



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

My Excuse Is That I Was Sick ... (with a PS now)

But Mother Nature Doesn't Really Care!


We just got hit by a wall of wind here about 15 minutes ago or so. The boat is rockin' and rollin' -- I love that when I know the boat is secure.

... when I know the boat is secure.

I knew this weather was coming, and as I'm down with something that probably is strep throat, I wasn't really up to a lot of work today. So the bunk didn't get made up, but I secured the deck, checked the lines, and put the tarp up in the cockpit -- it's nice to be able to keep the cabin doors open in bad weather. By the time I'd gone to the store and bought just a few things, I was just exhausted. I napped for several hours and then watched a "Project Runway" marathon.

We had a few bands of rain, but nothing dramatic -- until 15 minutes ago, when we were hit with a wall of wind. I heard the loudest sound of wind whistling through something I've ever heard before, and finally realized that it was the wind whistling through the nearby bridge.

Then it dawned on me: I have this line I usually use to counter-wrap my headsail. Because of the design of my roller furler, it is more likely to unfurl and help the sail flap itself to death than other roller furlers. I've even written about this problem here, and took pictures showing how I counter-wrapped someone else's sail as a storm approached. Simply explained, if the sheets wrap clockwise, I wrap another line around the sail going counter-clockwise. I have a specific line I use for that. I seemed to recall seeing that line somewhere else and not on the roller furler.

Also, as I listened to the wind, I did not remember counter-wrapping the headsail. Now, at first that's not too surprising. I went out of town for Christmas and wasn't likely to remember one random task done before I left. But that was an important random task.

So I went up to the cockpit. To get on deck, I had to cut one zip tie holding the side of the tarp down, but didn't see the scissors anywhere. Well of course I didn't -- it was DARK! Enter the "cockpit box."

My cockpit box, which I'll write about really soon because it just saved my cookies, was where it belonged -- in the cockpit. I know where I keep things in that box, so I was able to put my hands on my rigging knife quickly. Then I opened the top, got out my headlamp, put it on, and avoided cutting off the tip of a finger while removing the zip tie.

I went up to the bow. I had not counter-wrapped the sail -- and it was beginning to unfurl. No kidding. I grabbed a spare sail tie, tightened it around the wrapped sheets as high as I could reach, wrapped it around once, secured it again to the sheets, and wrapped it as much as I could before tying it off securely lower on the wrapped sheets.

The wind has died down significantly in the time it has taken to write this entry, but it could pick up again at any time. So tonight, I will sleep in clothes, not pajamas.

You know, some insurance companies won't insure you if you live on your sailboat. To me, that's crazy. I might not have realized that the headsail had not been been secured if I had not been on the boat when the wind hit. If I had been safe in a house or condo somewhere, even if I'd realized I hadn't checked the sail, it might have unfurled before I got to the boat, and in this wind, and with that roller furler, it would have been quite a job to pull it back in. In other words, if I didn't live on my boat, the insurance company might have gotten a claim for my headsail tomorrow. Live-aboards are more likely to notice when something isn't right.

My excuse for not noticing that the sail wasn't counter-wrapped is that I'm sick. But another time it could be that I'd had one too many glasses of wine, or I that was tired, or that I left the boat without securing her completely, even though I knew weather was coming in. It is possible to see what you expect to see, and it's easy to overlook little things.

The truth is that I should secure that roller furler with a counter-wrap every single time I come in from a sail. This one time I didn't do it, and it could have turned out quite badly.

If you have a spouse or sailing partner, it's easy to divide up tasks so that one person always, say, cleans out the cooler, while the other person, say, secures the headsail. It makes sense to divide and conquer, but i would suggest that every once in a while you trade jobs. If you are always the helmsman, pass it off to your partner once in a while. If you always secure the sails, pass that off to the other person. It may be that you will have to secure the boat for a storm all by yourself one day, and you're far more likely to remember to do things if you've done them before.

