On The Wind

Is Anyone Not Amazed?

2012-01-09T20:43:00.002-05:00

Is anyone not amazed by Banque Populaire V's smashing of the Jules Verne record for non-stop circumnavigation, just completed? Here are the stats: 29,002 miles covered, time elapsed 45d 13h 42m 53s, for an average speed of 26.5kts! (You want to see her going 41 knots?)

She routinely put in noon to noon runs of over 600 miles; the fastest 24 hour run by a clipper ship was 465 miles (Champion of the Seas, designer Donald McKay, in1854. This record stood until 1984.)

"Banque Pop V", or simply "BPV", is a 130 foot trimaran, 75 feet in beam, with enormous sail area and stupendous sail-carrying ability, strong enough and big enough to be able to press on at high speeds even in big southern seas. She is featured in an earlier blog entry, with a video link - great stuff.

She is surely among the greatest yachts ever to sail. Hats off to her and the crew.

Bulbous

2012-01-01T13:06:00.004-05:00

Bows, that is. At higher speeds, most of the energy driving a displacement hull is wasted on wave creation, including at the bow. To the extent wave making can be minimized, the efficiency of the hull increases. The addition of a bulbous bow creates a wave ahead of the ship's normal bow wave, and the trough of the bulbous bow's wave coincides with the crest of the ship's bow wave, tending to cancel the wave out. A bulbous bow lends about 5% to the efficiency of the hull, and reduces pitching as well.

Bulbous bows add to the wetted area of the hull. At slow speeds the drag induced by wetted area is the primary impediment to hull efficiency. For this reason bulbous bows are not (apparently) suitable for sailboats, which so often travel at much less than maximum speed.

The concept is said to have been first developed by David Taylor, head of ship design for the U.S. Navy in 1910. He noticed that the ram commonly incorporated into the bow of large combatants in that era seemed to slow the ships much less than theory predicted. While slow to catch on, bulbous bows are now ubiquitous.

The Baidarka built by Alaska's Aleuts has the unique bow depicted here. While western academics assumed the shape had some totemic significance, perhaps meant to mimic a salmon's maw, some believe it represents a bulbous bow. The efficiency of these boats is remarkable, and it seems entirely possible that thousands of years of inspired design resulted in an advance that long anticipated David Taylor's discovery.

You may think there is a flaw in the logic here - that bulbous bows are efficient only in hulls driven at the higher realm of their potential speeds, and that kayaks are slow. Think it through. A container ship and a kayak both have displacement hulls. Simplifying somewhat, the maximum hull speed of a displacement hull is known to equal 1.34 multiplied by the square root of the waterline length, at which point there is a big bow wave, a big stern wave, and a deep trough amidships - think of a tug powering along. A kayak with a 16 foot waterline length will thus have maximum hull speed of about 5.4 knots. (If you're doing the math, a container ship with a 900 foot waterline length has a maximum hull speed of 40 knots.) A powerful man could and would drive a kayak at speeds approaching 5 knots, suggesting that the bulbous bow would be a useful part of the hull. Bear in mind also that when a hull is driven by muscle, even a small addition to efficiency is normally appreciated and sought after.

Plimsoll

2011-12-24T17:42:00.001-05:00

A fundamental aspect of seaworthiness, but one which a yachtsman may forget, is reserve buoyancy. A square rigger deeply laden with cargo did indeed "batten the hatches" before going to sea, for if a hatch gave way in heavy weather the ship would likely founder. Modern sailing yachts are light, with ample freeboard, and thus can take on a good deal of water before going under.

Samuel Plimsoll (1824 - 1898) was a member of the British Parliament who worked for the safety of mariners, work which led to a law requiring a mark on the side of every British ship beyond which it could not be loaded. The U.S. adopted the practice in 1929 (Load Line Act of 1929), and the Load Line Convention of 1966 has been adopted by almost all maritime nations.

The modern Plimsoll Mark is depicted above. A ship floats lower in fresh water, which is about 97% as heavy per unit volume as seawater, so a ship leaving the Caribean to enter the fresh water of the Panama Canal's Lake Gatun will lose considerable freeboard. It is interesting to note that Winter North Atlantic requires the most freeboard - the most reserve buoyancy - evidence of the awful conditions met by ships on that run.

The bisected circle to the left of the Plimsoll Mark carries the initials of the ship's classification society, whether American Bureau of Shipping (ABS), Bureau Veritas or, in the case of the illustration, Lloyd's Register.

In the U.S., commercial ships greater than 79 feet in length and engaged in foreign trade must have a marked load line, and carry a load line certificate. The actual certification is undertaken by the ABS. U.S. Naval ships are exempt from load line regulations, but they do carry an amidships mark which limits loading. It looks like an asterix.

Professional Mariner magazine gives the annual Plimsoll Award: "The Plimsoll marks on ships today are an enduring testimony to his tireless pursuit of safety at sea. Professional Mariner proudly presents its Plimsoll Awards each year to individuals and organizations that embody the spirit of Samuel Plimsoll." So great was Samuel Plimsoll's contribution to the safety of life at sea.

Tonnage

2011-12-20T22:02:00.003-05:00

In England sailors until fairly recently described a yacht as, for example, a "seven ton cutter." That didn't mean a yacht weighing seven tons, but rather a yacht with a useful interior space of about 700 cubic feet, a "ton", as used in that context, equaling 100 cubic feet.

Lots of folks are confused by tonnage terms. Here are the four fundamental measurements.

Gross tonnage measures the interior space of the ship, including most non-cargo spaces. One of these "tons" equals 100 cubic feet. As I understand it, the term is derived from "tun", a great fat barrel holding 256 gallons of water or wine, and requiring about 100 cubic feet of stowage space per tun.

Net tonnage is the useful cargo space of a ship, with again one ton equaling 100 cubic feet. Generally, net tonnage is the ship's gross tonnage minus engine spaces, shaft alleys, crew quarters etc. There are, as the normally very dry Knight's Modern Seamanship puts it, "some annoying variations" among nations in what spaces are disregarded to find net tonnage, but these variations are disappearing in the face of international conventions, including the International Convention on Tonnage Measurement of Ships. Net tonnage is important not only because it describes the cargo carrying capacity of the ship, but because canal fees, harbor charges etc. turn on net tonnage.

Displacement is the weight of the water displaced by the ship, which is, as Archimedes realized, equal to the ship's weight. Generally, not always, yachts are described by their displacement.

Deadweight tonnage (DWT) is a measure of how much weight a ship can safely carry, disregarding the unloaded, unfueled, unprovisioned weight of the ship ("lightship weight") but including not only cargo, but also stores, fuel, water etc. The term is sometimes confused with displacement but the two terms mean entirely different things.

Yacht Names

2011-12-08T20:57:00.003-05:00

I've written about yacht names before, see the January 21, 2010 post. Here are a few that have occurred to me lately. Feel free to use or suggest them - perhaps you'll let me know by comment if you do.

Trice Trice, an old English usage of uncertain etymology but dating to at least the 1500's, means at once or instantly. It could be the name of a fast cruising boat.

Brant A brant is a sort of seagoing goose common to New England.Bird names make good boat names - Herreshoff's Meadowlark, Shearwater and countless others come to mind - but I don't think I have seen a transom bearing the name Brant. Brant has a good bold sound, a bit in your face; I like it.

Tipping Point Here's a phrase that is very much in vogue just now. Maybe a clever name for someone's first sailing yacht, about which purchase - and use - he is a bit nervous.

Pierhead Jump A sailor who signs on for a voyage with little forethought and without knowing much at all about the ship or the skipper has made a pierhead jump. It's a good salty name for a boat bought without a lot of deliberation.

What thoughts went into the naming of your boat? Have you lately seen a name you thought was just great? Do you, like me, see my post linked above, think there are rules to the naming of boats, or does anything go? Post a comment!

The Shipping Man

2011-12-07T16:31:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine, Matt McCleery, has written a book - The Shipping Man. It's a nice tale of a money manager's sudden infatuation with owning a ship, apparently a disease with no hope of cure. It made me want to be "A Shipping Man" too!

I really liked the book. Good plot, good characters, well crafted, and an education to boot. Here's a link:

http://www.amazon.com/Shipping-Man-Matt-McCleery/dp/0983716307

Lifeboat

2011-12-01T20:40:00.001-05:00

While picking up my son (he who can tie a bowline with his feet) at Massachusetts Maritime Academy, I saw some modern lifeboats and took a few pictures.

Modern lifeboats are completely covered and have diesel engines. The propellers are shrouded in Kort nozzles, for the safety of people in the water.

I like this picture. On cargo ships and tankers the lifeboat is often mounted on rails over the stern, and when the lever is pulled the boats flies down the rails and into the sea. That's a boat you don't want to miss.

This lifeboat has a capacity of 76 persons, each strapped into a padded seat. Not comfy, but a lot better than an open boat.

The steering station. The silver tube to the left of the helmsman is the exhaust pipe.

Peter Arno

2011-11-23T17:49:00.002-05:00

Peter Arno was a New Yorker cartoonist in the middle decades of the last century. His cartoons were often politically incorrect - he might have said risque - even then. The top one is from 1941, the priceless bottom one 1949, I think. Enjoy.

Bowline Strength Test - Conventional Wisdom Bites the Dust

2011-11-20T18:40:00.004-05:00

My November 13 post was about the "correct" way to tie a bowline. Searching the web, I came across some comparison testing of the correct and incorrect methods (http://user.xmission.com/~tmoyer/testing/pull_tests_11_98.html). The testing was by a member of the Salt Lake City Sheriff's Office, which does a lot of mountain rescue. The protocol looked a little unorthodox but sound (see below). Here is the result of the bowline test:

            11/23 Test #14
              Pull a bowline knot to failure. A bowline was tied in each end of a piece of
              new 11 mm Blue Water rope. One knot was tied "correctly". The other was
              tied "incorrectly", with the tail of the rope outside the loop formed by the
              bowline. The load was applied between the two bowline knots, on a single
              strand of rope.
              Result: Material failure at the "correctly" tied knot at 4840 lbs.

The caveat I will add is that these knots were presumably both drawn up tight before they took a load. Just maybe the correctly tied knot is more stable and less likely to trip while drawing tight, a consideration if - but only if - the line is so big and stiff that it cannot be drawn up by hand - not a common scenario for the yachtsman. Also, with the tail inside the knot the correct bowline is a bit less likely to hang up, if that is an issue.

Here is the testing protocol:

"We used a vehicle winch on a Hummvee to apply forces. A second Hummvee was initially used as an anchor. However, with an end-to-end pull, and with all four wheels locked, we were able to drag both vehicles across the concrete floor with 5000 lbs force. (good number to know if you use vehicles as anchors.) We ended up anchoring one vehicle to a tank (yes - really) and the other to eyebolts mounted in the wall. A Sensotec load cell was used to measure forces. It is calibrated internally with a shunt resistor."

Flashlight holder

2011-11-17T16:06:00.000-05:00

I use little Mag-Lites on Journeyman, the ones that take AA cells. The Mag-Lites are rugged, waterproof, bright and focusable, and you can keep one in your pocket at night on watch.

I keep one just inside the companionway to starboard, and I added another to the bulkhead separating the salon from the forward cabin. That new one is almost a spare, but it comes in handy when we are sleeping forward at anchor.

The flashlights come with a ballistic nylon holster. To make a mount, I trim the holster off short with a hot knife, then screw it to the bulkhead as shown, with two short fat screws. It is an effective and easy mount.

Every spring I put in fresh batteries, so the flashlights will be ready for emergency use.

My First Yacht

2011-11-14T16:52:00.001-05:00

The New Yorker once ran a cartoon of a fellow lettering his yacht's name - "My First Yacht"- while leaning over the transom. The name was upside down.

I did have a slightly inspired idea for a yacht name, perhaps appropriate for someone new to yachting and a bit nervous about the whole thing. Here it is for the taking:

Tipping Point

How to Tie a Bowline?

2011-11-13T18:57:00.000-05:00

My son Willie can tie a bowline with his feet. Pretty good.

A few years ago I sailed to Bermuda with a very accomplished sailor. (Circumnavigated in his 60 foot schooner when in his 20's, in the 1970's.) I tied a bowline in a jib sheet, and he instantly admonished me: "That's the wrong way." Huh?

I had tied the knot with the tail on the outside of the loop. see photo at right. Tied "correctly", the tail is on the inside of the loop, see left.

Ashley, whose Book of Knots is the ultimate authority, here shows the knot correctly tied. The bowline ends up "correct" when it is thrown into the line, as shown in Ashley's illustration. (If you don't already know this trick, it's a good one to have.)

There are at least two ways any knot can fail. It can fail under load, and it can trip, or fail to attain the correct configuration before the full load is applied. I don't know if the "correct" bowline is more stable before the load is applied or if it is stronger under load - or neither. Anybody know?

Chock

2011-11-09T20:41:00.000-05:00

When I got Journeyman both bow chocks were original equipment and a little small for my taste. I have mentioned before that my mooring is exposed (a five mile fetch to the west) and I pay close attention to the mooring tackle. If a bow chock tore out the pennant would likely quickly chafe through on the headstay. So I bought a new, nicely polished bronze chock, slightly oversize I suppose. A high polish is more than a matter of aesthetics: if the casting is burred or rough, chafe will increase.

The chock was an improvement but after a season it it shifted a bit under load, a bad sign.

When I rebedded the deck hardware two years ago I replaced the 1/4 inch (6 mm) bolts with 5/16 inch (7 mm) bolts, which seemed better matched to the forces and to the size of the chock. The bolts are backed by good size washers, and I think I used lock washers too. Everything is silicon bronze, so electrolysis will not be an issue. I am very happy with the installation, which is tight and movement-free after two full seasons.

I use this chock for the mooring pennant and for anchoring. The opposite chock seems ok for dock lines, so I will leave it for now.

Toolbox

2011-11-01T20:32:00.001-04:00

Here are five handy items for a boat's toolbox. On the left is a calipers, useful for accurately measuring the diameter of line, standing rigging and bolts. Next is a spool of stainless steel seizing wire, for seizing rigging pins, shackles etc. Then a spool of Teflon tape, so useful in keeping threaded fittings from leaking. Then a bottle of medium strength thread locker (Loctite), good for masthead fittings and other parts that you do not want to vibrate loose. Finally, an extension mirror, for inspecting around the engine etc.

