It's a fact. Boats are havens for bugs. You know, the awful ones. The ones we whisper "roach" when we see them, right before we run around screaming.
I've had reason to do a little research on them, unfortunately. It turns out that they can live inside or outside. They're opportunistic. Now, anyone with any sense can look at a boat and see that with its
dark, damp corners, it would be a haven for bugs. If you don't keep your
food in bug-proof containers it's really just a matter of time. But I
had done that. I grew up with that as a child and continued the practice
all my life. I never even thought about it.
Several of my neighbors had also mentioned seeing them as well, and the timing was suspicious. The marina had just had to re-plumb the entire dock, and I think it disturbed some outdoor-living beasties. At least one male and female (or a female with eggs) decided my boat was a great place to move to.
Well, I'm nearly 68. I know it's Florida, but I grew up in Florida, and I've lived here since 2005, and I've never, ever had bugs ... until a couple of months ago. Here's the problem with bugs and boats -- there are many, many places for them to hide. You may not realize they're there as quickly as you might in a house.
Complicating things, I have a pet. We moved out and bombed the place. That has gotten rid of the occasional palmetto bug (who really don't want to be in your home or on your boat, and who do not eat things like the little crumbs you didn't see and didn't sweep up), but it did not faze these critters.
Plus, then I had to wash down the entire interior of the boat. Even if I hadn't felt that was necessary for me, cats rub up against everything and then lick their fur.
Naturally, when the first bomb didn't work, I did it again. Apparently I like difficult, repetitive chores.
I talked to an exterminator who said that spraying might keep them from coming aboard, but especially in a boat, with all its hiding places, it would not solve the problem. He suggested a paste that he places, exposed, in places the little critters are likely to go. I wasn't really comfortable with that. My cat rubs against every new thing to put her scent on it. I didn't want exposed poison on the boat.
So before doing that, I went to the store and I found RAID "large roach baits." this is a paste poison but in a container that would protect the cat. I put lots down in every conceivable place.
That solved the problem quite rapidly and effectively, I'm happy to report.
So here's the
LESSON LEARNED:
Be proactive. Get something like RAID's "Large baits," and put them out *before* you have a problem. I wish I had, but this boat will be protected from now on. There are a couple of brands of this type of bait, and switching them occasionally might be a good idea. Just assume the beasties are out there, looking to make your boat their home ... because they are!
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Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Your Chart is Probably Out of Date--Updated
PS: I just spent the weekend with club friends in a little cove off the Manatee River. There's a very high spot shown on both paper and electronic charts that's supposed to only be 3.3' deep at mean low tide.
I had difficulty getting the anchor up, and in the process, according to my chart plotter my boat drifted all over that spot, but the chart plotter, which I checked frequently because I knew about that supposed bump, showed I never had less than 9..4' water to work in. There's another example of how wrong charts can be. Someone had told me with great confidence that this "bump" wouldn't change because there was no current in there, but of course, since it's on the south side of the river, a lot of storms will stir that water up. In any event, the bump seems to be gone. This is actually the most dramatic case of change I've come across so far.
I've shown pictures of floating buoys in a major channel in the Tampa Bay area before:
I had difficulty getting the anchor up, and in the process, according to my chart plotter my boat drifted all over that spot, but the chart plotter, which I checked frequently because I knew about that supposed bump, showed I never had less than 9..4' water to work in. There's another example of how wrong charts can be. Someone had told me with great confidence that this "bump" wouldn't change because there was no current in there, but of course, since it's on the south side of the river, a lot of storms will stir that water up. In any event, the bump seems to be gone. This is actually the most dramatic case of change I've come across so far.
I've shown pictures of floating buoys in a major channel in the Tampa Bay area before:
This photo faces east. This is Channel Marker #10 in the Sunshine Skyway Channel. You can see exposed sand beyond. Channel Markers #8 and #12 are significantly farther east than this one is. The Channel is shoaling, or filling in with loose sand, at this spot. I took this picture some months ago. Since then I've seen a sailboat aground, in the channel, north of this spot. In addition, to the south, another piling has been taken down and another floating buoy moved significantly west. The eastern edge of this channel is starting to get a bit zig-zaggy!
