Running Aground in the Slip

     Or, Was my face red!

I’d had my Hunter and had been living aboard for about three months. It was February, and there was a full moon.

I didn’t think anything of it. I certainly didn’t connect that full moon with what the dockmaster had told me when I first took my slip, that one reason to keep the boat bow in was that the sand had built up at the end of the slip.

I looked at how the boat was tied up before I left for the evening, but I’d been on the boat for three months now, and I thought I had it all pretty well figured out.

I came home about 10PM and looked at the boat sitting perfectly centered in the slip. “Man, I’m getting good at this!” I thought. I grabbed the breast line to pull the boat over to the finger pier.

Nothing happened.

I pulled harder. Nothing happened

The boat wasn’t perfectly tied up at all. She was aground! She was actually tilting.

Other people might have been able to take a flying leap, or climb over the bow, but I really felt the boat was too far away for either of those options. I knew the cats had enough food and water. I called it a night and slept elsewhere.

By the next morning when I came back to the boat, the water had risen and she was afloat again, and I thought, “I really don’t want this to happen again.” My solution was to re-tie her so that she moved some in the slip. I actually like the sensation of the boat rocking, so that didn’t bother me, and the keel had a chance to dig herself a hole. I lived at that marina for another 21 months and never again had this problem.

LESSON LEARNED: use your depth sounder and/or depth line when you first move your boat into a new slip. Talk to others in the marina, and of course, the dock master. If you have a shallow slip, you need to know about it and what kinds of problems it can make for you.

Or you can just wait for Mother Nature to surprise you.  :)

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Celestial Navigation

     Or, the stars may not actually hold your future

I just read online about a Great Schism in sailing. The publication Ocean Navigator reports that the Coast Guard Academy will continue to teach celestial navigation -- navigation using the stars, the moon and the sun. Amazingly, the  the U. S. Naval Academy will be moving in a completely opposite direction, They will rely totally on GPS technology. Presumably they will have redundancies built in -- more than one chart plotter, and probably more than one brand of chart plotter.

Those sticking to celestial navigation will have a little more difficult time with redundancy strategy. The obvious strategy there is to have two teams performing their calculations completely separately. However, that won't solve the problem of extended, heavy cloud cover -- for instance, in a hurricane, where it might be extremely important to know exactly where the ship is, which would identify which quadrant of the storm the ship is in. The four quadrants of a significant hurricane vary significantly in strength, so obviously, being in a weaker quadrant can be a valuable strategy.

But practically speaking, for the newer sailor, they need to know accurately where they are. We can talk about dead reckoning -- and it can work -- but only an idiot would rely solely on dead reckoning when it's a new skill. Likewise, using sextants involves using multiple charts along with taking accurate positional readings for celestial bodies, on a pitching boat. It isn't going to be terribly reliable for a newer sailor.

Celestial navigation is difficult and expensive to learn. There's no doubt it works, when you can be sure of the time and actually see celestial bodies -- but it's not fast, and there are meteorological limits.

We've talked about this chart plotter debate before, and I'm going to come back to my earlier suggestion that you use a chart plotter -- actually two. If you have a hand-held backup chart plotter and your electrical system goes out, you will still have very accurate access to your latitude and longitude.

Mark those readings on your chart at an accurate time table -- say, every half hour. Then you'll have a visual representation. You can easily compare this to your efforts at both dead reckoning and celestial navigation. 

I'm not saying that celestial navigation should go the way of the dinosaurs. Clearly, many find real value in it. I'm also not saying that chart plotters are for lazy people. But in fact, a chart plotter can you assist you as you learn both celestial navigation and dead reckoning by double-checking the conclusions you drew from the older methods. And in an emergency, let's face it -- for most people a chart plotter is going to give you information more rapidly and more simply.

Chart plotters are not the tools of the devil, and those who use celestial navigation aren't inherently superior to others. It's just a matter of interest for the great majority. So be tolerant -- "The farmer and the cowman should be friends!"

Bottom line: don't let those who know celestial navigation try to lord it over you because you don't know it yet. You're a newer sailor, and that's NOT a moral flaw. Maybe excessively harsh judgment of those coming behind one IS a serious character flaw. NO ONE PERSON represents the minimum standard to which all must line up -- especially when that status of "I'm the best and the rest of you are unworthy" is self-appointed.

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Selling Your Boat

I noted in an earlier update that this little boat, which I have nicknamed "Lost Soul," was severely aground and unlikely to be pulled off. (Can anyone identify it? I suspect that it may be a Buccaneer; they did build small boats with small center cockpits, and they tended to have very high freeboard for their size.)

It seems possible now that this boat was deliberately deserted. As time has gone by, everything of any value has continued to be removed from it, including mast, sails, and all (all) internal fittings. It's been turned about 150º and pulled up to the beach, and everything except the hull and deck are gone. Many ports are broken.

The registration number for this boat is clearly visible on the bow, although probably everything with the hull identification number on it is gone.