Bungee hatch holder

2011-10-30T17:05:00.000-04:00

A good way to hold a cockpit hatch lid open is with stout bungie cord, as shown here. The slight amount of stretch required to get the cord over, for example, a sheet cleat makes it very secure, much more so than using non-elastic line. Also, the elastic bungee will stretch enough to accomodate seat cushions. You can secure the bungee with short fat screws holding finish washers. Just pull a loop of bungee under the finish washer, tighten down the screw and trim the bungee - works great.

Wrench sizes

2011-10-26T20:15:00.001-04:00

A great time and temper saver is a list of the wrenches you use for occasional tasks. Reaching the transmission dip stick ("trans. 11/16 socket") or engine zinc ("9/16 crescent") may require the skills of a contortionist, but at least you know you have the right tool in your hand.

Parts list

2011-10-24T20:59:00.001-04:00

These are the parts I use in winterizing Journeyman's Westerbeke 12B engine, a 10 H.P. Diesel. The parts add up - $152.97! I could save a few bucks buying an aftermarket oil filter, but filters are critical and a filter is cheap compared with a worn out or blown engine. The engine has two on-engine fuel filters, the elements for which cost $9.90 and $21.66. Journeyman has two 11 gallon fuel tanks (each in a cockpit locker) and each tank has its own Racor fuel filter - a very nice system, giving redundancy to protect against bad fuel, and providing clean, dry fuel before the fuel even reaches the first on-engine fuel filter. The Racor filters will take out water as well as fine contaminants and are world famous for efficiency, but even on line the best price for replacement elements is $25.00.

There are three zincs, at $4.69 (for the engine's heat exchanger), $10.99 (shaft) and $7.64 (the Max Prop's hub zinc). The heat exchanger zincs last about two years but I replace the shaft zinc and the hub zinc every year.

I already had a spare raw water pump impeller so I didn't buy another; same with the belts.

The rest is non-toxic antifreeze, Sorbies to absorb spilled fuel and oil, and of course the engine oil. I have always used just a gallon of antifreeze, saving a bit for the potable water system and the head, but this year Joe at Portland Yacht Services, who knows Diesel, told me to use two gallons. He also said to be sure the engine was at full operating temperature before letting it take up the antifreeze, to make sure the thermostatic valve was open. You got it, Joe.

I generally cut a piece of Sorbie to fit in the oil pan below the engine, where it lives year 'round until replaced. The Sorbie absorbs oil and fuel and rejects water, so it keeps any drips from finding their way into the bilge.

Stove fiddles

2011-10-23T17:48:00.001-04:00

Journeyman has a two burner Origo alcohol stove. It is not pressurized but burns quite hot and clean. I am very happy with it. The stove lives in a stainless box which contains spills and is easy to clean. The stove came with gimbels, but I could never get them to work well and I am not sure they are a sound design - most gimbled stoves have an oven and are deep and, you might say, well ballasted.

In any case, I needed fiddles and the solution I came up with works well. In the photo you can see two brass rods, 1/4 inch (6 mm). I cut them about a half inch longer than the box is wide, and I then had a machine shop cut threads in each end for an inch or two. (The service was very inexpensive - less than ten dollars.) I then put two brass nuts at each end of each dowel, and locked them against each other so they are tight. I drilled holes in the stove box to fit the dowels (slightly overlarge) and, by flexing the dowels slightly, fitted the dowels into the holes.

The bottom dowel holds the stove in place, and the top one keeps pots on the stove. The dowels are easy to remove, non-corroding - a good simple design.

Perhaps it goes without saying that the best way to heat water on a boat stove is with a tea kettle. Not only is it efficient and lets you know when it is at the boil, but one can leave unused water in the kettle and stow the kettle in a locker, where it won't spill a drop.

Tack Hooks

2011-10-19T21:09:00.000-04:00

Journeyman was originally designed for roller reefing, but now she has old fashioned reefing, so called "jiffy reefing." When I bought her there was no very good way to secure the tack, and I used to lash the new tack (reef cringle) to the boom with some low stretch line, which took a while and was generally unsatisfactory. Modern booms often have tack hooks with which one can easily secure the cringle, and I decided to fashion one for Journeyman. You can buy the hook at a good supply store. I secured it to the flange (used with the roller reefing gear) with a stainless steel padeye through-bolted and secured with I think 3/16 inch bolts, backed with washers and secured with Nylock nuts, which are resistant to loosening. The system is easy to use and plenty strong, and it cost little.

Memento Mori

2010-03-29T20:46:00.002-04:00

This photo shows my father in about 1973, when he was 51 years old - my age. We were in St. John of the U.S. Virgin Islands for a family vacation, and we'd chartered a very good 20 foot sloop. In this picture we are sailing to Jost Van Dyke, reaching across the Trade Winds.

My father died last Wednesday. He had a wonderful life, and many memorable cruises and sails. He was a great friend, a wise and good man, and many will miss him, including me.

Checklists

2010-03-22T21:10:00.001-04:00

Checklists are necessary for safe sailing. A good source of ideas for improving your boat and your preparation are checklists published for big races - just Google "race checklist sailing." I found this slightly off kilter but excellent checklist on the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club site. What is "scrutineering", anyway?

Important Stuff

2010-03-18T21:06:00.001-04:00

Marine insurance is the oldest form of insurance on the planet. Lloyd's of London, where it all began, is still a major player. It began in a coffee house where shipowners gathered each day.

Used to be only a few companies wrote yacht policies, but now quite a few do. In my business I am surprised how often I now see yacht policies written by homeowner's insurers with an obvious lack of expertise, and I frequently run into adjusters for these companies who wouldn't know a seacock if it fell in their coffee. For my money, I would not buy a yacht policy except from a marine insurer.

Here's the problem. Yacht policies are subject to the same rules of construction as is the policy that insured the Exxon Valdez. That means the policy is strictly construed, word for word. There is, generally speaking, no attempt or ability on the part of courts to construe the policy in favor of the insured. This rule of construction is in contrast to the consumer-oriented construction courts give to all other consumer insurance policies (auto, home etc.)

To know what your coverage is, you really have to read the policy, and in particular the exclusions. (That's true of any policy - if you read nothing else of the policies you get in the mail read the declarations page and the exclusions.) For example, if your geographic limits exclusion covers your yacht only to 50 miles offshore, if you are outside that limit you have zero coverage. Same for layup dates and many other details. These new policies written by companies new to marine insurance sneak in exclusions and policy terms not seen in traditionally written policies and which tend to exclude many common casualties from coverage - beware.

Having said that, did you know that most policies will provide no coverage if your boat sinks due to a corroded seacock, or an old cracked engine hose that bursts, or other forms of "inherent vice"? It's true. Most policies contain the following language: "The perils generally excluded are wear and tear, gradual deterioration, or inherent vice, marine borers, vermin, loss caused by ice or freezing while afloat, loss to sails while racing, and petty theft or mysterious disappearance losses."

Beware. Ask your agent what these words mean and make sure you know the extent of your coverage. Some of these perils can be insured against, for additional premium.

St. Elmo's Fire

2010-03-18T05:38:00.000-04:00

We were off Cape Hatteras in a thunderstorm, and I went forward to hand the main. As I looked up I saw that the mast and rigging were glowing blue. Cool, I thought, St. Elmo's Fire. The skipper thought otherwise. "Hurry up. And don't touch anything." Sound advice, if impractical.

Bowditch tells me "St. Elmo's Fire is a luminous discharge of electricity from pointed objects such as the masts and yardarms of ships, lightning rods, steeples, mountain tops, blades of grass, human hair [yikes!], etc. when there is a considerable difference in the electrical charge between the object and the air. . . . An object from which St. Elmo's fire emanates is in danger of being struck by lightning, since this type discharge may be the initial phase of the leader stroke."

I have seen it a few times on aircraft, where it is more interesting than worrisome, at least to me. On a boat it just scary.

I am not sure this photo is authentic - the lights looks like the glow of the landing light to me.I can find almost no photos of this phenomenon, but there is no mistaking the real thing.

Mary Celeste

2010-03-16T20:35:00.000-04:00

On November 7, 1872, the brig Mary Celeste sailed from New York, bound for Genoa, Italy and carrying a cargo of alcohol in barrels. She was commanded by Benjamin Spooner Briggs of Marion, Massachusetts, who was also part owner. There were seven crew on board in addition to Captain Briggs, and also on board were Mrs. Briggs and Sophia, their two year old daughter.

Eight days later the brigantine Dei Gratia, not far from the Azores, sighted a vessel under shortened sail and poor control. The Dei Gratia approached and haled the brig. Receiving no response they boarded her. No one was on board. The ship's boat was missing. There was three feet of water in the hold, but that was nothing unusual given that the weather had been somewhat rough. The forward hatch and the lazarette hatch were off. There was no evidence of fire or explosion, nor of foul play. The binnacle was knocked off its mounts and the compass destroyed. The chronometer, sextant, Bowditch, ship's register and other papers were missing. There was every appearance that the crew had abandoned the Mary Celeste in a great hurry - for example, the crew left its oilskins, valuables, pipes and tobacco.

The Dei Gratia brought the brig into Gibraltar and an inquest ensued. There were suspicions of mutiny, of pirates, and of insurance fraud gone bad. None of these theories had any real basis in proof or motivation. Nine of the 1,700 barrels of alcohol were empty, which was apparently not unusual for such a voyage in the days of wooden barrels.

To many, the leading theory centers on the cargo. The ship sails from cold water to warm. The alcohol warms too and gives off fumes. Perhaps there is a low-order explosion (although no evidence of that was found), insufficient to damage the ship - or leave a trace - but enough to rattle the crew, which drags off a hatch to ventilate the hold and then hurries into the boat to give the hold time to air. Although the crew intends to return to the ship, because he is not a fool the captain brings his instruments and papers. A squall comes up and drives off the ship and the ship's boat sinks. But what about the destroyed binnacle?

The mystery of the Mary Celeste has never been solved or satisfactorily explained. The Mary Celeste (that is the correct spelling) wrecked on a Haitian reef in 1885.

The Green Flash

2010-03-15T20:33:00.001-04:00

In Griffith's great book Blue Water, he writes that the voyager is "a connoisseur of sunsets, a seer of the green flash." Light from the sun consists of all colors, and each color corresponds to different wavelengths, longest for red, shortest for blue and ultra-violet. As light from the sun passes through the atmosphere, it refracts, or bends, and the amount of refraction depends on the wavelength of the light. Red is bent least, blue and ultra-violet the most. The shortest blue wavelengths are so refracted as to scatter amongst the air molecules and across the sky - we see light of that wavelength in every direction, and the sky is blue.

The green is refracted not quite so much as to scatter, and when the sun has set or nearly set, there may, under optimal conditions, occur a moment when the only light refracted sufficiently to reach the observer consists of green wavelengths. Sometimes the flash is bluish, and sometimes, very rarely, violet.

For this explanation I am again indebted to my 1966 Bowditch.

When I have a clear horizon at sunset I watch for the green flash, and I have seen it but twice. It lasts longer at high latitudes, as does the sunset, and Bowditch informs me that at mid-latitudes it lasts about .7 seconds. That seems right to me - a flash, but a long discernible flash.

On my cutter I always watched for the green flash, and my persistence became a matter of shipboard humor. It was generally held even by the captain that the green flash was a myth. One perfect evening we were off Jamaica, cruising downwind in the Trades, just beautiful. It was after dinner and there happened to be a few officers on the bridge, including the C.O. I had the watch, and I stood on the bridgewing and as usual watched for the green flash. The captain and some others joined me, the usual jokes being made.

Just as the upper limb of the sun sank the horizon, there appeared at that spot a brilliant emerald light, obvious to everyone. It stayed for a long moment, and then it was night.

Big Multihulls

2010-03-14T12:55:00.005-04:00

In the 1980's big multihulls, eighty or ninety feet length overall, began making runs at some of the bluewater records: Atlantic crossings, circumnavigations, New York to San Francisco by the Horn, and so on. So many of these early attempts ended in structural failure or capsize. I remember thinking that as big as they were the boats weren't really big enough, that a trimaran or catamaran 130 feet (40 meters) or more could handle almost all seas and continue to make speed, and be strong enough to hold up. A few years later the monster multihulls made the scene, and the old records began steadily to fall. Here's a link to a great video showcasing a few of these big boats, including Banque Populaire V, holder of the record for fastest west to east Atlantic crossing.

Banque Populaire V has her sights now on the Jules Verne Record for fastest circumnavigation (departing and returning to the English Channel, and leaving the Cape of Good Hope, Cape Leeuwin, and Cape Horn to port).
The present record holder is the 38 meter (124 foot) catamaran Orange II, skippered by Bruno Peyron: 50 days, 16 hours and 20 minutes. You can see her in the video.

Fastest Sailboat

2010-03-11T20:40:00.005-05:00

There are all sorts of speed records for sailboats: distance in 24 hours, speed over 500 meters, etc. etc. The governing body for establishing records is the World Sailing Speed Record Council. The record for speed over 500 meters is an astonishing 51.36 knots, set by Alain Thebault in 2009. A photo of the boat at speed is below.

During trials SailRocket, a contender but not the record holder, touched 68 knots and then crashed. (Scroll down the link for an astounding video.)

Perhaps more fantastic is the record for distance over 24 hours, set by the 40 meter trimaran Banque Populaire V, shown here. The distance covered? 908 nautical miles, giving an average speed of 37.84 knots! She set this record during her successful 2009 bid to set a new record for a west to east passage of the Atlantic under sail: 3 days, 15 hours, 25 minutes and 48 seconds, Ambrose Light to The Lizard, 2,880 miles, average speed 32.94 knots.

If you please, in 1952 the S.S. United States, considered the fastest liner ever built, set a record for an eastbound crossing at an average speed of 35.59 knots. And burned a lot of Bunker C to do so.

Moth Racing

2010-03-10T21:18:00.001-05:00

If you don't know this class, check out the Moth, a single-handed, foil lifted dinghy capable of 25 knots. The moth, an "open class" design, lifts in as little as 6 knots of wind, and sailing one looks extremely challenging but so much fun. The world championships are going on now in Dubai.

Foil lifted sailboats have been in development for 75 years. The breakthrough that allowed the Moth to succeed is sensors - wands - at the bow which determine the height of the hull above the water and, though a linkage, cause minute changes in the angle of attack of the forward foil to prevent the wing from nearing the surface and ingesting air, which of course destroys lift and causes a crash. You can just see the wands in these two shots.

Gotta try this boat. Bet I could make it go.

Getting To Be That Time

2010-03-09T20:34:00.002-05:00

When I am rigging Journeyman it is handy to have a knife, needlenose pliers, and both flat and Phillips screwdrivers at hand. This set up serves me well. The sheath holding the pliers is one I made years ago when my snap on sheath snapped off and dropped overboard, fortunately while I was holding my knife. I just trimmed off the bottom of the sheath. The screwdriver switches between flat and Phillips.