* * *

PS: It is now past midnight, and the boat was bumping up against the piling of the dock. The starboard lines, on the windward side of the boat,  had stretched, and had to be tightened. I was already in clothes, got the headlamp out of the cockpit box, tightened the lines, and will now go back to bead, hopefully without further problems to solve.

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

Oops -- What Do We Do Now?

I have some sailing friends who, like me, are newer sailors. They're working hard to improve their skills and split their time between improving their boat and sailing it.

They were out a couple of weeks ago when they suddenly had trouble with their roller furler. They were jybing, and I suspect the headsail wrapped around the furler. Jybes can be easy, but you have to keep control of the lines. Of course, a sheet can slip out of anyone's hands (gloves help, but ... stuff happens.)

So they did the logical thing. One stayed on the helm, and one went forward to straighten out the sail.

While they were doing that, they ran aground. Oops. Things tend to cascade like that.

What could they have done to avoid it?

Sometimes there's nothing you can do. One time as I was leaving a marina, my outboard died. It was a lowering tide, and I knew there was a shallow area just to starboard. Unfortunately there was a strong wind from the east. When the engine died, that wind had us solidly aground within five seconds. There was nothing we could have done.

However, in retrospect, my friends had some choices. Here's what I and others recommended to them for next time:

1) quickly check for lines in the water (a real possibility when the headsail is out of control)

2) start the engine

3) notice where you are before deciding what to do.

If they'd stopped to think about where they were, they would have known they were near shallow spots. A better option probably would have been to turn around and move to a place with room to work. The sail would flap around a bit, but that's not the end of the world. Engine power would keep the boat from "sailing crazy" while the headsail was tangled (the time this happened to me, the boat sailed in circles until I got it untangled).

What if you have a different problem, and you don't have power, or you can't steer? I told a story a week or so ago where someone ended up with a line wrapped around both the rudder and the propeller. They were in very deep water, but if you aren't, put the anchor down.

Your goal should be to prevent things from getting worse as well as solving the original problem. If you're lucky you may prevent one thing from leading to another and another and another ...

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

Ten Minutes to Prepare

     Or, This makes a good case for practicing!

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

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

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


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

* Set your marine radio to the weather channel.

* Put EVERYONE in PFD's.

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

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

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

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

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

* Put one or more reefs in your mainsail.

* Furl or partially furl your roller furler, or,

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

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

* Douse your headsail and put up your staysail.

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

* Use the head.

* Put something to eat and drink in the cockpit.

* Make sure all hatches and portholes are securely closed.

* Close the companionway securely.

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

* Put on foul weather gear.

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

Gale Sails!

      Or, The Inventor is One Clever Dude!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 The ATN Gale sail, with its trademark orange

wrap-around luff, deployed

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Keeping Your Roller Furler Safe

       Or, Is that sail really supposed to deploy itself

UPDATE: Sept. 22, 2013

I have talked to the people at Hood, and they no longer sell the replacement 

lower unit that converts a Hood 810 from continuous line to single line. 

They didn't give me any reason for the change. If you have a Hood 810 

this article has important information for you.

May 10, 2013

Most roller furlers are easily secured. You pull it in tightly, wrap it several times with the sheets, lock the lines off, and you can be reasonably certain that the sail will stay securely furled even in a strong thunderstorm. However, please notice the word “reasonably.” I didn’t say you can be absolutely certain. I know someone who has lost not one but two headsails because they unfurled in a summer storm and then flailed themselves to death. I have also seen headsails that partially deployed in summer-type storms (which actually can occur at any time of the year where I am in Florida). While only part of the sail was out, they whipped around in the wind, nearly always doing damage to the sail. The damage can be repaired, but do you really want to have to go there?

It’s IMPORTANT to take all sails and canvas off your boat if a tropical storm or hurricane threatens, but taking your headsail off a roller furler off at the end of each sail defeats the convenience of having a roller furler. In fact it’s worse, because although you can get it off by yourself, most people will need a second person to put it back on again. Fortunately, there’s a much easier solution!