I ran lightly aground between markers 2 and 4 a couple of weeks ago. We had a lower than average low tide, partly influenced by the 25 mph north wind that apparently blew a fair amount of Tampa Bay's water to Venezuela. I got off fairly easily; sand that has just moved hasn't had a chance to compact yet and gives way fairly easily. I've also "skipped bottom" at other spots in the channel.
I don't know when the powers that be will get around to redredging this channel, but probably it takes a while. Meanwhile, what do I have to go by? One thing is for sure: my chart still shows both channel markers in their old places. So does my chart plotter.
Meanwhile, we've had a run of unusually low tides here. The lowest point doesn't typically go below mean low tide (except for that one very windy day), but we're not having full high tides. Since the typical distance from low to high tide around here is only two feet, when the tide only rises one foot "high tide" isn't a lot of help in very shallow places.
But the problem with charts and chart plotters lagging behind real life is more complicated than just where the channel markers are. At the southern end of the Skyway Bridge Channel, it appears that there is deeper water -- 8' - 10' -- just to the west of Channel Marker 2. So it would *appear* that one could just bypass the southern entrance by going west of it, and then enter the channel past that shoaling spot.
However, if the channel is filling in to that degree, perhaps the area to the west of it is filling in as well.
When faced with such situations, local knowledge can be a great help. Local fishermen may know, or local dockmasters, charter captains, etc. You can get on the radio and see if you can raise someone. or put someone, preferably someone with experience in shallow water, on the bow. Proceed very slowly, so if you do run aground, your boat's speed doesn't make it worse.
For now, I'm just avoiding that patch of water at low tide. I'm not going to go through there at night by myself unless I have a full-out high tide, and even then it wouldn't be my first choice, because being aground in a narrow channel at night is not exactly an ideal situation.
So don't trust your chart plotter 100%. Don't completely trust the routes you've plotted on it unless it's all through known deep water. Keep your eyes open, and reduce your speed at night. Keep a log of such instances so you're not left scratching your head next time, thinking, "Now where was that high spot?" You don't want it under your keel!
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Thursday, November 21, 2013
Really Bad Joke and a Small Amount of Information
So, a rope goes into a bar and sits down.
The bartender comes over and says, "You're a rope."
"Yes, I am," says the rope.
The bartender says, "We don't serve ropes in here. I'm sorry, but you'll have to leave."
So the rope gets up and goes outside. He ties himself up and fluffs out his ends. He goes back into the bar and sits down again on the same stool he was on before.
The bartender comes over to him and says suspiciously, "Say ... aren't you the rope I just threw out of here?"
Comes the answer: "I'm a frayed knot!"
Corny!!
A friend who has been sailing for over sixty years passed this tip on to us. He's amazed that he didn't learn it until he'd been sailing for more than 20 years.
When you coil a rope, do it clockwise, not counter-clockwise. The rope is twisted when it's made in a way that will cause it to want to knot all up if you coil it counter-clockwise.
He also had a tip about the "geezer halyard" I wrote about yesterday, in fact any halyard. He recommends against hanking the halyard and hanging it from its winch. You may need to use it very quickly. He recommends coiling it in a circle (clockwise, of course). He suggests stowing it in a bag. It will be much easier to use in a hurry if stowed that way.
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The bartender comes over and says, "You're a rope."
"Yes, I am," says the rope.
The bartender says, "We don't serve ropes in here. I'm sorry, but you'll have to leave."
So the rope gets up and goes outside. He ties himself up and fluffs out his ends. He goes back into the bar and sits down again on the same stool he was on before.
The bartender comes over to him and says suspiciously, "Say ... aren't you the rope I just threw out of here?"
Comes the answer: "I'm a frayed knot!"
Corny!!
A friend who has been sailing for over sixty years passed this tip on to us. He's amazed that he didn't learn it until he'd been sailing for more than 20 years.
When you coil a rope, do it clockwise, not counter-clockwise. The rope is twisted when it's made in a way that will cause it to want to knot all up if you coil it counter-clockwise.
He also had a tip about the "geezer halyard" I wrote about yesterday, in fact any halyard. He recommends against hanking the halyard and hanging it from its winch. You may need to use it very quickly. He recommends coiling it in a circle (clockwise, of course). He suggests stowing it in a bag. It will be much easier to use in a hurry if stowed that way.