You can make a similar sheath for pliers out of the Nylon sheath sold with the Mini Maglight flashlight.

America's Cup

2010-03-08T21:01:00.005-05:00

They just finished racing the America's Cup. Did you notice?

What a shame to see this great event, one of the finest in all sport, raced since 1857, degrade into a marginalized, eccentric sideshow, followed by few and won as much by lawyers interpreting the deed of gift as by the sailors and designers.

Maybe I'm just a crank, but the whole thing went to hell when they dropped the 12 Meter class in favor of, first big exotic monohulls and now whatever goes. The point of match racing is to place two closely matched boats on the same course so that strategy and tactics and boathandling determine the result, rather than raw boat speed. The 12 meters, with their fat displacement hulls, did just that, and the result was superb racing. Should we go back to the 12's?

Australia's Gretel II (KA 3), and Intrepid. Intrepid beat Gretel II 3 races to 2 in 1970. In the 3rd race, Intrepid won by half a boatlength after 24 miles of racing.

What is it?

2010-03-06T08:45:00.001-05:00

A few years ago I had an elderly client who was in reduced circumstances. He lived on his yacht, an old wood harbor tanker (fuel hoy) converted to a schooner, unique, capacious, and run down.

He had no money and I didn't have much of an expectation I'd earn anything on the case. But one day he brought to my office this very beautiful inclinometer, about 19 inches high, apparently in its original case and with the original glass. He died soon after, and I like to think he knew I'd appreciate and take care of this lovely old thing.

So far as I can tell without removing the instrument from its case (which I don't want to do for fear of marring the brass), it has no maker's mark. My client could tell me only that he thought it might have come from a steamship.

I am finally getting around to making inquiry to nautical museums and dealers, and I'll let you know what I find out.

Best Fish Recipe

2010-03-04T21:00:00.001-05:00

I know, that's an absurd claim, and I don't really mean it. But I do love a whole fish, and I believe I am approaching a true understanding of their cooking.

Fresh whole fish by their nature cook beautifully, inclined to be moist and succulent. When we catch the delectable Black Sea Bass off Journeyman, we bring them home on ice, already cleaned and gilled. After making sure they are well scaled, we pat the fish dry, roll the fish in olive oil and salt it and put it in a very hot frying pan. (Every smoke alarm in the house will go off.) A couple of minutes later we turn the fish, and after another minute or two the fish, frying pan and all, goes into a very hot oven, as hot as yours will go. Don't cook too long - the backbone should be just pink - but make sure it's done: cut down to the backbone at a thick place.

The fish might be shared by you and another, and you will eat it mostly with fingers and right down to the brain case, which you should feel free to crack and suck. Fantastic! This technique works with any nice round fish, two, maybe three pounds, but the fish must be very fresh.

There is a delicious variation by a local fish restaurant of national renown, Portland, Maine's Street and Company. I don't know Street's exact recipe, but here is the version with which I am currently toying.

In a heavy saucepan using plenty of olive oil I saute a slivered medium onion, a couple of slivered shallots, just a little garlic (one clove), and a cup or 1 1/2 cups of carrots cut to the dimension of a match stick. Add a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste, or some chopped tomatoes and cook a little more.

To the cooked vegetables I add a bit of basil, maybe a touch of oregano, a nice pinch of saffron, and some vermouth or other dry white wine, and a cup or two of water or vegetable stock. I would not add salt - the shellfish will take care of that. You will have a highly aromatic rich heavy stock, an inch or two deep in the pot

Meanwhile I am frying the whole fish on the stove top, just as in the first recipe but in a dutch oven or frying pan with a tight cover. (The frying is done with the fish uncovered, however.) After the fish has cooked briefly but hard on each side as in the first recipe (but without salting), pour the contents of the saucepan over the fish and cover, so it braises in just an inch or two of liquid, not entirely covered by the liquid. At the same time put in some shrimp, maybe northern shrimp, and some mussels, almost as garnish for each plate but they add their flavor too as they open. Simmer covered until just done, and serve right now.

At Street each diner gets a fish with the very aromatic and rich stock and shellfish, served in an oval copper casserole right from the hot oven where they finish the dish. You could finish it in the oven too, maybe briefly putting the uncovered pan under a hot broiler when it is nearly done, so the fish browns and crisps just a bit.

You can buy a baguette and slice it on the diagonal and fry the slices in olive oil until they are browned on both sides. Put one crouton in each wide soup dish and dish the fish and broth over the crouton. Put a few more fried slices on the table to sop the broth. Some good.

This is a wonderful way to cook fish but the fish must be very high quality. Did I already say that?

Ostreidae

2010-03-03T20:09:00.000-05:00

We have a painting of New Haven harbor made in the 1850's. The painting shows at least twenty boats and ships, and most of the boats are tonging oysters, as in this detail. New Haven and surrounding waters produced vast quantities of oysters until poor water quality either killed the oysters or made them essentially poisonous from coliform, vibrio (aka cholera) and other bacteria associated with sewage. The entire fishery was pretty much written off by the 1960's when something wonderful happened: the 1972 passage of Senator Ed Muskie's Clean Water Act. Now the fishery produces 450,000 bushels of oysters annually, with 70,000 acres under aquacuture, affording 300 jobs. Thanks, Ed!

Oysters are cultivated on the Martha's Vineyard ponds where I like to spend time, and a consequence is a proliferation of tasty wild oysters exactly like those costing a dollar a piece in the market, and far more in a restaurant. They are so briny and good, fresh from an icy salt pond.

Fine Art

2010-03-01T21:11:00.002-05:00

To calm us all down from the weekend's lurid post, I offer you details from an 1850's oil by George Durrie, a New Haven painter. These are from one of his many "East Rock" and "West Rock" pictures, and it shows a man in a dugout canoe or pirogue on his way up the Quinnipiac River. Despite the light breeze he is making pretty fair speed, judging from the wake and the ripple at his steering oar. The pirogue is rigged with a spritsail, a rig that sail, mast and sprit could be bundled into his dugout in a moment's time. (Click on the pictures to enlarge.)

Dugouts have a long history in Connecticut: indeed, in 1988 divers found a prehistoric dugout sunk in a lake. Mystic Seaport, the great maritime museum, has the transcript of a 260 minute1967 interview with Fair Haven oysterman John Thomas (born 1881), who relates that one of his dugouts could carry fifty bushels.

Key West 1981

2010-02-26T17:33:00.002-05:00

In January 1981 I was keeping a big yawl on the Miami River. My college sailing buddy Leo called me and said he had a berth for me on a brand-new J/30, for the Ft. Lauderdale - Key West race. I joined him and we rigged the boat and raced hard, and we kicked ass. All that frozen night we hung so close to the reef - avoiding the Gulf Stream's 4 knots - we saw breakers to starboard. We were in Class D, and we beat all of our class, all of Class C, and most of B.

Arriving in Key West's Truman Annex, we were given pride of place in the old submarine berths. The Annex gates were open to downtown, the rum tents were free and a huge crowd, thousands, soon formed. (Note the guy in the spreaders.)

The scene was ripe for a wet T shirt contest and we dispatched the crew to roam the crowd for contestants. They brought back a dozen perfectly suitable and perfectly willing young women. The contest occured on the deck of our boat and the locker room was below. It was a time.

In due course a winner was crowned, and she chose to show the crowd her unadorned glory. You should have been there.

Bookshelf (cont'd)

2010-02-25T20:02:00.002-05:00

Back to the bookcase . . . On the left, Clipper Ships and their Makers, by Alexander Laing.This book is a wonderful survey of the clipper ships, the first ships to log 400 nautical miles in 24 hours. (The record is Champion of the Sea's 465 miles noon to noon, a record which no sailing ship bested until the last decade or two, and that a purpose-built yacht.) The book is to a great extent the story of Captain Nat Palmer of Stonington, Connecticut, the genius designer. His Great Republic was, at 4,555 gross tons, the largest wooden sailing ship that ever was built or ever will be built.

Then, Salamina by the artist/author Rockwell Kent. This 1935 book is a first edition and a book of some modest value. It is elegantly illustrated, of course, and a pretty good tale of Greenland voyaging.

Surely most of us keep a copy of Knight's Modern Seamanship close at hand. For ship handling, working with tugs, salvage, mooring to an ice shelf, and helicopter operations, there are few better resources. First published in 1901, my 1972 edition is the sixteenth.

Of Heavy Weather Sailing I have previously written.

In 1934 my father was in the 8th grade at the Newman School, Lakewood, New Jersey. He was given this copy of Moby Dick as a prize for "Highest General Average." Years and years later, he had it rebound and gave the book to me. It too is illustrated by Rockwell Kent.

Next is a compendium of Joshua Slocum's Sailing Alone Around the World and Voyage of the Liberdade, London, published by Rupert Davis in 1948, with an introduction by Arthur Ransome of Swallows and Amazons fame! The author dedicated Sailing Alone Around the World thus: "TO THE ONE WHO SAID 'THE SPRAY WILL COME BACK.'" Amen.

A Sea of Words is a "lexicon and companion for Patrick O'Brien's seafaring tales." I have not used it much.

Finally, Dutton's Navigation and Piloting, a 1969 edition. The book is the definitive treatise on those subjects, and I believe is still the text at the U.S. Naval Academy.

Nylock Danger

2010-02-25T06:29:00.002-05:00

Nylock nuts, or aircraft nuts, have a Nylon insert in them so they don't loosen. They are useful but not infallible.

A friend of mine was sailing to Bermuda when, after five days on the starboard tack, his windward upper shroud came adrift. He made it to Bermuda but he had to carry shortened sail.

The hounds - upper terminus - of his shrouds were at stainless steel tangs, as is typical. The tangs on both sides of the mast (port and starboard shrouds) were secured with a single big bolt passing through the mast, good and strong. But the bolt was secured with an Nylock nut and in due course the nut was able to work loose.

Better the bolt had been drilled with a 3/64 (1.5 mm) hole, so a cotter pin could have backed up the Nylock.

Vineyard Boats

2010-02-22T22:05:00.001-05:00

There are two of these long rowing boats in Vineyard Haven, moored to buoys on outhauls off the beach. I think they race each other with crews of five or six.

This is the great topsail schooner Shenandoah, built in the 1960's and used to carry passengers on week-long cruises. She has her masts and bowsprit out.

Soon I will liquidate my assets and buy this tiny freighter and carry cargoes wherever they take me. I'll outfit the wheelhouse and accomodation just so and it will be a wonderful life.

In a Flowerpot

2010-02-20T10:00:00.000-05:00

Edgartown, at the eastern end of Martha's Vineyard, was the home of many successful shipowners and ship captains. Their grand houses, aligned not to the street but to the view of the outer harbor, line North Water Street.

Captain Thomas Milton brought this tree (Sophora Japonica) back from Japan in 1837, as a seedling!

Old Boats

2010-02-19T11:14:00.000-05:00

This is the 55 foot (15 meter) Sparkman & Stephens yawl Kestrel, once a famous ocean racer, built about 1950. I saw her on the ways at Martha's Vineyard Shipyard and pulled over for the picture. I stopped in the yard office to ask about her and immediately got the close attention of a yacht broker. My distinct impression is that no reasonable offer would be refused.

What happens to old yachts? The wooden ones do better than glass boats. Not every wooden boat can end up in the collection of Mystic Seaport, but is it so bad to end one's days as a rotting planter, or in a decaying cradle in a grassy boat yard, soon to return to the soil from whence one came?

Woods Hole

2010-02-18T10:56:00.000-05:00

The ferries for Martha's Vineyard depart from Woods Hole. Wood's Hole connects Buzzard's Bay and Vineyard Sound, and a ferry captain told me he has seen eleven knots of current in the strait! I take Journeyman through Woods Hole from time to time and I am always very careful. It is the kind of passage where everything can be going just fine and then a little engine trouble or an awkward crossing happens and suddenly you are in real trouble. Lots of wrecks and collisions in Woods Hole.

Woods Hole is one of the world's great centers of oceanographic research. It is home to the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory, the Bigelow Laboratory, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, the Sea Education Association (R/V Westward and R/V Cramer), and Coast Guard Group Woods Hole, a major base. It's a salty place.

The town is beautiful and full of wonderful nautical details.

I love this sundial on the waterfront, complete with a correcting table. (I tried it, and it is accurate.)

I also saw the most wonderful houseboat. Who wouldn't want to live here?

To The Vineyard

2010-02-16T18:25:00.000-05:00

Apologies for missing today's post . . . Tomorrow I am headed to Martha's Vineyard, an island off the coast of Massachusetts and a center of wooden boat building. If you are a regular reader of this site, you know that I have spent many happy days there, fishing and boating and growing up. I promise some good posts showing the winter boat scene on the Vineyard, boats a-building, and more - stay tuned.

Best Knife

2010-02-11T21:13:00.001-05:00

When I was a teenager I taught sailing, for several years for Offshore Sailing School, and then on my own using my father's Soling. One of my students came to be Jos, Joslin I think, whose last name I can't recall. He and I sailed a lot together and his preference was for long sails, as in Edgartown to Menemsha, say 30 miles. Jos was much older than me, perhaps as old as thirty, or even thirty-five! He smoked cigarettes and always brought a thermos of European black coffee, the latter exotic then, and I enjoyed both on those long, long sails.

Jos was an artist in metal. He cast abstract sculptures and lived in a cottage supplied by his patron, a wealthy New York City woman with a waterfront place up island. Jos did know metal and at the end of that summer he presented me with a knife he had made. He bought the Morseth blade, and explained to me that it is layered so that the backbone of the knife is very strong and tough while the edge is made to stay sharp. Perhaps you can see the layers in this photo. He made all the rest of the knife, including the Micarta handle, and he engraved a sentiment on the end of the handle. I keep this knife in the pocket of my car door.

Knife redux

2010-02-10T20:11:00.002-05:00

Here are a few of the other knives that are part of my life. To the right is a Swedish knife I keep in a sheath screwed to the bottom of the caddy just inside Journeyman's companionway. It snaps into the sheath, very secure, and is really sharp. Its serrated edge will cut even heavy, wet rope, and it handles limes with aplomb.

The next is a Laguiole knife from southern France, the gift of my father. The area around Thiers is famous for these knives and has been for centuries. The knife has a highly polished long thin blade, horn grips with brass inlay, and intricate figuring, including the emblematic bee. The sheath is tanned cowhide, beautifully sewn. I keep this knife at work and use it to cut oranges at lunch.