Here's some idea of what is going on legally, something I hinted at once before. The true owner of this boat is the last person who paid the yearly registration. This boat is probably an "antique" by Florida standards, 30 or more years old, so the registration fee will be around $6. The size of the bill is no reason to not register it.

There can be another reason, however. Pinellas County will come along eventually and remove this boat, and pay someone to cut it up. It is a safety hazard as well as an eyesore. They don't really want to absorb the salvage expenses, and they will send a bill to the last registered owner of the boat.

If you sell me a boat, it is up to me to take those sales records to the state office and transfer the title. You can't force me to do it. You can only check and see whether or not the boat is still in your name or not, and if you sell a boat, and I urge you to do that. If the new "owner" does not transfer the title to his or her name, you're being left in legal limbo. A salvage bill is only one of several unexpected problems you could encounter one day.

This system can be "played" in a number of ways. Someone in the area once had possession of a boat he had paid another person for. The new "owner" was aware that the previous owner was dying, and the new "owner" did not transfer the title. By the time the boat ran badly aground as a real "hat trick" -- eyesore, public danger and navigational hazard -- the owner of record had passed away. The county had to absorb that salvage cost.

Personally, if I ended up in a situation where the old owner had not transferred title and I could not force them to do it (the previous owner of my boat moved out of the country, *after* transferring title), you will certainly know when you go to pay for the next year's registration. If you can't come to some resolution with the previous owner, I suggest you discuss your situation with the state office and check with an attorney. Boat registrations are not as closely controlled as car titles are. You have to watch out for yourself.

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BRIDGES

     They’re more complicated than scary

Going through bridges -- I remember the first time I did it. I fumbled with the radio, sweated bullets over the timing, and was relieved when it was all over.

Those are the two big issues: using the radio and timing your passages. I’m going to talk about them one at a time, with a few comments at the end.

USING THE RADIO

The reason for following these steps when using the radio is out of courtesy to the bridge tender, who is juggling multiple balls at once sometimes. Predictable conversations make life easier for him or her. What you say will also make sense to the other boats around you, who will then know what to expect.

When you see the bridge in the distance, switch to Channel 9.

Call the radio when you are clearly visible and identifiable to the bridge tender. Here’s the language to use (the bridge tender will call you “Captain” out of courtesy. He or she doesn’t care whether or not you handed the radio over to a crew member).

1.   Call the bridge three times – “Corey Bridge, Corey Bridge, Corey Bridge…”

2.   Identify your boat: “This is the sailing vessel ‘Pink Floyd.’”

3.   Identify where you are: “I’m approaching from your north side.”

4.   Identify what you want: “I’m waiting for your next opening.”

5.   Make it clear that it’s the bridge tender’s turn to talk: “Over.”

The bridge tender may have a question or two for you. Always say “over” when you’re done answering.

The bridge tender will tell you when the next opening is. Thank him/her, and say, “Standing by.”

        

TIMING YOUR PASSAGE

There will be a main path through the bridge. For sailboats, that path is through the span opened up when the bridge is raised. If the bridge does not open, there is usually a small light at the center, on the edge of the bottom of the bridge surface. That will be lit at night but you’ll be able to spot it during the day.

For bridges that open, wait to one side of the path through the bridge and back some distance, as powerboats without a lot of height can go through at any time. If you want, you can sail or motor around, but keep a 360º lookout as bridges are heavy traffic areas but with no easy rules about where any one boat should be. If you wait in place, leave the engine in neutral.

The best advice I can give you is “Don’t hit the bridge.” You may have seen sailboats squeaking through the bridge as soon as there’s a crack at the top wide enough for their masts. Actually, according to the bridge tender I spoke with, you’re not supposed to do that. Both current and wind are shifty under a bridge. Leave yourself a good margin of safety. The two boats in this video did not leave a good margin of safety, as you’ll see (turn your sound on for this):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AZ21k4mfSQ

 If no one was hurt in that accident, they're very, very lucky. Several things were probably in play in that accident. First, the bridge tender may not have been able to see the boats trying to get through. They often can't see boats that are very close. Second, once a bridge has started to close, the bridge tender cannot always interrupt that process. In that video, incredibly, it appears that not one but two sailboats were going to try to go through a closing bridge.

Don't do that.   :)

However, the bridge tender is obligated to keep both boaters and drivers in mind. So you don’t want to waste his or her time, either. So what do you do? Tell the bridge tender that you’re familiar with your boat’s capabilities and speed but that this is your first time going through a bascule bridge.

Then, as the time to opening gets closer, zig zag a little closer to the opening so you’re ready to turn toward the bridge when the time is right. But when is that?

        

Well, it depends. The bridge tender uses a specific sequence of signals that can help. First, he or she sounds a horn five times. Five blasts of a horn is a warning sign. Then you’ll hear bells and see traffic gates drop down. The next step is that the bridge will start to open, but scan the bridge. If there are bike riders or pedestrians on the bridge, that will delay the opening.

As you start to approach the bridge, go slowly, and gradually increase your speed as the spans open.

As soon as you’re sure your mast is through, Say “Thank you, Bridgetender.”