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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.
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.
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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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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Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Docking by Yourself at a T-Dock -- with new and improved photos
At many marinas they have what is called a "transient" dock, or T-dock. Often it is literally shaped like a T, in that your boat comes along side the top of the T. The boat is only secured on one side.
You might be by yourself, or we can use the example we used before that your sailing companion has injured himself and is sitting with ice on his ankle. You're going to have to secure the boat yourself.
As you glide up to the dock in neutral, make note of the wind direction. If you're coming up on the starboard side of your boat but the wind is coming across the starboard side, you have to get the bow and stern secured rapidly. It doesn't have to be beautiful on first pass.
An easy way to do this is to attach a long line (at least twice as long as your boat) to your stern cleat. Have the boat in neutral but still gliding slowly forward. As you glide up to the dock, just throw the line over and behind what will be, temporarily at least, your stern piling. Keep hold of the bitter end as you do this. Don't tie any kind of knot -- just let it lie behind the piling.
Walk to the bow and throw the line over and behind another piling near the bow, again hanging on to the bitter end, and lash it off at the bow cleat.
Clearly your boat is not permanently tied up now, but the wind can no longer blow it away from the dock. With the boat temporarily somewhat secure, it's now easy to tie the boat up properly, taking your time.
Since I often bring my boat up to a one-sided dock, I have a long line (120') permanently fastened with a baggage tie knot (sometimes called a cow hitch) to my toe rail, about amidships. A stanchion will work well if you don't have a stout perforated toe rail.
You might be by yourself, or we can use the example we used before that your sailing companion has injured himself and is sitting with ice on his ankle. You're going to have to secure the boat yourself.
As you glide up to the dock in neutral, make note of the wind direction. If you're coming up on the starboard side of your boat but the wind is coming across the starboard side, you have to get the bow and stern secured rapidly. It doesn't have to be beautiful on first pass.
An easy way to do this is to attach a long line (at least twice as long as your boat) to your stern cleat. Have the boat in neutral but still gliding slowly forward. As you glide up to the dock, just throw the line over and behind what will be, temporarily at least, your stern piling. Keep hold of the bitter end as you do this. Don't tie any kind of knot -- just let it lie behind the piling.
Walk to the bow and throw the line over and behind another piling near the bow, again hanging on to the bitter end, and lash it off at the bow cleat.
Clearly your boat is not permanently tied up now, but the wind can no longer blow it away from the dock. With the boat temporarily somewhat secure, it's now easy to tie the boat up properly, taking your time.
Since I often bring my boat up to a one-sided dock, I have a long line (120') permanently fastened with a baggage tie knot (sometimes called a cow hitch) to my toe rail, about amidships. A stanchion will work well if you don't have a stout perforated toe rail.
 |
| Baggage tie, also sometimes called a "cow hitch" |
I keep the line divided in half with each half separately hanked, hanging from the life lines.
 |
| Total length of this line is 120', attached to toe rail with a baggage tie at the middle of the line, with each loose end separately hanked. |
Take one end of your very long line (the one attached to your boat with a baggage tie), and attach it to a piling between midships and bow with a clove hitch.
 |
| Clove hitch used around a piling allows one line to be used both as spring line and as bow or stern line. |
The bitter end of that line goes up to your bow cleat. Undo your temporary line from that cleat, throw it on the dock, and cleat off the new line. You have now used half of that baggage tie line as both spring and bow line.
You'll repeat this process with the other half of your very long line: first use it as a spring line with a clove hitch at a piling between amidships and the stern, and then take the bitter end to the stern and attach it with a cleat hitch. Gather up your temporary dock line, re-hank it and stow it. You'll need it again when you leave this dock if you don't have someone helping on the dock.
Now you can see exactly where to put your fenders and fender boards to keep your boat off the dock. I do recommend that you set the boat so you don't have any stanchions pressing up against pilings.
So what if you have to get away from the dock by yourself? Once again, study the wind direction. If, for instance, your bow is pointing to the west, if the wind is from the north it is possible that if you just put a temporary line around the rear piling and your rear cleat, the wind will blow your bow in the direction it needs to go while you keep the boat near the dock with that stern line. Or it may be best to just pull forward, turn into a fairway and turn the boat around. It will vary according to wind, current, and your boat's characteristics. You want this line to just be a single loop around the piling so you can remove it easily as you leave the dock.