Doesn't every boat have a rough knife that can be, for example, heated at the stove and used to seal rope ends?

Knife

2010-02-09T20:26:00.009-05:00

A friend's grandfather used to tell him, as a boy, "A sailor without a knife is like a whore without a" you know what. Profane words indeed to a nine year old lad, but true.

I like knives - have generally carried one and almost always have one on my belt when under way. I don't think much of carrying a knife in one's pocket - how quickly can you get at it in an emergency? And what if you are wearing foul weather gear? When it is blowing it is particularly important to have a knife at hand, and good luck to you if your knife is in your pocket under your foul weather pants.

On the right is my father's knife. He doesn't sail much anymore and he gave it to me. I cleaned it and oiled it and put a sharp edge on it but I don't carry it, just keep it in my gear box on Journeyman, a talisman.

The knife is traditional as of say thirty years ago. It has the peculiar blade shape of an old fashioned rigging knife, a shape I believe was intended to cut rope with a mallet rap on the back of the blade. It has a marlinspike, which can be pretty handy, and the oval cut item is a shackle wrench. My father used to keep his knife on a lanyard attached to his belt loop, and he and I argued about whether that was a proper way to keep a knife, for I felt it hindered his ability to reach way out to make a cut, or to hand the knife to a man who needs one right now. Don't think we ever settled that one, or a good many others besides.

My last couple knives have been Gerbers with a three inch blade, locking. The knife costs less than lunch, beer and a tip, it takes and keeps a good edge and the blade is sturdy enough to take some abuse. The sheath is a swiss army knife sheath with the flap cut off - you can see where the snap closure was riveted (I drilled out the snap). I used to buy the sheaths at LL Bean but Bean may not carry them anymore - I bought the last one at Freeport Knife.

After I have cut off the flap I soak the sheath in water overnight. Then I put the knife in and wrap the sheath in sail twine to really bind it. When a few days later the sheath is dry, the knife has molded itself into the sheath. The knife won't come out if you are underwater or upside down but it is right to hand in an emergency, without even a flap to unsnap. That's my kind of knife.

The sail twine is handy for keeping a sail needle or two, see detail.

Last year my nephew spent a semester on the Cory Cramer, a school ship. When my sister consulted me on his gear list she passed over the knife, saying "he has a swiss army knife."

Those are very good knives in their way but no nephew of mine is going to sea with one. I bought a Gerber and the sheath, brought the blade to a razor with my Washita stone, made up the sheath as described, wrapped it in a kerchief and mailed it to the boy. Sweet! I hope it didn't get seized at transport security on his flight home.

Anchoring to Trees

2010-02-08T21:27:00.000-05:00

Hal Roth's great book Two Against Cape Horn describes anchoring in far southern Chile, "where all vessels - unless they are large enough to keep up steam and have crew to stand anchor watches - take lines ashore. Unfortunately, in the beginning you doubt the necessity of tying ashore. My anchors are better. My anchoring techniques are good enough. My judgment is adequate. Lines ashore? Mooring to trees? Humbug!" Experience shows him, however.

Roth's technique was to take two lines ashore, say at a 90 or 120 degree angle from each other, and secure them to boulders or trees or great logs, or to anchors jammed in rocks. Then he carried out a third anchor line to a heavy kedge. "If all this sounds complicated, it is; but such a scheme is the only way of survival when the hurricane winds begin to blow. And exactly half the time the winds start at night which means you are quite helpless in the pitch black because you can't see anything . . . With a couple of lines to the shore and a little thought about protecting the rope from chafe, however, your vessel can withstand any strength of wind. The noise may be wearisome and the heeling from the gusts may upset your nerves a little, but you and your vessel will be safe."

I cruised once along the north shore of Lake Superior, for three weeks. We often anchored in tiny coves with no swinging room, to three lines taken ashore. It was very secure!

Fjord Anchoring

2010-02-07T22:22:00.002-05:00

In my last Bookshelf post I described a two volume cruising guide to Newfoundland and Labrador. I have never cruised those waters but I know anchoring conditions are often very difficult and williwaws or other high winds are prevalent. The guide contains a short piece by Stephen P. Loutrel (Lexington, Massachusetts) offering a method for anchoring his 40 foot (12 meter) Concordia Yawl (displacement 16,000 pounds, 7,000 kg) in fjords, where only a hundred feet from shore one is already in very deep water. As Mr. Loutrel's sketch shows, an anchor is taken ashore and set in the mud flats that may be seen even in steep fjords. A heavy anchor on heavy chain is set offshore, and the slope of the bottom gives this anchor the equivalent of excellent scope. Both rodes are taken to a swivel, see the sketches below. (Click on the photos to enlarge.)

If there are no flats, one can wrap a boulder in chain and secure to that. Where the inshore rode crosses boulders and rocks, it may be necessary to buoy the line to prevent it from getting caught under submerged rocks. It is important not to set the rodes too tight, or in a strong cross wind the loads could become quite high.

Best Novel of the Sea

2010-02-05T05:28:00.001-05:00

Moby Dick? The O'Brien series, which ought rightly be considered one huge novel? Swallows and Amazons? No. The first is wonderful but . . . dated. The second is too fresh. The third is for kids, and is probably the best sea story for children.

My money is on C.S. Forester's The Good Shepard. Forester wrote not only the Hornblower books but also the wonderful The African Queen. The Good Shepard is his most nuanced book, beautifully told but with a degree of character development unmatched in his other works.

The protagonist is George Krause, the year 1942, the setting the winter North Atlantic. Captain George Krause U.S.N., is a midwesterner, career Navy, a devout Christian whose wife has left him. He has never seen action, yet by dint of seniority he commands the escort for a thirty-two ship convoy of merchant ships bound for England. He is captain of the destroyer Keeling, and under him are three or four British and Polish destroyers and corvettes whose skippers have seen three years of bitter war and who are understandably skeptical of the skills of the untested and much older Yank. A Nazi wolfpack descends, and over about forty-eight hours the battle rages, with only Krause's wits, intuition, training and guesswork between the submarines and the convoy's destruction. If you have read the Hornblower novels, you will be familiar with Krause's deep suspicion of his own skill, his loathing of any sense of self-pride or even self-satisfaction. The action is superb and unrelenting, told in real time. Read this book in a day or two, if you can, at the same pace as the action.

Here's an excerpt. Keeling and another destroyer have attacked a submarine and it has surfaced with damage, but hugs Dodge to prevent Keeling from getting a clear shot:

Keeling's turn to starboard presented her whole port side to Dodge and the sub. All five five-inch guns came training around as she turned, and at the same instant the sub with her wheel hard over and taken momentarily by surprise by Dodge's abrupt alteration of rudder diverged from her. Ten yards - twenty yards- fifty yards of clear water divided the two ships, and before the U-boat could turn back into the sheltering embrace of her enemy the five-inch opened, like a peel of thunder in the next room, shaking Keeling's hull as a fit of coughing will shake a man's body. The sea seemed suddenly to pile up around the gray U-boat, the splashes were so close and so continuous around her; with the square gray bridge only dimly to be seen in the heart of it like an object in a glass paperweight - and, in the heart of it too, over and over again, a momentary orange glare as a shell burst. Also in the heart of it showed momentarily a vivid red disk, just once. Through the noise of the gunfire and the vibration of the recoil Krause heard a rending crash and felt Keeling undergo a violent shock which made everyone on the bridge stagger; a shock wave like a sudden breath passed into and out of the pilothouse.

The last paragraph is just action, and the book is marked by its examination of the extraordinary Krause, as portrayed in desperate battle. It is a remarkable novel of the sea.

Bookshelf (Continued)

2010-02-04T05:29:00.000-05:00

Back to the bookcase. On the left, a nice copy of The Rover by Conrad, first U.S. edition, Doubleday 1925. Doubleday put out a lovely edition of Conrad in those years, and they are still available at a pretty good price, although I don't see them in the used book stores as often as I used to.

The Salem Frigate by John Jennings, first edition 1946. I've never read it! Maybe now I will.

Then a paperback edition of Conrad's The Shadow-Line, which he published in 1917. The author's note, protesting that the book does not in fact bear supernatural elements, has a line I like: "The world of the living contains enough marvels and mysteries as it is; marvels and mysteries acting upon our emotions and intelligence in ways so inexplicable that it would almost justify the conception of life as an enchanted state." Amen, as it were.

A 1939 Little, Brown edition of C.S. Forester's Captain Horatio Hornblower, with drawings by N.C. Wyeth. The volume contains three novels: Beat to Quarters; Ship of the Line; and Flying Colours. Forester has lately fallen into the shadow of the indisputably great Patrick O'Brien and his Jack Aubrey series, books I read and re-read, and own. But I loved Hornblower and a year or two ago I read many of them again. To my immense relief the books hold up. O'Brien's otherworldly erudition is absent, but the plot, writing, character development and nuance remain vibrant, and there is none other. I do not say Forester is the better, nor O'Brien, only that both are superb and unmatched except perhaps by the other.

Next, in two volumes: Cruising Directions - Newfoundland - With Some Material on the Labrador, published by the Boston Station of the Cruising Club of America. The books were the property of one of the finest cruising sailors I ever knew or expect to know, and were given to me by his widow.

Lifeline Project Part Two

2010-02-03T05:30:00.000-05:00

The tools I used for my lifeline project were: Vise Grips locking pliers; socket wrench; swaging tool; Dremel Tool and cut off wheels; safety glasses; and needle and sail palm.

First I made up four 30 foot lifelines, at home where I have a nice bench vise. I put a sleeve (ferrule) on the wire rope, placed a thimble in the vise, brought the wire rope around, and brought the wire rope through the sleeve again. I put the swaging tool on the sleeve, then tightened it down firmly on the tool, so it gripped but did not yet crush the sleeve. Then I pulled on the wire rope and worked the swaging tool so the wire rope was tight on the thimble, and tightened down on the swaging tool in earnest. 1 by 19 wire needs two sleeves. Using the Dremel Tool and cut off wheels, I trimmed the wire rope so just a sleeves' length of extra wire rope stood out from the sleeve I had just installed. (To avoid nicking the standing piece - the lifeline - I guarded it with a knife blade while I used the cut off wheel to trim.) I then tightened down on that second sleeve as well. The sleeves elongate a bit when crushed, so the sharp ends of the wire are covered, see above photo. Works great, and strong.

Holding the swaging tool tight against the thimble while simultaneously tightening down on the tool is difficult. A second pair of hands would make the job much faster and would improve the result. I used a socket wrench on the swaging tool. Perhaps a portable electric drill that could accept a socket wrench would speed the work.

The Dremel Tool and cut off wheels make a fast and precise cut of the wire. Using a hacksaw would be slow and sloppy, I believe. But you absolutely must use safety glasses, for the sharp little pieces of wire go a-flying.

An alternative to a swaging tool such as the one pictured is the large tool which looks like a bolt cutters. My tool cost $30.00; the big tools cost north of $150.00. Mine works well enough and it is small enough to stow aboard, should I wish to do so.

I then threaded the wire through each stanchion, measured a point about eight inches (20 cm) from the stern pulpit termination point, and installed another thimble. You see this thimble, a solid thimble, in the photo at right, with the Spectra lashing. I would have preferred to use solid thimbles at both ends of the lifeline, as more stable under load - I didn't have enough.

Having placed the thimble, I secured the Spectra to the shackle with a bowline, brought it through the thimble, repeated, heaved the lashing taut, and tied two half hitches around all the parts of the lashing. I then sewed the tails of the bowline and the hitches with Dacron sail twine, seized the shackle pins, and called the job good. Which it is!

Once you have rebuilt your stanchions and lifelines, you will never again happily suffer anyone pushing your boat off the pier using the lifeline or stanchion. That puts a terrible load on the gear - tell them to use the edge of the deck!

Herb

2010-02-02T06:16:00.002-05:00

Most sailors are aware, or would be if ever they gave it a thought, that there exist private weather services which will tell you when to depart for a blue water voyage. During the voyage these services will, all for a hefty fee, advise you on your best route. Surprisingly, though, the best North Atlantic weather routing is provided free by . . . Herb.

Known to sailors on both sides of the pond as simply Herb, Herb Hilgenberg lives in Burlington, Ontario, Canada, a long way from tidewater. Since 1987, strictly as a hobby, Herb has provided daily ship routing and weather service ("South Bound II VAX 498 Net") to anyone who calls in on 12.359 megahertz. He'll provide each yacht with a five day route forecast, and advice on avoiding bad weather, and he'll update this data each day. It's no regurgitation of officially produced material, either, but his learned interpretation of several numerical models, among other input. All he asks in return is a report of wind, sea state, barometric pressure, and other local observations. He provides this service like clockwork, and in doing so has won the great esteem of hundreds of sailors, as well as the Queen's Golden Jubilee Medal for his role in many mid-ocean rescues.

As Herb says on sign off: "Have a good watch."

Lifeline Project

2010-02-01T05:27:00.001-05:00

Journeyman's lifelines were vinyl or PVC covered, a type I do not trust. Nor does the American Boat and Yacht Council, which, in Standard H-41, warns that covered stainless steel lifelines risk hidden rust and, obviously, are incapable of thorough inspection. In my opinion covered lifelines are a hazard and no one wishing to remain aboard should have them.

My rebedding project included a thorough inspection and improvement of each stanchion and pulpit, so I was quite comfortable with that aspect of the system. For those interested, BoatUS, which publishes a surprisingly solid members magazine, wrote a good piece on stanchions and pulpits. Certainly replacing lifelines without inspecting stanchions and pulpits would be a questionable effort.

Locally fabricated and installed, lifelines would have cost me about $800.00. On the web I could have sourced them for about $400.00. I made my own for $130.00.

The new lifelines are 1 by 19 number 316 stainless steel wire rope, diameter 3/16 inch (4.76 mm). 1 by 19 wire rope is made up of 19 single strands, and it is commonly used for standing rigging (stays). 7 by 19 (pictured at right) is made of 7 strands, with each strand made up of 19 wires; it is quite flexible and is used in halyards.

Lifelines are often made of 7 by 19 or 7 by 7 wire rope. The 1 by 19 I used is pretty stiff and thus is more difficult to work with than 7 by 19 or 7 by 7. The advantage of 1 by 19, pictured at left, is that it doesn't pinch arm and leg hairs nearly as much as 7 by 19 or 7 by 7, no small concern! The individual wire size being quite a bit larger than in 7 by 19, the 1 by 19 is also more resistant to chafe (which can occur where the lifelines pass through stanchions) and stranding.