See the picture of the furled headsail below.  You can see the two sheets wrapped around the sail clockwise. But in addition, there is a third line, tied to one of the sheets, wrapped counterclockwise around the sail, and then tied off to the pulpit. This sail is now secured from both directions and far less likely to come undone in an unexpected storm. I tied this on to the boat that had previously lost two headsails as a storm approached. 

 

I know to do this because other, more experienced sailors told me to do it. And, I knew the man who had lost two headsails to storms, and didn’t particularly want to experience it myself.

For some boats, including mine, it’s extremely important to counter-wrap the furler. My furler, a Hood 810 SeaFurler, uses a continuous line rather than a single line to deploy the sail. By “continuous,” I mean that the two ends of the line have been braided together to make one continuous loop of line. It was often standard equipment on older Catalinas and Hunters, including my boat. Here’s a picture of what the bottom of the unit looks like:

 

That double line is used to furl and unfurl the headsail. It has no mechanism in it to hold the sail in place when partially deployed. This means that once the wind fills the partially deployed sail, the rest of the sail will rapidly pop out – whether or not you wanted to use the whole sail.

It’s “all or nothing” with this roller furler. You do not have the option of rolling your headsail partly up if the weather should deteriorate. Because there is nothing to keep the drum from turning, even with both sheets locked off the sail will pop out and deploy fully.

By the way, countless experienced sailors have confidently told me that if I lock that continuous line off securely, wrap the sheets around the furler well, and tie both sheets off well at the cockpit, the sail cannot deploy. However, they are all wrong. That bottom drum can still rotate, because there’s nothing to stop it. It can loosen enough to damage the sail in a storm.

FIRST LESSON LEARNED: You have to listen cautiously to other people, as they sometimes speak whether they know what they’re talking about or not. The fellow who lost two headsails in storms ignored advice he had gotten from experienced sailors to counter-wrap his headsail with a third line. TWICE. If you’re uncertain about advice you’ve been given, double-check it with other knowledgeable people.

This won’t protect you from all bad advice. I was confidently given bad advice about how to operate my new diesel engine from five different people. It was different than what the certified engine mechanic who installed it had told me, so I went to the place that sold me the engine, and they agreed with the mechanic and told me with great certainty that all five people who had advised me otherwise were just wrong.

However, putting a counter-wrap on your sail harms nothing. It only takes about 30 seconds to put on, and about as long to take off. I keep the line I use for this purpose secured at the bow of the boat so it’s handy and there’s no excuse for not using it, because my headsail is particularly vulnerable. If someone tells you it’s not necessary, smile and thank them. They mean well. Then counter-wrap your headsail.

SECOND LESSON LEARNED: If you look closely at the edge of the furled sail, you will see bits of it sticking out. While the sail had been furled, it had not been tightly furled, providing a way for wind to get under the edge. Be sure you furl your headsail tightly.

Why You Should Keep Your Deck Clear

     Or, Boy was my face red!

I was sailing by myself although I don’t think it would have made any difference. It was such a lovely sail, I think if I’d had someone with me we would have ended up admiring the beautiful day and the fabulous job we were doing of sailing, and still have made this mistake -- unless my sailing companion had been very alert, but sometimes I think airhead moments are contagious.

BCYC had sailed to Twin Dolphin Marina in Bradenton for the weekend. I took my boat by myself, arrived with no difficulty but ended up in a slip near the river’s current. In the morning, when it was time to leave, a strong current was running, and the man on the boat next to me helped me get my boat out. As he took the last line off the dock, he said, “What should I do with it?”

“Just throw it up on the deck,” I said. “I’ll stow it after I’m underway.”

When the wind is right, you can sail the Manatee River. It’s such a beautiful river, and this day the wind was out of the southwest. I put the sails up and delighted in turning the engine off (my favorite part of any sail) and moved out toward Tampa Bay. The Genny was a bit of a pain to deploy because of its design, which includes a continuous line that leaves two lines running up to the back of the boat, but it deployed well. As I turned toward the Skyway Bridge and the “ditch” that runs more or less north and south along it, I was watching two boats ahead. They were easily recognizable as two other members of BCYC, both of them excellent sailors – and I was keeping up with them! Boy, I’m getting good at this! I thought. I was going to be on some point of a port tack for the entire trip. How sweet is that?