One thing is for sure, though, you won't want to be wrestling with 120' of line, tied to pilings with clove hitches, as you try to exit. Keeping line out of the water has to be of paramount importance. Let that line get wrapped around your rudder or propeller and you'll be at the dock longer than you expected!
So just reverse the process. One cleat at a time, replace your very long line with a line just laid behind the pilings and latched on to your cleats (just as you did when you first came alongside the dock). This time, you can use a "half cleat hitch" on your stern and bow cleats. (If this knot has another name I would love to hear of it).
It's easily made. You lead your line to the cleat, but the only part of the cleat hitch you use is the very last turn of the line, when you make a loop and twist it before hooking it over the horn of the cleat.
 |
| Step 1, with the red and white line laid around the cleat. |
 |
Step 2. You'll make a loop with the right end,
pull it around the cleat, twist it, and slip it over the left horn
of the cleat. Your half-hitch on a cleat is complete.
|
This makes a working knot that will hold well but that can be undone rapidly and easily.
 |
| Standard cleat hitch |
Just for reference, compare that quick, temporary half-cleat to the full cleat hitch below. You should use the full cleat hitch when the boat is fully secured at the dock.
Hank your very long line and re-hang both ends from the lifelines. You don't need to be tripping over it as you move along the side of the boat -- or worse, have a long line trailing in the water when you know the propeller wants to get to know it better!
When you're ready to release that temporary line, use the wind to judge which end to undo first. We'll say it's the bow, and that the wind is going to catch the bow, and spin the boat slowly around until the bow is pointing toward the east instead of the west.
Put the engine in neutral, release the half-cleat hitch on the bow, and throw it on the dock near the stern. Get back to the cockpit, and start pulling the line in around the stern piling, holding on to and working both ends so the extra line goes onto your boat and not into the water. When the boat is turned, pull the remaining line in (keeping it out of the water, very important since it's near the stern), put the boat in forward and drive away from the dock with the wind at your stern.
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Monday, November 18, 2013
Change Your Impeller!
I was sailing on a friend's boat one weekend for one of BCYC's monthly cruises. I use the word "sailing" loosely. My friend had sails up on principle, but since the winds were only about 2 mph, the engine was running.
He had put me at the helm and was giving me a variety of useful tips, so I wasn't surprised when he periodically walked by the helm on his center cockpit boat.
I didn't notice that his engine temperature gauge was installed on the side of the binnacle (the pedestal that holds the wheel), but one of the things he was doing was checking the engine temperature.
On one pass, he said, "The engine's overheating. Shut her down, and you'll have to sail her while my friend and I go below to see what's going on. Can you do that?"
His boat was 37' while mine was 25', but I assured him that I could sail the boat and that I would come get him if there was a problem. He and his friend went below.
Forty-five minutes later, he and his friend came back up. His friend looked as if he didn't feel at all well -- in the US we have s saying, "a bit green around the gills," for feeling nauseous. Well, he'd had his head in an engine for 45 minutes, smelling all those engine smells, while the boat gently rolled, so I wasn't surprised.
My friend held out his hand. There was his old impeller, broken into eight pieces.
My friend had been smart. He put down a paper towel on the cabin floor, and put the broken pieces of impeller on the paper. Then the two of them put it back together like a puzzle. That's how they knew there was still one piece of impeller somewhere in the cooling system, and they hunted until they found it.
Well, that was a bit of bother, wasn't it? What if he had been the only person on the boat? He still could have done it, but he would have had to put the anchor down, get to work on the engine, come up periodically to make sure the anchor wasn't dragging, etc.
Your engine manufacturer probably tells you right in the manual to replace the impeller once a year. Most sailors will tell you to "carry a spare in case it breaks."
That's two different pieces of advice, and it's the manufacturer's recommendation you should follow. It was hard to be that diligent on my old engine. You had to do a bit of engine dismantling to change the impeller, including taking the water pump off.
That makes it all the more important to replace that impeller *before* it breaks.