I used the following materials in my project: 120 feet wire rope; 8 solid stainless thimbles; Nicropress sleeves or ferrules; and 20 feet 1/4 inch (6.3 mm) Spectra line.The solid stainless thimbles are important and a nice find. I sourced these items at Jamestown Distributors, a company I find helpful and knowledgeable and with good prices.

I did not reuse the turnbuckles from the prior lifelines. They were bent and old and I mistrusted them. Instead, I lashed the lifelines taut. When I called the rigger at Jamestown Distributors I told him I planned to lash the lifelines and he said "the way we used to do it."

Exactly. Further, lashed lifelines have several advantages over lifelines tightened by turnbuckles. They are much cheaper - I saved at least $150.00 by not using turnbuckles and terminal hardware. They are lighter, and the weight saved is relatively high. Finally, lashed lifelines can be slacked with the slash of a knife, useful if you are trying to get a man in the water over the lifelines and into the boat. Try quickly slacking a turnbuckled lifeline sometime.

Later this week I'll discuss my fabrication of the lifelines. They came out really well, and after two seasons I remain quite happy with them.

Best Sailing Poem

2010-01-29T05:34:00.001-05:00

There really is no question here: Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner", 1798. This epic tells of a voyage and the horrors ensuing, and the return of one haunted survivor. Here is a selection of stanzas.

The poem begins with a wedding feast. Guests are entering the court, and one is detained -

IT IS an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?

The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin;
The guests are met, the feast is set:
May'st hear the merry din.'

He holds him with his skinny hand,
'There was a ship,' quoth he.
'Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!'
Eftsoons his hand dropt he.

I love that line "There was a ship" - such portent! The wedding guest has no choice but to listen ("He holds him with his glittering eye"), as the mariner tells of the ship's voyage south and into the roaring 40's:

And now the Storm-blast came, and he
Was tyrannous and strong:
He struck with his o'ertaking wings,
And chased us south along.

The ship enters a sea of fog and ice. Along comes an albatross, and with it good luck:

And a good south wind sprung up behind;
The Albatross did follow,
And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariners' hollo!

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
It perched for vespers nine;
Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,
Glimmered the white Moon-shine.'

But the mariner's horror is written on his face, and the wedding guest exclaims:

'God save thee, ancient Mariner!
From the fiends, that plague thee thus!--
Why look'st thou so?'--'With my cross-bow
I shot the Albatross.'

At first the crew condemn the mariner for his act, but then they come around - and become complicit in his sin:

And I had done a hellish thing,
And it would work 'em woe:
For all averred, I had killed the bird
That made the breeze to blow.

Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay,
That made the breeze to blow!
Nor dim nor red like God's own head,
The glorious Sun uprist:
Then all averred, I had killed the bird
That brought the fog and mist.
'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay,
That bring the fog and mist.

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free;
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.

Bad trouble follows, and these familiar lines:

Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,
'Twas sad as sad could be;
And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea!

All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody Sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.

Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.

The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.

Now the sailors hang the corpse of the albatross around the mariner's neck, but that can't break the luck. The mariner is the first to spy the approaching ship, moving in a dead calm:

At first it seemed a little speck,
And then it seemed a mist;
It moved and moved, and took at last
A certain shape, I wist.

A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!
And still it neared and neared:
As if it dodged a water-sprite,
It plunged and tacked and veered.

With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
We could nor laugh nor wail;
Through utter drought all dumb we stood!
I bit my arm, I sucked the blood,
And cried, A sail! a sail!

My kids like that last verse - and what an image! The approaching ship passes before the sun, and its hull is seen to be unplanked ribs, its sails tatters, and two in crew:

Are those her ribs through which the Sun
Did peer, as through a grate?
And is that Woman all her crew?
Is that a DEATH? and are there two?
Is DEATH that woman's mate?

Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Night-mare Life-in-Death was she,
Who thicks man's blood with cold.

The naked hulk alongside came,
And the twain were casting dice;
'The game is done! I've won! I've won!'
Quoth she, and whistles thrice.

And with that the crew drops dead - all except one:

One after one, by the star-dogged Moon,
Too quick for groan or sigh,
Each turned his face with a ghastly pang,
And cursed me with his eye.

Four times fifty living men,
(And I heard nor sigh nor groan)
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
They dropped down one by one.

The wedding guest is terrified, and wonders with what sort of man - or ghost - he speaks:

'I FEAR thee, ancient Mariner!
I fear thy skinny hand!
And thou art long, and lank, and brown,
As is the ribbed sea-sand.

I fear thee and thy glittering eye,
And thy skinny hand, so brown.'--
Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest!
This body dropt not down.

Now the mariner is alone with the bodies of the crew he killed, "alone on a wide wide sea". Even prayer deserts him.

Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.

I looked to Heaven, and tried to pray;
But or ever a prayer had gusht,
A wicked whisper came, and made
My heart as dry as dust.

He tries to die, but cannot. It is nature (in this great first poem of the Romantic period) that saves him, for he becomes entranced with the seasnakes, their phosphorescence, and moonlight:

Beyond the shadow of the ship,
I watched the water-snakes:
They moved in tracks of shining white
And when they reared, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.

Within the shadow of the ship
I watched their rich attire:
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
Then coiled and swam; and every track
Was a flash of golden fire.

O happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare:
A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware.

Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware.
The self-same moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.

Now sleep comes to him, and something else too:

OH sleep! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole!
To Mary Queen the praise be given!
She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,
That slid into my soul.

The silly buckets on the deck,
That had so long remained,
I dreamt that they were filled with dew;
And when I awoke, it rained.

My lips were wet, my throat was cold,
My garments all were dank;
Sure I had drunken in my dreams,
And still my body drank.

The wind comes up and the ship begins to move, but who will work the ship?

Yet now the ship moved on!
The dead men gave a groan.

They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose,
Nor spake, nor moved their eyes;
It had been strange, even in a dream,
To have seen those dead men rise.

The helmsman steered, the ship moved on;
Yet never a breeze up-blew;
The mariners all 'gan work the ropes,
Where they were wont to do;
They raised their limbs like lifeless tools--
We were a ghastly crew.

The body of my brother's son
Stood by me, knee to knee:
The body and I pulled at one rope,
But he said nought to me.

Their work done, the crew's souls leave them and they truly die. The ship moves on but the mariner's troubles are not yet over. Two spirits, perhaps angels, debate his fate:

How long in that same fit I lay,
I have not to declare;
But ere my living life returned,
I heard and in my soul discerned
Two voices in the air.

'Is it he?' quoth one, 'Is this the man?
By him who died on cross,
With his cruel bow he laid full low
The harmless Albatross.

The spirit who bideth by himself
In the land of mist and snow,
He loved the bird that loved the man
Who shot him with his bow.'

The other was a softer voice,
As soft as honey-dew:
Quoth he, 'The man hath penance done,
And penance more will do.'

"And penance more will do" indeed. But the ship at last makes her home port:

Oh! dream of joy! is this indeed
The light-house top I see?
Is this the hill? is this the kirk?
Is this mine own countree?

We drifted o'er the harbour-bar,
And I with sobs did pray--
O let me be awake, my God!
Or let me sleep alway.

The pilot boat appears and approaches this strange, wrecked ship. As it approaches, a great sound is heard.

Under the water it rumbled on,
Still louder and more dead:
It reached the ship, it split the bay;
The ship went down like lead.

Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound,
Which sky and ocean smote,
Like one that hath been seven days drowned
My body lay afloat;
But swift as dreams, myself I found
Within the Pilot's boat.

Upon the whirl, where sank the ship,
The boat spun round and round;
And all was still, save that the hill
Was telling of the sound.

Finally ashore, the mariner's curse is to wander the earth, condemned to tell and retell his terrible tale. I'll let the poem finish itself.

Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched
With a woful agony,
Which forced me to begin my tale;
And then it left me free.

Since then, at an uncertain hour,
That agony returns:
And till my ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns.

I pass, like night, from land to land;
I have strange power of speech;
That moment that his face I see,
I know the man that must hear me:
To him my tale I teach.

What loud uproar bursts from that door!
The wedding-guests are there:
But in the garden-bower the bride
And bride-maids singing are:
And hark the little vesper bell,
Which biddeth me to prayer!

O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been
Alone on a wide wide sea:
So lonely 'twas, that God himself
Scarce seem'ed there to be.

O sweeter than the marriage-feast,
'Tis sweeter far to me,
To walk together to the kirk
With a goodly company!--

To walk together to the kirk,
And all together pray,
While each to his great Father bends,
Old men, and babes, and loving friends
And youths and maidens gay!

Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.

He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.

The Mariner, whose eye is bright,
Whose beard with age is hoar,
Is gone: and now the Wedding-Guest
Turned from the bridegroom's door.

He went like one that hath been stunned,
And is of sense forlorn:
A sadder and a wiser man,
He rose the morrow morn.

Finis.

A Vessel of the United States

2010-01-28T06:08:00.001-05:00

When I bought Journeyman she had these vinyl numbers on the bow, "ME something." So I documented her as a vessel of the United States, peeled off the state registration numbers and compounded the area.

For most yachts, the sole advantage to documentation is freeing the boat from bow numbers. There is no savings in taxes, at least in Maine, for every six months the Coast Guard sends each state a list of boat owners who have lately documented a yacht with a hailing port in that state, and the sales or use tax bill soon follows, and then the annual excise tax bills. But I still prefer a documented vessel to a state registered one - it's more seemly of a blue water craft.

Documentation is easy to accomplish. (I limit myself to "recreational" boats. The requirements for commercial fishing and "coastwise" boats, those carrying cargo or passengers, are different: consult your documentation specialist.) The process is administered by the National Vessel Documentation Center, in the lyrically named Falling Waters, West Virginia. I work with the agency a lot, and the people are an educated, helpful and careful lot, as good as any with whom I regularly work.

If you own a pleasure boat that is already state registered in your name, you send the following to the NVDC: Application for Initial Issue of Certificate of Documentation (CG 1258); copy of your state registration; Application for Simplified Measurement (CG 5397); and a personal check for $149.00 made to the United States Coast Guard. (All the forms are available at the link above.) Before you send the papers, call the NVDC and ask to speak to a documentation specialist and make sure your application is in order. Although the NVDC is good, they are exceedingly careful, as behooves the agency keeping title record to ships worth many millions, and they do not suffer errors, whiteout, and the like. For example, a slight difference between the name of the owner's name on the registration and the name on the CG 1258 will kick back an application.

The only difference if you are buying a yacht is that you must send the Coast Guard, instead of a state registration, an executed Coast Guard Bill of Sale (CG 1340).

(Some folks think only a U.S. built boat can be federally documented. No so - you can document a yacht even if foreign built, but for recreational endorsement only.)

In a few weeks - precedence is given to commercial vessels - you'll receive your Certificate of Documentation. You must keep it aboard. It will have a seven digit number, assigned to your yacht, along with marking instructions. You will mark your ship's name and hailing port (including state) on the transom or elsewhere, and you will emboss, weld, drill or otherwise indelibly mark the official number into the "main beam" or equivalent of your ship. Welcome aboard.

Last year the state sent me a silly little blue decal indicating I had paid the excise tax, and told me to stick it to the outside of Journeyman. The State of Maine can drop dead - this is a vessel of the United States!

Oysterman's Knot

2010-01-27T05:30:00.000-05:00

Everyone knows stopper knots - for many sailors, the first knot learned is the figure eight, and for that matter the overhand knot is a stopper knot. Other stopper knots involve going around the standing part three or more times, instead of twice as in a figure eight. No matter how many times the standing part is passed, however, these knots are all of the same diameter. What if a fatter stopper knot is needed?

Enter the Oysterman's Knot, so called by the great Clifford W. Ashley, born New Bedford 1881 and author of The Ashley Book of Knots. The book claims to have "7000 drawings representing over 3900 knots". It was a labor of eleven years.

The oysterman's knot is easily tied - I'll let the pictures tell the story. It must be drawn up carefully and worked tight.

You can see that this knot is quite a bit wider than a figure eight (shown below, with an oysterman's knot) or similar stopper knot. It is useful to know.

Bookshelf

2010-01-26T05:40:00.008-05:00

It is better to sail than to read, but reading is good too. I have always collected sailing books and lately I have become a bit more focused on my collection. As will not surprise you if you have been following this blog, I like best the books from the 1940's, 1950's and 1960's, when one could sail without checking one's email.

I thought I would show some of my collection, so I took a series of photos.These are some of my oversized books.

At the top is Ashley's Book of Knots, about which I lately wrote. Next is L. Francis Herreshoff's The Common Sense of Yacht Design, 1974, a book I warmly recommend. The book is packed with information and shows, among other things, how little sailing has in its essence changed, and no one writes like cranky old Herreshoff.

Below is Sailing the Great Races, Robert Burton 1979. A bit dated, more so than Herreshoff in a way although it describes a much later time (bloopers, 12 Meters with trim tabs), and a snapshot of 1970's ocean racing.

Arthur Beiser's The Proper Yacht. Beiser is a physicist, independently wealthy I think, and he owned the big fast steel Alden ketch Minot's Light. "I start from the premise that no object created by man is as satisfying to his body and his soul as a proper sailing yacht." The book is a series of essays discussing particular yachts, and it is very good.

The next is an outlier, Shang by Dixon Merkt and Richard Grave, the latter the father of a friend. Shang Wheeler was a genius at duck decoys and the book is a real find for those interested in the decoys of eastern Long Island Sound, and who isn't.

Across the Western Ocean by William Snaith. Snaith was an architect, and the book is the story of his 1961 passage from St. Johns, Newfoundland to England aboard Figaro, his storied 47 foot centerboard yawl. He is an insightful and happy writer and this book is nearly as good as his On the Wind's Way, a must have.

Brings us to Ships of the World, a sort of encyclopedia of ships, by a friend, very well done, and a book I really must spend some time with some day soon.

The two matched volumes are from the United States Naval Institute, Destroyer and Submarine, an official history of actions involving those classes of U.S. ships in World War Two. It is pretty terrific stuff, wonderful illustrations and comprehensive. (Click on the photo, it's worth a good look.) I believe Samuel Elliott Morrison was involved in the editing. These books were the gift of my wife's uncle Truman Bradley of New Haven, who commanded a squadron of patrol-torpedo boats in that war, bringing them from east coast U.S. to the western Pacific. He was a consummate yachtsman and a great guy, much missed.