WHAT CAN GO WRONG?

        

Wind: when the wind gets to a certain level, bascule bridges cannot be opened safely. Lower than that speed, the wind may push your boat about, another reason to make sure the bridge is wide open before you go through.

                 

Current: any current can be exacerbated by things like dredging. It may be more of a “water funnel” than it looks like. Watch the water swirling around the bridge supports as well as pilings (ex: “low wake” signs) near the bridge. In addition, if you poke around on your chart plotter, you may find a feature for currents. It can’t tell you what the current actually is where you are, but it may be able to tell you what the current is likely to be at that time (based on tide and history).

Engine problems: I was on a friend’s boat once when his engine died just as we were about to go under the bridge. We glided under; he steered the boat to the side; and we immediately put the anchor down. He had previously been sailing in rough water, and dirt from the side of his fuel tank got sloshed around. He had a clogged filter, easily solved because he had a spare filter. Make sure you have typically needed spare parts on your boat.

        

But wait – it’s a sailboat, right? Why not just sail through the bridge?

Well, let’s think this through. Do you have many years’ sailing experience? If so, why are you bothering to read someone telling you how to go through a bridge? Going through a bridge is not a dangerous thing to do with engine power. Under sail is a different matter.

The wind shifts unpredictably under a bascule bridge. In fact, a bridge tender can refuse to let a boat go through under sail. Some sailors leave a sail up as they go under, but the smart ones are still under engine power.

But it’s not just bascule bridges. Where I live, recently a bascule bridge was replaced with a 65’ high span. Most sailboats go right under with no problem – some very big sailboats will just have to go outside. I have a friend who has been sailing for many, many years. He could truly be called a master sailor, and would be the “go to” person for many, many people if they needed sailing advice.

And yet, when he tried to sail under that new bridge, he ended up in a real pickle. The wind shifts weirdly under the bridge. I’ve experienced it although I wasn’t able to identify the cause. Worse, he had a current against him – he estimated that it was moving at about 3 knots. Before he knew it, he was through the bridge but the current had sucked him over and jammed his boat against a large construction barge still finishing the bridge up. He and his companion were trying to fend the boat off with little success. Fortunately a power boater came by and gave them a tow (another choice for people in my area would be to call Eckerd College, who would be likely to get there before Boat US). He had three stanchions badly bent, but it could have been much worse.

In retrospect, he believes that he should have realized that the current would make it hard to sail safely under the bridge, especially given the obstacles on the other side. In retrospect, he believes he should have put the anchor down and just waited for the tide to slacken.

This proves there is always something more to learn about sailing!

There’s one more thing you can do before going through a bridge, and that is to gather local knowledge. You can make a general call on your radio to find out if there’s anything unusual about the bridge. You might try calling Boat US, as they will be familiar with bridges in the area since they often have to tow boats through that bridge.

Finally, Bridge Malfunctions: It happens. One time I went through a bascule bridge that could open only one span. There were three or four sailboats on each side waiting to go through. The bridge tender told us all frankly that it was up to us to decide what to do, so we did. We decided that southbound boats would go through first, and then northbound, since there wasn’t room for two boats to pass at the same time safely.

Unfortunately, every once in a while a bridge tender will make a request that just isn’t reasonable. I know of one case where the bridge tender kept insisting that the waiting boat get closer. The skipper did that – and ended up with his boat wedged sideways against a bridge piling. I have to wonder about this incident. I find it hard to believe that the bridge tender didn’t know that this could happen, given the current at the time. Politely tell the bridge tender that you need to keep a safe distance for your boat but that your boat will have the power to get through in a timely way when the bridge opens.

Another time, I was “buddy boating” with another boat. I had been leading the way toward the bridge, but all of a sudden the other boat put more power down, passed me, and headed for the bridge first. The water was very rough, and I think they just wanted more speed going through. Then the bridge tender said to me, “Can you catch up with the other boat?” If I had had one day’s more experience, I would have said, “I’m sorry, sir, but my boat is going as fast as she can.” Instead, I gave the boat more throttle … and she overheated. I ended up being towed under the bridge, and towed home the next day.

FINALLY – and this one is really scary – I know someone for whom the bridge came down on their mast while they were going through. This unfortunate couple owned the last boat in a group sailing together. As in the video, their boat was demasted. It might be that the boat before them said something that led the bridge tender to believe the entire group had passed. I don’t know whether they radioed the bridge tender or not, but every single boat going through should radio the bridge. However, don’t count on the bridge tender to remember how many are going through or to count them accurately. They are only human and may be dealing with other issues at the same time. Given what happened to the people I know who got squashed by a bridge, if I’m the last boat in line, I contact the bridge tender again and tell them that I am the last boat and will be entering the bridge shortly: “Bridge tender, this is the sailing vessel ‘Pink Floyd,’ about to go under your bridge. I am the last boat in the group.” I don’t risk having the bridge close one boat early.

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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.

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Storm!

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

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

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

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

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

This day was going to be different.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And then this:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Except.

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

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

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

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

So what are you to do?

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

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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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