This happened to my friend's boat on a calm day. He didn't need the engine to get him away from a lee shore, or to fight a strong current, or to get through a bridge safely. There was no one injured we needed to get to shore. We were in open water. I had to tack the boat once to get it away from the shore, but that wasn't a crisis.
But it could have been.
Follow your engine manufacturer's recommendations on this kind of thing, because a simple thing like an impeller can contribute to a "cascade event" of things going wrong. Even if you have another person with you, he or she may not have the skills to maneuver your boat safely through a storm while you change the impeller you should have changed three months before.
Here's a good article from BOAT US on how to do it:
http://www.boatus.com/boattech/casey/replacing-impeller.asp
If it breaks unexpectedly, do what my friend did. Lay down a paper towel, put every piece on that towel, and make sure you got every bit of it.
Go through your manual, and make a time table for all these basic maintenance issues. We tend to think of our engines as something to get you out of the marina and on to the water -- but do you really want your boat adrift in a crowded marina?
No, I didn't think so.
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He had put me at the helm and was giving me a variety of useful tips, so I wasn't surprised when he periodically walked by the helm on his center cockpit boat.
I didn't notice that his engine temperature gauge was installed on the side of the binnacle (the pedestal that holds the wheel), but one of the things he was doing was checking the engine temperature.
On one pass, he said, "The engine's overheating. Shut her down, and you'll have to sail her while my friend and I go below to see what's going on. Can you do that?"
His boat was 37' while mine was 25', but I assured him that I could sail the boat and that I would come get him if there was a problem. He and his friend went below.
Forty-five minutes later, he and his friend came back up. His friend looked as if he didn't feel at all well -- in the US we have s saying, "a bit green around the gills," for feeling nauseous. Well, he'd had his head in an engine for 45 minutes, smelling all those engine smells, while the boat gently rolled, so I wasn't surprised.
My friend held out his hand. There was his old impeller, broken into eight pieces.
My friend had been smart. He put down a paper towel on the cabin floor, and put the broken pieces of impeller on the paper. Then the two of them put it back together like a puzzle. That's how they knew there was still one piece of impeller somewhere in the cooling system, and they hunted until they found it.
Well, that was a bit of bother, wasn't it? What if he had been the only person on the boat? He still could have done it, but he would have had to put the anchor down, get to work on the engine, come up periodically to make sure the anchor wasn't dragging, etc.
Your engine manufacturer probably tells you right in the manual to replace the impeller once a year. Most sailors will tell you to "carry a spare in case it breaks."
That's two different pieces of advice, and it's the manufacturer's recommendation you should follow. It was hard to be that diligent on my old engine. You had to do a bit of engine dismantling to change the impeller, including taking the water pump off.
That makes it all the more important to replace that impeller *before* it breaks.
This happened to my friend's boat on a calm day. He didn't need the engine to get him away from a lee shore, or to fight a strong current, or to get through a bridge safely. There was no one injured we needed to get to shore. We were in open water. I had to tack the boat once to get it away from the shore, but that wasn't a crisis.
But it could have been.
Follow your engine manufacturer's recommendations on this kind of thing, because a simple thing like an impeller can contribute to a "cascade event" of things going wrong. Even if you have another person with you, he or she may not have the skills to maneuver your boat safely through a storm while you change the impeller you should have changed three months before.
Here's a good article from BOAT US on how to do it:
http://www.boatus.com/boattech/casey/replacing-impeller.asp
If it breaks unexpectedly, do what my friend did. Lay down a paper towel, put every piece on that towel, and make sure you got every bit of it.
Go through your manual, and make a time table for all these basic maintenance issues. We tend to think of our engines as something to get you out of the marina and on to the water -- but do you really want your boat adrift in a crowded marina?
No, I didn't think so.
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Sunday, November 17, 2013
Why Sailing is not Like Driving a Car, No. 2
In yesterday's entry I wrote about how important it is to train your crew well, teaching even total newcomers some useful skill that you can count on in a pinch.
For how to teach, I used the example of how one club instructor put her hands over her mouth to force her to not give too many prompts when her students should have been performing independently.
While teaching sail school, she had realized that her students couldn't dock a sailboat unless they could do it without her giving them a single prompt, and she had her hands over her mouth as they approached the safety boat to dock next to it.