To the right, Nowhere is Too Far, annals of the Cruising Club of America, a club to which I do not belong but would like to, then Phillip Rhodes and his Yacht Designs. (I do love Rhodes, who's shear is as distinctive on a Widgeon as on his 97 foot Curlew.) Then a 1995 yearbook of The Catbook Association featuring Oscar Pease, the last man to scallop under sail in Vineyard waters, with whom I painted boats as a boy and whose cat Vanity has since been desecrated with AN OUTBOARD MOTOR BOLTED TO A BRACKET ON THE TRANSOM, like putting lipstick on La Pieta, and finally The Bay and the Sound, photos by Norman Fortier.

Trolling

2010-01-25T06:11:00.001-05:00

We were entering Whale Key Passage in the Abacos and we had a line out. Just where we might have predicted it there came a mighty tug and soon we were gilling a ten pound King Mackeral. Ashore for drinks at Green Turtle, we asked the Bahamian tending bar how she'd cook it, and she said "fry it up, steak-like." So we did, for two great meals.

I have caught many fish trolling: King Macks, Mahi, Tuna of various sorts, Blues, and others. I use a cuban reel, and load it with a hundred feet of 300 pound mono, available from fishermen supply stores. I drill a 1/8 inch (2 mm) hole through the reel, pass the end of the mono through, and secure it with a figure eight. I put a leaded trolling lure on the line, with a wire leader and a multiple swivel. You want a strong single hook, and you want gloves to tend the line. The kind sold in fishermen supply stores - the cheap orange knitted ones with "pleasure studs" - work great.

This lure is typical of the ones we use, but for the tropics one with red or yellow or both works best.

First light is always a good time to have the lines out, and ideally the boat is making six knots or better so the lure has good surface action. Sometimes we lead the line a little bit up the backstay to give the lure some skipping action.

When we get a fish on the line we luff up and bring the fish alongside and gaff it. We try to get the fish right into a garbage bag or a bucket and we quickly cut the gills out to bleed and kill it. We usually eat it several meals a day until it is gone.

We never troll at night, and when things get interesting - a squall coming up, maneuvering, anything at all - the lines come in. Otherwise when you have to back down or something, there is trouble.

The Name

2010-01-22T05:30:00.001-05:00

Suppose you have some athletic sort of boat, a 505 or a Melges 20 or a big fast racer/cruiser like a J133, and you're in need of a name. You leaf through a nautical dictionary or maybe the weather section of Bowditch and come upon . . . Katabatic.

Rhyming with "acrobatic", a katabatic wind is a gravity wind. Just as water runs downhill, so does cold, heavy air run down through warm, light air. These winds, sometimes referred to as "drainage flows", occur worldwide where mountains meet the sea.

A huge icefield lies behind the mountains of southeast Alaska, and glaciers fed by the icefield run to the sea. Prolonged high pressure causes very cold and hence heavy air to pool on the icefield, until some shift in wind or change in pressure tips the cooled air down the glaciers, where the air accelerates by gravity to speeds which may exceed 100 knots. That's a katabatic wind, and when it suddenly hits tidewater it's a force to be reckoned with. As one would expect with such a spectacular breeze, there are myriad local names, including williwaw (Alaska), mistral (western Mediterranean), pampero (Argentina) and bora (eastern Med).

You've found your name.

The Coast Guard has a site that allows one to search for federally documented vessels by name. I just searched, and found one Katabatic, recently documented. Just last year there were none, but there's room for another.

"Never mind the mistral, we're playing!"

Naming

2010-01-21T05:32:00.001-05:00

Here's a subject - L. Francis Herreshoff wrote an entire essay on "Naming the Yacht", see his wonderful Reader. I can't go so far, but there are some rules.

1. Some names are taken or retired. You think you can call your little sloop "Running Tide", or "Shenandoah", or "Ticonderoga"? Sorry.

2. You must not name your boat after how you earn your living, as in "Decision" for a lawyer, or "Net Gain" for a financier. No matter how subtle, how clever, it's bound to be a bit tacky.

3. If possible pick a name that works well on the radio. There's a boat down Cape Cod way, I think a charter fishing boat, called "Dazed and Confused", and we hear them on the VHF a lot. Speaking as a former watchstander in a Coast Guard rescue coordinations center, that's a terrible and, well, confusing name to be broadcasting. And there's a pretty Pilot 35 in Edgartown called "It Never Entered My Mind". Obviously.

4. If you don't like the name of a boat you have bought, change it. But if you think you might like the name, keep it for a while and see if it grows on you. Your boat may have made friends in many ports and if you change the name they won't know the boat.

An acquaintance breeds draft horses. He sometimes waits as long as a year to finally name a foal. When I bought Journeyman she was "Vagrant", a name which in years gone by no doubt had a carefree, Gypsy air. I turned over various names in my mind - McWhirr, after Conrad's skipper of the Nan-Shee, was one - but none seemed right. Journeyman, which came to me several months after we took delivery, was an instant fit.

In tomorrow's post I will bestow upon the nautical world a great name for a certain type of yacht, interesting, cadenced, maritime, and so far as I know used little or not at all.

"Heavy Weather Sailing"

2010-01-20T05:35:00.003-05:00

I lately bought this great book by C. Adlard Coles, the British sailor who went on to found a nautical publishing house, still a fine source of nautical titles. Coles wrote Heavy Weather Sailing in 1967 and it is in its 6th edition, now with material from other authors and editing by Peter Bruce. I paid $12.00 for a 1969 first U.S. printing, not rare, just a bit less than the book's $12.50 price in 1969.

Cole's picture is below. They don't make them like that anymore.

Many books about heavy weather sailing are fun to read but reveal a dearth of experience on the author's part and bear little relevance to the way we really sail. Not so Heavy Weather Sailing. Distinguishing the book is that each chapter is about a cruise or race in which Coles got into heavy weather, concluding with the lessons learned. Chapter titles include "North Sea Gale", "Pooped for the First Time", "Three More Gales", "Bermuda Race Gale" and so on. And by "heavy weather" Coles generally means the 25 to 50 knot blows that a yachtsman may actually encounter, not the survival storms which we will probably never run into. Each chapter ends with conclusions, and the book is full of useful information about actually handling and sailing a boat in strong winds. There is material on survival storms as well, but none of it first hand.

Bedding: Tag Ends

2010-01-19T05:50:00.000-05:00

Couple things I forgot to mention on this topic. First, a great timesaver in removing fittings is a Vise Grips pliers. Just lock the Vise Grips on the nut of the fastener, go on deck, and turn the other end. No need to have a helper below deck.

Second, a battery powered drill with a chuck that can accept your deep sockets will speed the work.

Here's the controversy referred to in my last post. Some folks think the method I described provides insufficient mechanical contact between deck and fitting - by reason of the interposed thickish rubbery compound - resulting in strain on the fastenings. Maybe so, and maybe that concern is heightened when bedding a turning block on an eighty foot maxi, as compared with the comparable job on my little crab crusher. It would take lab testing to find out.

In any case an alternative exists, which is to touch each fastener hole with a countersink such as is pictured

here. The idea is to create a little space around each fastener from which the compound cannot be squeezed out as the fastener is tightened down, see my crude rendering below. In practice, one simply spreads a thinnish layer of compound where the fitting will go, making sure to get a bit on each countersunk hole, and then one tightens down the fitting, all in one go. No need wait until the compound has cured before tightening down.

Does this alternative works as well as my recommended technique? My guess is not, because there is a dearth of thick rubbery adhesive compound between green water and the cozy accomodation of your yacht. But it may work well enough, and it is undoubtedly efficient. I actually have come to touch the countersink to most holes, even when using the "traditional" technique.

xxx

How to Bed, the last

2010-01-18T08:20:00.005-05:00

Now all the hardware is up and the deck is repaired and you've got your new fasteners ready to go. Next step is to roughen up the base of the hardware and the corresponding deck surface, using 120 grit sandpaper. You may want to tape off the deck around stanchion bases etc. so you don't sand where you don't want to. Before applying bedding compound I wipe the two surfaces with acetone, to really make sure the surfaces are clean of all wax and oil and sanding dust. Remember, the concept is to allow the compound, which cures to a rubbery consistency, to form a good bond with both the fitting and the deck, so if the fitting shifts a bit under load the bond stays intact.

It is time to apply the bedding compound, but which one? I used 3M 4200, which is recommended for the purpose and performs well. There are other choices, including one or more of the Sikaflex products. I would avoid any oil based bedding compound, such as Dolphinite, unless - perhaps - you are bedding to a wood deck. (Here's a useful discussion.) The oil based products will degrade from the edge in and the result will be failure in five years instead of ten or more. I would also avoid 3M 5200, which is a very powerful, essentially permanent adhesive, not really a bedding compound at all.

Put a 1/16 to 1/8 inch (2 mm) layer of compound on the underside of your stanchion base or other hardware. Do the same to the taped off deck. Press the fitting to the deck and insert the fasteners, placing a little gob of compound under the head of each fastener before you press it down. Compound will of course exude from the work and you need to clean that up before it cures, a good reason for taping.

Importantly, don't tighten the bolts or screws yet - just press the hardware down firmly but not too firmly. You want to leave a layer of compound under the fitting, a layer perhaps 1/16 inch (2 - 3 mm) or so, and if you press too hard you'll squeeze out all the compound.

Then you will wait until the compound has cured, and only then will you tighten it down. The result will be a fitting that can withstand even a hard direct hose spray, or green water, without leaking a drop.

Suppose your fitting has bolt heads that are exposed to weather, as do many stanchions. You have placed a bit of compound under each bolt head and pressed it down. However, if you let the bolt head rotate while you tighten the nut below deck, the bond under the bolt head will fail and you may have a leak around the fastener. To prevent this have a helper hold the bolt head perfectly in place above deck, using a wrench, while you tighten the bolt from below.

Last year a production boat raced the TransPac right out of the box. Every deck fitting leaked and the race was a misery. The technique I've described here is not well suited to production, because each fitting has to be attended to twice several days apart. I believe many boat builders don't use it, for that reason. Instead, they lay down some compound, then tighten the fitting down hard, leaving too little compound to form a good seal.

There is, actually, a touch of controversy about this technique. In tomorrow's post I'll explain the controversy, I'll describe an alternative, and I'll describe how one can incorporate the alternative into the above-described technique for an even better job.

The Argo Merchant: Now It Can Be Told

2010-01-16T09:33:00.001-05:00

On December 15, 1976, the tanker Argo Merchant grounded on Fishing Rip, 25 miles southeast of Nantucket. She was loaded with 183,000 barrels (7.7 million gallons, or 24,000 tons) of home heating oil and similar products.

The stranding was on sand and despite ten foot seas the ship stayed largely intact. By dawn the next day six big tugs were on scene, with combined horsepower much greater than that of the tanker. The tanker had grounded at the bow, and the entire ship swung with each change of the tide. The prospects were excellent, in short, for getting her off and avoiding calamity.

There was one problem: getting the ship off would require pumping 800 tons of the cargo into the sea, to lighten the part of the ship most heavily aground. ("Lightering", or pumping the oil into a barge or ship, was not possible due to shoal water and inadequate equipment.) A friend of mine, who commanded the tugs on scene, told me the request was made to the Coast Guard for permission to jettison the oil, no one would give the authority, and despite the best efforts of the salvors the ship stayed stuck. On December 21 she broke apart in heavy seas and the entire cargo was lost.

The Forty Fathom Bank

2010-01-15T07:17:00.003-05:00

A week or so ago I nominated Conrad's Typhoon as the best nautical novella or short story. With a work of such stature one might think there would be no competition, but in fact I seriously considered naming instead Les Galloway's masterpiece The Forty Fathom Bank.

Self-published in 1985, and in 1994 - four years after the author's death - picked up by Chronicle Books, The Forty Fathom Bank is a haunting story of the greed and evil which may lurk in us all. Like Conrad, Galloway was a merchant seaman and the book is authentic in its nautical detail, but that's the least of this troubling tale. I am not going to give a synopsis (here's one) but I will offer the book's preface, a quote from Socrates:

And when he finds that the sum of his transgressions is great he will many a time like a child start up in his sleep for fear, and he is filled with dark forebodings.

Pilot Chart

2010-01-14T06:07:00.001-05:00

A friend of mine has invited me to cross the Atlantic on his forty foot sloop! At least, I think he has; he put the word out to a number of his friends, and I immediately threw my hat in the ring, so I hope to go along. The crossing is in June.

There are two legs, and I can do but one of them: Portland to the Azores; or the Azores to Gibraltar. Which one should I do, if given the choice? For me, the prevalence of good sailing outweighs all else, so of course I consulted the pilot chart for June North Atlantic.

In the early to mid nineteenth century, U.S. Navy officer Matthew Fontaine Maury distributed special logbooks to ship captains and asked them to record wind speed, direction, calm, ice pack, icebergs, fog and similar data. Maury created charts depicting this data in graphical form, and the pilot chart was born. The data continue to be collected, and one authority states that the April North Atlantic pilot chart depicts data drawn from more than four million observations.

A pilot chart is divided into rectangles of 5 degrees. Each rectangle contains a wind rose. The percentage of time the wind blows from a certain direction is indicated by the length of the arrows. The arrows fly with the wind, with the fletching up wind, as it were. When the wind is so often from one direction that the arrow would be quite long, the percentage may be given by number; in this example 40% of the time the winds are due north. The number of feathers indicate the average force of that wind by the Beaufort scale, so that in this example 40% of the time the wind is due north and the average north wind blows at force 7, or about thirty knots. The number in the circle indicates percent of calm, here 3%

Pilot charts also indicate the limit of pack ice, prevalence of bergs, percentage of fogs and gales, ship routes, ocean currents, typical tracks of rotating storms, and other information useful to anyone planning a voyage. God bless Matthew Maury!

Back to my dilemma: Portland to the Azores, or Azores to Gib? The June North Atlantic pilot chart (it's an 11 mb PDF file) shows that most of the time the winds are south to west about force four (about 15 knots). From the Azores to Gibraltar, on the other hand, winds are on the bow much of the time, so I'll ask to do the first leg.

How to Bed, the Second

2010-01-13T06:07:00.000-05:00

Now that the hardware is up, look closely at the deck around the fittings. This is the time to repair any big dings or cracks in the gelcoat. If the crack or ding is under the fitting, no need to match gelcoat - just smooth the area with thickened epoxy. If the drilled holes in the deck are ovalled or otherwise suspect, you may want to fill the holes with epoxy and redrill them. To do this, put a piece of masking tape across the hole on the deckhead or underside of the deck. In case that leaks, put some newpaper under the hole. Then inject epoxy into the hole, using the syringe sold by West System dealers. Simply dripping the epoxy into the holes typically leaves voids and is ineffective. The syringes are cheap and reuseable.