I tweaked my miansail sheet; I tweaked the traveler; I tweaked the Genny, and I was still keeping up with them. The boat was sailing beautifully, and I thought, “That’s why I sail her by myself sometimes. I’ve done this on my own. I own this successful sail.”

A little later I noticed the two boats, who were about two miles in front of me, sailing, not motoring, up the Ditch. “Oh, good! I won’t have to turn the engine on!” Sure enough, the wind was still from the southwest, and I sailed up the ditch in blissful silence except for the swish of water on the hull. 

I watched as my friends turned west, and noted that they kept on sailing across Pinellas Point in the east-west channel at the tip of the Pinellas peninsula, and thought, “Dang – I’m going to be able to sail right up to the bridges! This is great. I’ll bring my sails in at Structure E (the bridge to Tierra Verde), put the headsail back out afterwards and I’ll be able to sail all the way back to BCYC!”

I was really full of myself by this point. I’m surprised I didn’t sprain something patting myself on the back, because I was still keeping up with two men I considered to be really excellent sailors. 

I was so full of myself that I completely forgot about the loose line on the foredeck.

Unfortunately, by the time I got to the Pinellas Point channel, there had been a slight wind shift – just enough that I could not sail west. No matter how determined I might have been, the channel is just too narrow in some places for a boat my size to tack, especially single-handed. The only choice I had was to bring the sails in and turn the engine on. Darn it!

I got to a wide place in the channel, locked the wheel, turned the engine on and sprinted up to the mast and tightened the lazy jacks. Mainsail down.

Then I tried to pull in the Genny. It wouldn’t come in! By now I was headed to a narrow area, so I turned around, went back to the beginning of the wide part and tried again. No deal. Something was jamming it. I was starting to think things stronger than “Darn it!”

So I turned the boat around again, and followed the double line up to the bow, where I found that loose bow line tangled in the roller furler lines. I really couldn’t get it untangled in that narrow channel. I needed to be at the wheel. I now couldn't get the Genny out properly, or do anything else except listen to it mocking me as it flapped and rattled with the boat pointed directly into the wind.

Structure E was just about to open as I approached, and as I turned, of course the Genny started to fill with wind. Fortunately it had a terrible shape, spilled wind, and didn’t influence the boat much as I went under the bridge. There was only 10 minutes to the next bridge, so I just gave her all the engine could safely give, and made it to that bridge.

Now I was in Boca Ciega Bay. I moved the boat away from the shallow areas around the bridge, went to the mast, loosened the lazy jacks, pulled the mainsail up again, and heaved the boat to. She was drifting sideways, but I was able to get the lines untangled and bring the Genny in properly. 

Clutter on your decks can cause all sorts of problems, and I was actually lucky that there wasn’t a front coming through, or a rising wind, or a pop-up storm, or some other bigger problem to solve. When you can’t control a sail for some reason, it can cause serious problems. I was foolish to not make stowing that line a priority. I should have done it before touching a sail.

Keep your decks clear. Stow all your lines. This is one reason why boats have things like wheel brakes and autopilots, so you can leave the cockpit and deal with things. If your boat has a tiller, you can get a gadget called a “Tiller Tamer,” and in reasonable weather and seas it will hold your boat steady enough to deal with things like lines that need to be stowed. “Tiller Tamers” and “Tiller Tenders” hold the tiller where you’ve set it while you go forward, visit the head, or grab a snack. It can be tiring to have to hold the tiller for hours on end, and even a short break can be helpful. Here’s a link to a Tiller Tamer at a company called Defender. They often have good prices, and are known for good service. http://www.defender.com/product.jsp?path=-1|118|297677|1863917&id=92415

My bias is to pay attention to the sheets in the cockpit. You don’t want to coil them tightly while you’re sailing, but you can still tuck them out of the way of people’s feet. Take care of these things, and then if a problem arises you can focus on the problem and not first have to perform the tasks you should have done earlier.