Last night I happened to speak with the father of this instructor. Her father said that she had been steering their tiller sailboat for 10 years when she signed up for driver's ed at school. Neither she nor her parents expected any problems. She was a straight-A student, and many students took "Driver's Ed" for the easy A of it.
Not this young lady. She was flunking driver's ed. HUH? NOBODY flunks driver's ed!
So her dad took her to a large, empty parking lot one Sunday, one without parking bumpers or other barriers, to see what was going on.
She started out driving straight, just fine. He didn't see a problem. Then he told her to turn left -- and she turned the car right!
She was handling the steering wheel like a tiller!
So if you have a crew member struggling with some basic skill, isolate that skill and watch carefully what is going on. Several months ago, I did this with a sailor I knew. He had been sailing the Catalinas for five years but his movement across the water was often erratic and unpredictable. He obviously struggled with tacking to the point that he would know he was going to run aground on a known high point, but seemed unable to turn the boat in time to get out of the way.
So I went out with him, and discovered that he really didn't have any solid idea of how to tack the boat. He just tried something new each time, hoping he would figure it out and get it right (it turned out that someone had told him to do this -- see my many references about people who give one bad advice!)
I wrote a very detailed, 15-step method for tacking and gave it to him. He said he would read it and study it, and agreed to go out with me on one of the little 16.5' Catalinas to sort it out.
After reading the list, he politely canceled the sailing date.
He canceled s similar date with someone else.
Finally he said to me one day, "I just want to be the best sailor I can." I said, "Then go out with me and let's sort this out."
So we did, and I and my list of things to do were driving him crazy. Finally he said, "Just let me do it my way," and I said "OK."
Turned out he was doing everything right -- except for one thing: he didn't know where to start the tack. Somewhere in sail school he had not learned that (probably because instructors always prompted him -- too much "help"). So he would, say, have the wind nearly astern when he started the tack. Of course the boat would make a broad, slow turn, and it might end anywhere, including moving in a complete circle, ending where he had been before. If you don't tack with a plan, how will you know when to end it? Or he might not have had enough speed by the time he got to the "no-go" zone, and the boat would swing back over to starboard.
All I had to do was remind him of the "no go" zone, and explain that he should sail along, say, the starboard side, build up speed, spot where he wanted to end, move through the "no go" zone -- and stop the tack.
He did it perfectly the first time -- with no prompts. Then he did it perfectly three more times.
So then we expanded the concept to a controlled jybe, keeping the boom close to center so there wouldn't be a huge snap when the sail picked up the wind on the other side. Then he did THAT perfectly with no prompts.
So then we just sailed around, and he started calling all the moves very well: "prepare to tack," and I had to hustle to keep up with him, because he now knew exactly what he was doing. Acting as skipper and calling all the shots, sometimes he tacked and sometimes he jybed, getting it all right every single time.
Meanwhile, the wind shifted to northerly. Uh-oh! When the wind is from the north, to get into the marina you have to sail up a narrow north-south canal to get to the entrance. It certainly isn't impossible, but unless you have a motor, you have to make a series of short, quick tacks -- or run aground at a place where this man had been notorious for running aground.
No problem this time!. He took charge as skipper, executed the tacks crisply and accurately, turned into the club's basin, and expertly sailed the little boat into its slip. He told me what to do, when to do it, and used one sail, expertly managed, to get the boat home -- just as he had been doing most of the afternoon.
Give too many prompts, and you keep your crew member from learning. This person's problem with tacking is the most concrete and perfect example I can think of to demonstrate just how important it is to let anyone you're teaching to perform completely independently, even if you see them making a mistake.
If they make a mistake, discuss it *afterwards.* Give them a chance to practice it, and when they get to that point on the next attempt, put your hands over your mouth if you have to, but DO NOT PROMPT THEM OR GIVE THE CLUES. Just don't. Discuss it afterwards.
Even then, don't tell them what they did wrong. ASK them if they know what mistake they made. Give them time to think. Give them a chance to learn.
Go to our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/boldlygosailing?skip_nax_wizard=true
For how to teach, I used the example of how one club instructor put her hands over her mouth to force her to not give too many prompts when her students should have been performing independently.