Inspect the hardware too. Stainless steel generally does not fail without first showing signs of failure, including incipient cracks.

The stemhead fitting on Journeyman, which came off as part of this project, is stainless steel and runs about ten inches down the stem and ten inches aft of the stem along the centerline. The forestay attaches to this fitting, as does the jib tack, so you can bet it takes some strain. Journeyman is thirty-eight years old, and that fitting might well be a candidate for failure.

After removing the fitting, I carefully polished it with Bon Ami, removing every trace of oil, wax, paint and corrosion. After washing it to get the scouring powder off, I wiped the fitting down with ordinary light oil, "3 in 1" type. I then wiped the fitting with a dry paper towel to remove most of the oil, and I dusted it liberally with colored chalk dust, the type used in chalk lines. (Every hardware store carries it.) I wiped off the chalk, then inspected the entire fitting with great care, using a magnifying glass.

I was searching for tiny hairline cracks, made visible only by reason of the chalk sticking to the residual oil remaining in any cracks. This is a cheap but pretty effective form of non-destructive testing, a variation of dye penetrant inspection, one you can do at home. It's a good trick to know.

Continued tomorrow.

How to Bed

2010-01-12T05:00:00.002-05:00

Summer before last, I was beating in a strong breeze when a puff drove the rail under. I looked down the companion and saw water pretty well pouring in at the chainplates. Guess I put off rebedding long enough.

In two or three posts I'll explain how I undertook the job of rebedding most of Journeyman's deck hardware. It was a hard job, but it's paid off with a dry boat, and it should last five, maybe ten years.

Deck hardware on a boat shifts under strain, no matter how tightly fastened. The theory behind bedding with modern compounds, such as the 3M 4200 which I used and recommend, is to ensure that this highly adhesive, flexible material can adhere well both to the underside of the cleat, stanchion base or other hardware, and to the deck. Thus when the fitting shifts the cured compound shifts as well, keeping the deck watertight. Therefore, as in using any adhesive the surfaces have to be clean, oil and wax free, and roughened up.

I'm getting ahead of myself. The first thing I did was remove all the stanchions, the bow and stern pulpits, and the chainplates. Quite useful in this laborious task were a short throw socket wrench, crescent wrenches and a Dremel tool with plenty of cut off wheels. You will be working at all angles, trying to get the nuts off the underside of these fittings. You want a nice, smooth short throw wrench with ample pawling, the kind sold in auto parts stores, so when you can turn the wrench just 20 degrees or so you are still getting something on the nut.

You want deep sockets for the wrench. These sockets are deep enough to reach the nut even when the bolt is pretty long.

I have seen ratcheting crescent wrenches, and were I doing this project again I'd get one or two in the sizes I most needed.

A Dremel Tool is an irreplaceable tool in so many applications, including in this project. I used one with a cut off wheel to cut off bolts just above the nut, when the bolt ended in an interference making getting the nut off impossible, as happens. This technique saves anguish and rending of garments. You can even use a cut off wheel to split a frozen nut. Use safety glasses - the cut off wheels sometimes go to pieces.

Once I had the nuts off the fittings came up easily, except for the chainplates. These were well and truly stuck. I tried leverage of various sorts, and I finally put an auto jack on the chainplates and pulled them up.

Once the fittings are up you have to decide whether or not to reuse the bolts. I generally didn't. Mine were tired and sometimes a little bent, and with all the time and effort it seemed a poor economy not to replace the fasteners.

(To be continued.)

Constrictor Hitch

2010-01-11T06:32:00.000-05:00

Among the most useful knots is the constrictor hitch. It acts like a clove hitch, but it locks down upon itself. You can use it as a quick whipping, to start a lashing, to secure a sack, and for jury rigging a topping lift to a spinnaker pole. It's handy in emergencies. It can be easily tied on the bight, or by passing an end. Worth knowing, although it takes a bit of time to learn when tied from the end. It is more easily tied on the bight.

Schooner towing house

2010-01-09T05:37:00.002-05:00

In the 1950's Joey Smallwood, premier of Newfoundland, Canada, decided to close 250 of the tiny "outports", coastal villages with small populations and few services. The people were relocated to the towns and cities, and some folks brought their homes with them - or tried to.

Bowditch Redux

2010-01-08T05:21:00.038-05:00

Owen Chase, first mate of the whaling ship Essex, which in 1820 sank after being rammed by an enraged sperm whale, wrote an account of shipwreck, murder by lot and cannibalism of the victim which probably inspired Melville's Moby Dick. The Essex sank in minutes, and:

"My companions had not saved a single article but what they had on their backs but to me it was a source of infinite satisfaction, if any could be gathered from the horrors of our gloomy situation, that we had been fortunate enough to have preserved our compasses, Navigators and quadrant. After the first shock of my feelings was over, I enthusiastically contemplated them as the probable instruments of our salvation; without them all would have been dark and hopeless."

Good items to have in your whaleboat, especially since the Bowditch of that era included a table listing hundreds of remote oceanic islands by latitude and longitude.

Captain Chase. He was twenty-two when the Essex went down.

Bowditch

2010-01-07T06:29:00.009-05:00

Nathaniel Bowditch, 1773 - 1838, was a mathematical prodigy born in Salem, Massachusetts, son of a shipmaster. As a teenage apprentice to a chandler, his brilliance and scholarship were so pronounced as to attract the attention of Harvard's scholars. He is said to have studied twelve languages, the better to read original texts, and at age sixteen he translated Newton's Principia from the Latin. By age twenty he may have been the outstanding mathematician of the country.

Given his prowess, residence in a great seaport, and background, he turned to navigation. Although by this time Mr. Harrison's chronometer had solved the longitude problem, those clocks were generally too expensive for most ships and cumbersome and very complex methods of determining longitude (by "lunar distance") remained in wide use. In fact, Christopher Columbus's method of latitude sailing (sailing first to the latitude of the destination and remaining on that latitude to arrival, using noon sights) remained common technique.

Bowditch determined to change all that, developing a simplified method of finding longitude. The forward to my 1966 edition of his American Practical Navigator, a book known across the globe as simply "Bowditch", states: "His simplified methods, easily grasped by the intelligent seaman willing to learn, paved the way for yankee supremacy of the seas during the clipper ship era."

The book was a commercial success, has emerged in more than seventy-five editions to date, a million copies printed, and it remains in print. The latest edition has an interactive CD. (I have a 1936 and a 1966 edition. An 1807 second edition is listed on ABE Books for $4,500.00. I want it.)

Bowditch went on to have a long, prosperous and happy life, with many, many honors. On his 1838 death the Salem Marine Society wrote:

"In his death a public, a national, a human benefactor has departed. Not this community, nor our country only, but the whole world, has reason to do honor to his memory. When the voice of Eulogy shall be still, when the tear of Sorrow shall cease to flow, no monument will be needed to keep alive his memory among men; but as long as ships shall sail, the needle point to the north, and the stars go through their wonted courses in the heavens, the name of Dr. Bowditch will be revered as of one who helped his fellow-men in time of need, who was and is a guide to them over the pathless ocean, and of one who forwarded the great interests of mankind."

There is, if possible, an even larger context in which to view Bowditch. By teaching the cook and the boatswain to navigate, he removed the great mystery from celestial navigation, and as always when important knowledge is democratized, there was a profound and beneficial social effect.

Latitude for the Common Man

2010-01-06T06:10:00.012-05:00

A post or two ago I wrote "The determination of latitude is simple; in less than an hour anyone can be taught how to use a sextant to measure the sun's height above the horizon in degrees at "high noon" (local apparent noon), and how to correct that "altitude" for time of year (declination), height of eye, refraction, and error of sextant. The result of this "noon sight" is latitude, accurate to a mile or so if the sextant work is good, and no clock needed."

Here goes. Using a table in your Nautical Almanac, look up the approximate time local noon will occur at roughly your longitude on your date. A few minutes before that time, take your sextant, put the appropriate sun shade on, and make yourself comfortable on the bridge wing or wedge yourself into the companionway of your yacht. Sight the sun through your sextant. The sextant shows you two superimposed images: one of the horizon, and one of the sun or other body. Move the sextant arm until the sun is brought down to the horizon. Rock the sextant back and forth slightly, and the sun will describe an arc that should just touch the horizon. You will observe the sun to climb, and you will adjust the sextant accordingly, to keep the sun just kissing the horizon in its arc. In a short while the sun will pause, and then begin to come down; local apparent noon has occurred. Read and record the highest altitude the sun achieved.

Now correct your sextant reading for instrument error, height of your eye ("dip"), refraction, and semi-diameter of the sun (16 minutes, usually, and always added). Instrument error is read from a table in the sextant case. Dip and refraction are from simple tables in the Nautical Almanac. Each is either added to or subtracted from your sextant reading, as indicated. The corrected result of your sextant reading is the sun's observed altitude, or "Ho".

Subtract the Ho from 90 degrees to get the "zenith distance."

Again using the Almanac, look up the sun's declination for that date. Declination is the sun's "latitude" on the celestial sphere. For example, you learned in fifth grade that on the winter solstice the declination is 23.5 degrees south, and that on the equinoxes, it is zero degrees, or right over the equator. But you don't really have to know this to reduce a noon sight: you just have to know how to look up declination for a given date.

Add the declination to your zenith distance, if the delination is the same name as your latitude. That is, if you are in the northern hemisphere, and declination is north, add the zenith distance and the declination. If you are in the northern hemisphere and the declination is south, subtract the declination from your zenith distance.

The result is your latitude!

An example. Suppose you are eight days out from Boston headed for Ireland. You consult your Almanac, determine the approximate time of local noon for your date and approximate longitude, take a good noon sight, and correct it for dip, index error, refraction and semi-diameter of the sun. The result - 47.23 degrees in this example - is your Ho. Then:

               90.00 degrees
minus       47.23 degrees Ho
Result:    43.37 degrees Zenith distance

You consult the Almanac again, and find that for the date the sun's declination is 06.04 degrees north. So:
   43.37 Zenith distance
plus          06.04 declination

Result:     49.41 north latitude.

It is just that simple. Sights other than the noon sight are harder, but it's all just adding, subtracting and tables, and, for other than noon sights and Polaris, time. And it is way, way cool.

Tomorrow's post is about a great, unsung American, the man who taught the cook and the boatswain how to navigate by the stars.

Kon-Tiki

2010-01-05T05:21:00.004-05:00

Knut Haughland, last surviving member of the Kon-Tiki expedition, died on Christmas day. In anyone else's life the 1947 expedition - six men, a large balsa log raft, Callao, Peru to the Marquesas in 101 days - would have been the greatest chapter. But Haughland was also a storied commando in the Norwegian resistance, with many violent exploits and escapes. On one occasion the Gestapo trapped him in a maternity hospital where he had installed a secret radio. He shot his way out.

Haughland on left, with Bengt Danielsson.

The Kon-Tiki expedition, organized by Thor Heyerdahl, sought to prove that the South Pacific could have been populated by prehistoric migrations from South America. Averaging 47 miles a day, the six men drifted and sailed in the Equatorial Current and finally reached land over a thundering reef in the Marquesas. They had traveled 4300 nautical miles all in pretty fair order, considering. Heyerdahl made the expedition famous in his book by the same name.

How to Tell Time

2010-01-02T12:31:00.003-05:00

When accurate clocks became available to the navigator, it became essential to determine and track the error of the individual chronometer, so shipboard time could better be determined. Error consists not merely of how fast or slow the timepiece is relative to Greenwich Mean Time, but also of the rate of error, the rate at which the error is increasing or decreasing. By knowing both the error at a known date, and the rate of error, an accurate estimation of the precise time can be made some weeks or months after the last occasion on which the chronometer's time could be compared with actual time. (Actual time was, and is, itself determined by observing the transit of an astronomical body with the observer's meridian, using a special instrument and perhaps performed at a naval observatory.) In the afloat services, the chronometer is never reset except by a shop ashore, when the chronometer is exchanged for servicing. Rather, chronometer time is corrected, when the sight reduction (translation of sextant sight to line of position) is performed, by reference to the chronometer's known error and known rate of error.

The ship's chronometer is itself set to Greenwich Mean Time, that being the time used for all celestial navigation. G.M.T. has apparently been replaced, in one of those highly suspicious modern developments, by "Coordinated Universal Time", which seems to be the same as G.M.T.

Today, while chronometers are still carried, precise time is determined by listening to a "time tick", broadcast by the U.S. Navy from Fort Collins, Colorado on WWV. The time tick is broadcast on 2.5 megahertz, 5 mHz, 10, mHz, 15 mHz, 20 mHz and 25 mHz, the lower frequency broadcasts generally being better received during daylight, the higher at night. (You can hear a sample of the time tick on the WWV web site.) In practice, the navigator sets a stop watch to the time tick, and the stop watch is then used to determine the precise time of each observation.

Not so long ago every major port in the world signaled noon with a "time ball", hoisted on a mast at the port office. At five minutes to noon, the ball was hoisted to half-staff. At one minute to noon, the ball was hoisted to the masthead, and at the instant of noon the ball dropped, perhaps accompanied by a gun. I last saw a time ball in St. George's Bermuda two years ago, and I'm not sure it's still in use - I hope it is.

If all this business about time balls seems vaguely familiar, perhaps you have seen a rather elaborate example on New Year's eve. How many people watching that celebration have any clue that they are seeing an important nautical tradition, one that once represented a triumph of technology?

H 4

2009-12-31T06:20:00.007-05:00

This is the one of the most important inventions of all time: a clock sufficiently accurate for a navigator to determine his ship's longitude, or distance west or east of Greenwich, England (zero degrees longitude).

The determination of latitude is simple; in less than an hour anyone can be taught how to use a sextant to measure the sun's height above the horizon in degrees at "high noon" (local apparent noon), and how to correct that "altitude" for time of year (declination), height of eye, refraction, and error of sextant. The result of this "noon sight" is latitude, accurate to a mile or so if the sextant work is good, and no clock needed.

Latitude is very good, but's just one line of position (LOP), and that's not a fix. By measuring the altitude in degrees of a navigational body at a known time, a line of position perpendicular to the body's azimuth ("direction" from the navigator to the body) can be determined, which, when crossed with a noon sight advanced along the ship's track, or with a sun, moon, star or planet sight, gives a fix. In short, an LOP developed other than by noon sight (ok, or a sight on Polaris, which of course also can give only latitude) requires time, and a second of error can equal a mile on the chart.