While teaching sail school, she had realized that her students couldn't dock a sailboat unless they could do it without her giving them a single prompt, and she had her hands over her mouth as they approached the safety boat to dock next to it.
Last night I happened to speak with the father of this instructor. Her father said that she had been steering their tiller sailboat for 10 years when she signed up for driver's ed at school. Neither she nor her parents expected any problems. She was a straight-A student, and many students took "Driver's Ed" for the easy A of it.
Not this young lady. She was flunking driver's ed. HUH? NOBODY flunks driver's ed!
So her dad took her to a large, empty parking lot one Sunday, one without parking bumpers or other barriers, to see what was going on.
She started out driving straight, just fine. He didn't see a problem. Then he told her to turn left -- and she turned the car right!
She was handling the steering wheel like a tiller!
So if you have a crew member struggling with some basic skill, isolate that skill and watch carefully what is going on. Several months ago, I did this with a sailor I knew. He had been sailing the Catalinas for five years but his movement across the water was often erratic and unpredictable. He obviously struggled with tacking to the point that he would know he was going to run aground on a known high point, but seemed unable to turn the boat in time to get out of the way.
So I went out with him, and discovered that he really didn't have any solid idea of how to tack the boat. He just tried something new each time, hoping he would figure it out and get it right (it turned out that someone had told him to do this -- see my many references about people who give one bad advice!)
I wrote a very detailed, 15-step method for tacking and gave it to him. He said he would read it and study it, and agreed to go out with me on one of the little 16.5' Catalinas to sort it out.
After reading the list, he politely canceled the sailing date.
He canceled s similar date with someone else.
Finally he said to me one day, "I just want to be the best sailor I can." I said, "Then go out with me and let's sort this out."
So we did, and I and my list of things to do were driving him crazy. Finally he said, "Just let me do it my way," and I said "OK."
Turned out he was doing everything right -- except for one thing: he didn't know where to start the tack. Somewhere in sail school he had not learned that (probably because instructors always prompted him -- too much "help"). So he would, say, have the wind nearly astern when he started the tack. Of course the boat would make a broad, slow turn, and it might end anywhere, including moving in a complete circle, ending where he had been before. If you don't tack with a plan, how will you know when to end it? Or he might not have had enough speed by the time he got to the "no-go" zone, and the boat would swing back over to starboard.
All I had to do was remind him of the "no go" zone, and explain that he should sail along, say, the starboard side, build up speed, spot where he wanted to end, move through the "no go" zone -- and stop the tack.
He did it perfectly the first time -- with no prompts. Then he did it perfectly three more times.
So then we expanded the concept to a controlled jybe, keeping the boom close to center so there wouldn't be a huge snap when the sail picked up the wind on the other side. Then he did THAT perfectly with no prompts.
So then we just sailed around, and he started calling all the moves very well: "prepare to tack," and I had to hustle to keep up with him, because he now knew exactly what he was doing. Acting as skipper and calling all the shots, sometimes he tacked and sometimes he jybed, getting it all right every single time.
Meanwhile, the wind shifted to northerly. Uh-oh! When the wind is from the north, to get into the marina you have to sail up a narrow north-south canal to get to the entrance. It certainly isn't impossible, but unless you have a motor, you have to make a series of short, quick tacks -- or run aground at a place where this man had been notorious for running aground.
No problem this time!. He took charge as skipper, executed the tacks crisply and accurately, turned into the club's basin, and expertly sailed the little boat into its slip. He told me what to do, when to do it, and used one sail, expertly managed, to get the boat home -- just as he had been doing most of the afternoon.
Give too many prompts, and you keep your crew member from learning. This person's problem with tacking is the most concrete and perfect example I can think of to demonstrate just how important it is to let anyone you're teaching to perform completely independently, even if you see them making a mistake.
If they make a mistake, discuss it *afterwards.* Give them a chance to practice it, and when they get to that point on the next attempt, put your hands over your mouth if you have to, but DO NOT PROMPT THEM OR GIVE THE CLUES. Just don't. Discuss it afterwards.
Even then, don't tell them what they did wrong. ASK them if they know what mistake they made. Give them time to think. Give them a chance to learn.
Go to our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/boldlygosailing?skip_nax_wizard=true
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