In 1714 the British government offered 20,000 pounds (around $4.5 million, in 2009 dollars) to the first person to develop an accurate means of determining longitude at sea. Others focused on cumbersome methods of determining time by reference to the movement of heavenly bodies, but watchmaker John Harrison worked for thirty-four years to perfect a clock accurate at sea. His masterpiece, the H4, lost but 4 seconds on a trip from England to Jamaica, an error corresponding to less than two nautical miles. I saw this instrument, on a pilgrimage to Greenwich in 2007. It is about seven inches across. These clocks initially cost roughly one-quarter as much as a merchant ship might.

Anchoring - final words

2009-12-30T06:18:00.000-05:00

If you believe another vessel is preparing to anchor too close to you, it is your obligation to so advise the other yacht, and to require them to anchor elsewhere. Stewing about it isn't enough.

It is surprising how often a yacht will enter a large anchorage and anchor near the only other yacht anchored there, close enough to hear conversation. Better to assume the other yacht is happy to have its privacy.

It's fun to squeeze into an anchorage full of happy yachts, but use caution. Once, cruising with a seasoned skipper, we entered a tight Maine harbor and picked up a mooring with a nice new pennant. The moorings were said to be granite block sunk in mud, all new that year - who could ask for better? But we shifted to another mooring, similar configuration, also new, but heavier.

An hour later a squall blew up and ashore someone claimed 60 knots of wind. We sawed from side to side and lay over maybe 25 degrees on the mooring. Some daysailors sank on the mooring. I keep that experience in mind when choosing an anchoring hole. If we'd been at anchor in some crowded harbor, there would have been trouble.

Spring Line

2009-12-29T06:10:00.000-05:00

We were anchored off Rum Key in an open rodestead. The wind was east but there was a small swell from the southwest. The 54 foot yawl rolled and rolled.

I took a 5/8 nylon line and secured it - the spring line - to the anchor rode, using a rolling hitch. (I might have seized the hitch's tale to the rode, for added reliability.) The other end I took all the way aft on the port side to a quarter block. We paid out more anchor line until the rolling hitch was about 100 feet from the yacht, then put the spring line on a winch and took a strain. Gradually the yawl came round so she was facing the swell, and the rolling ceased. We didn't lie to the spring all night - too much strain on the anchor line, with the yacht now almost beam to the wind - but it sure made the evening easier.

Another time we were out for a dinner sail with friends and there was a lovely sunset. The better to view it, I put a little spring line on the anchor rode and brought the sunset on Journeyman's beam.

Buoying the Anchor

2009-12-28T06:43:00.001-05:00

A friend had to abandon his anchor South Freeport Harbor, Maine when he couldn't raise it. South Freeport has been a busy anchorage for two hundred years or more, so it is not surprising that his anchor fouled on an old cable, or possibly wreckage.

If he'd had a "tripping line", a buoyed line secured to the crown of the anchor, he could have pulled the anchor up and away from the cable by taking in on the buoy line.

We rarely buoy the anchor except when anchoring where we believe there are likely to be old cables and abandoned moorings. We may also buoy the anchor when we are in a crowded anchorage, as the buoy shows other yachts, and us, where our anchor lies, perhaps keeping boats from anchoring on top of us.

Our ready anchor is a 7.5 kilogram Bruce. At the crown we have a permanent 18 inch pennant of 1/4 inch Dyneema. The pennant finds daily use as a keeper, to keep the anchor in the roller. We also use the pennant to secure our tripping line. The buoy at the other end of the tripping line is a toggle buoy used in lobstering, about softball sized, spliced to 5/16 inch yellow polypropylene and with an eye splice at the other end to which we bend the pennant. Polypropylene floats, so the buoy line is less apt to foul on the anchor (or on anything else on the bottom) than nylon or another sinking line.

When weighing anchor one must have a boathook handy to pick up the tripping line, and a certain amount of care must be taken to keep from fouling the line in the propeller - another reason to use a highly visible floating tripping line.

An alternative to a buoyed tripping line is to bring the tripping line up the anchor rode, with little slack, and seize it to the rode at a point where the rode will be on deck when the rode is all the way in ("up and down"). I have never done this, but it seems likely to work. The tripping line could twist around the rode a few turns, but that could be remedied.

One 54 yacht I cruised on for six months buoyed the anchor every set. The anchors were heavy (the storm anchor, a Luke Herreshoff type, weighed 150 pounds), and we brought them on deck. With a tripping line, one man could tally on the anchor rode, another on the tripping line, allowing the anchor to be brought on deck more easily and without banging up the furniture, as the skipper used to say.

With a Twist

2009-12-26T09:37:00.000-05:00

A friend is an engineer with Newport News Shipyard, and for several years he's been working on the George H.W. Bush (CVN 77), commissioned January 2009 and the last of the Nimitz class carriers.

(Didn't they used to wait a while longer before naming major combatants after politicians?)

He reports - and this is public information - that the four propeller shafts on the Bush are some 400 feet long and 30 inches in diameter of the toughest steel. At flank speed, which is classified information, the shafts twist one and a half times from the gearbox to the propeller.

Best Christmas Present

2009-12-25T07:20:00.002-05:00

The best Christmas present I ever received - of a nautical nature - was from my parents, in 1982 when I received my commission as an ensign in the United States Coast Guard. The gift was Nikon 7 x 50 mm Tropical model binoculars, with a mill scale. These aluminum body binoculars are as good today as they were in 1982, with no column error, bright as can be. They are tough as nails, not only waterproof but even surviving my father in law running them over! They are still made I believe, although they don't come cheap.

Merry Christmas.

To the Bitter End

2009-12-24T05:48:00.002-05:00

Some cruisers mark the anchor rode with whippings. One system I have seen uses the following:

30 feet:   One blue mark

60 feet:   Two blue marks

90 feet:   Three blue marks

120 feet: Four blue marks

150 feet: One red mark

180 feet: One red mark and one blue mark

210 feet: One red mark and two blue marks

240 feet: One red mark and three blue marks

270 feet: One red mark and four blue marks

300 feet: Two red marks.

(Credit to www.triton381.com)

I use those little strips you can buy in marine stores. Some people say these don't last; I hope someday I can do enough cruising to see if that is true.

Lynn and Larry Pardey use a variation of the whipping method. Their rodes are identical in length and the system, for each rode, is symmetrical around the mid point of the rode, so the rode can be switched end for end (to even wear) without changing the system!

We carry two rodes, each 300 feet with 30 feet of anchor chain. One rode is shackled to the ready anchor and lives in the chain locker, and the other lives in the starboard sail locker, with the chain in a stout canvas bag, the second anchor on top of the coiled and stopped rode.

On the main rode we used to have a rope to chain splice, but I changed that for a shackle. I was a little worried about chafe at the splice. The shackle is seized with soft Monel seizing wire, nice stuff, I recommend it. Ideally, the shackle might not be stainless, which some say is more prone to fracturing.

The shackle sometimes hangs up in the roller and the chain pipe but it's no big deal.

What Money is For

2009-12-23T06:09:00.001-05:00

Writing yesterday's post reminded me of a pleasant sight we saw in Nantucket during that late August visit. After dinner, a beautiful white sportfishing boat, seventy feet or so, picked up a mooring next to us. There were two crew, a skipper and a hand, and about 7:00 they began to wash down and clean the boat from the top of the tuna tower down. As darkness grew they turned on the halogen deck and tower lights, and the stainless and white boat was like a big jewel in the night. The two men seemed to be enjoying themselves, and it was clear that the owner was due on board.

It was full dark by the time they wrapped up, at which point I believe beers appeared. One then went ashore in the club launch and returned a little while later in a "flats boat", which he tied alongside, completing the picture.

That's what money's for!

Bahamian Moor

2009-12-22T05:42:00.001-05:00

The boys and I motored around Nantucket Harbor looking for an anchoring hole. No dice, and finally the harbormaster directed us to the northern edge of the anchorage, a little southwest of First Point. There was open water there, but there was also about three knots of current.

The bottom is hard sand, good holding bottom. But I knew when the current reversed the anchor would likely trip and maybe it wouldn't reset.

A Bahamian moor was the obvious answer. We lowered the anchor, paid out the appropriate scope, settled back in the current and made sure the anchor was set. Then we paid out the same amount of rode again, lowered the second anchor, and pulled ourselves back up to the midpoint between the two anchors.

A few hours later the current had reversed and we lay to the second anchor. The first anchor remained dug in and we didn't have to worry about whether it, or the second anchor, would trip out as every six hours the current reversed.

Our swinging radius was much reduced, which was a good thing so long as the radius more or less matched that of nearby boats. We used a Bahamian moor once in a narrow tidal river where not only was there a reversing current, if we swung much we'd probably ground on nearby flats.

I take both anchors to the bow. I doubt there are many circumstances in which it would be appropriate to secure one anchor to the stern and another to the bow.

If you lay to two anchors for several days and the winds shifts around the compass your anchor lines could twist. Some books talk about joining both rodes, for example with bowlines secured to a big shackle and swivel, and laying to a single line, to eliminate this twisting. Sounds complicated but I could see how this could be correct sometimes.

I used to worry when anchoring this way that at slack water the rodes might hang up on the keel or the prop, but nylon sinks and I believe it hangs below the keel until the current sorts itself out. Perhaps if I had a fin keel with a separate rudder I would weight the rodes 30 or so feet out from the boat so they hung straight down when under no strain. I carry a few short lengths of chain for that sort of thing.

Multidimensional Vortices

2009-12-21T05:40:00.000-05:00

My parents and another couple were close reaching in the trade winds when suddenly their yacht was seized by a vortex from another dimension, spinning the boat and holding it in its grip!

In fact, unbeknownst to the crew the anchor had dropped off the roller, run out all its rode, and grabbed a coral head two hundred feet down. But to my mother, at the helm, the sensation was so unnerving and mysterious her first thought was that the Bermuda Triangle was at work.

Even after they figured out what had happened, it was a bit of a situation, with 25 knots of wind, a sea running, and the boat jibing and tacking out of control. Of course they dropped the sails but the anchor was stuck, and they had to cut the rode, fast.

Someone grabbed a galley carving knife and stumbled to the foredeck, but the charter company's maintenance didn't extend to knife sharpening. It was a frightening several minutes before they finally sawed through the hard nylon anchor rode and continued on their way to Tortola.

Even in the absence of multidimensional vortices, one might have to cut a run-out anchor rode in a hurry. The correct way to secure the bitter end of an anchor rode is shown in this photo. The blue 5/16 inch line is secured to a padeye mounted high in the chain locker, using a bowline. The other end of the blue line is tied to an eye splice in the bitter end of the rode, again with a bowline. (It looks like I put a turn around the eye, which might reduce chafe.) Importantly, the blue line is long enough to extend well clear of the chain pipe, as shown. Thus the bitter end is well secured but if one has to cut the rode there is only the 5/16 inch line to slash.

I am no expert on all-chain anchor rodes, but I assume the above technique is particularly important with all chain.

These bowlines will be inspected rarely, so each is tied with a long tale and the tale is seized back to the bowline, using sail twine pushed through the blue line with a needle and sail palm. You can just see the seizing in this photo.

S.S. Santa Maria

2009-12-19T09:12:00.005-05:00

In 1956 my family, who had resided in Peru since 1946, returned to the States on the Grace Lines ship Santa Maria, as pictured here. These ships were unusual in that they carried fifty-two passengers in addition to break bulk (in five holds) and deck cargo. Their routes were east coast U.S. to the Carribean, Canal Zone, west coast South America as far as Valparaiso ("Valpo") Chile, and sometimes U.S. west coast. They were beautifully maintained and well run ships, with a distinctive white and green stack. The passengers travelled in great comfort, with air conditioning, a pool, and comfortable public areas.

This painting shows the ship alongside in some river port, perhaps Buenaventura. The ship is off loading to the pier and also, on the port side, to lighters. A lighter is anchored in the stream as well, already loaded and ready to go up river to a smaller port. Aft and alongside there is a small boat, perhaps that of the ship's agent.

Best

2009-12-18T05:33:00.022-05:00

I am trying to give some form to this blog thing . . . so every Friday On the Wind will inform the reader what is the Best of a given category, my opinion.

Best nautical short story or novella. Hands down, Joseph Conrad's Typhoon. Some, who have not read any or much Conrad, may shudder, consider Conrad to be one of those unreadable Serious Writers of the last age, and avert their thoughts. But you are mistaken! Conrad, a sea officer, knows all aspects of the human heart, the amusing, the solemn - and the dark. His writing transcends. Here, from Typhoon:

At its setting the sun had a diminished diameter and an expiring brown, rayless glow, as if millions of centuries elapsing since the morning had brought it near its end. A dense bank of cloud became visible to the northward; it had a sinister dark olive tint, and lay low and motionless upon the sea, resembling a solid obstacle in the path of the ship. She went floundering towards it like an exhausted creature driven to its death. The coppery twilight retired slowly, and the darkness brought out overhead a swarm of unsteady, big stars, that, as if blown upon, flickered exceedingly and seemed to hang very near the earth.

Here, Captain McWhirr tells his mate why they will not try to evade the probable typhoon by following published "storm strategy":

"But the truth is that you don't know if the fellow is right, anyhow. How can you tell what a gale is made of till you get it? He isn't aboard here, is he? Very well. Here he says that the centre of them things bears eight points off the wind; but we haven't got any wind, for all the barometer falling. Where's his centre now?"

"We will get the wind presently," mumbled Jukes.

"Let it come, then," said Captain MacWhirr, with dignified indignation. "It's only to let you see, Mr. Jukes, that you don't find everything in books. All these rules for dodging breezes and circumventing the winds of heaven, Mr. Jukes, seem to me the maddest thing, when you come to look at it sensibly."

He raised his eyes, saw Jukes gazing at him dubiously, and tried to illustrate his meaning.

"About as queer as your extraordinary notion of dodging the ship head to sea, for I don't know how long, to make the Chinamen comfortable; whereas all we've got to do is to take them to Fu-chau, being timed to get there before noon on Friday. If the weather delays me -- very well. There's your log-book to talk straight about the weather. But suppose I went swinging off my course and came in two days late, and they asked me: 'Where have you been all that time, Captain?' What could I say to that? 'Went around to dodge the bad weather,' I would say. 'It must've been dam' bad,' they would say. 'Don't know,' I would have to say; 'I've dodged clear of it.' See that, Jukes? I have been thinking it all out this afternoon."

He looked up again in his unseeing, unimaginative way. No one had ever heard him say so much at one time. Jukes, with his arms open in the doorway, was like a man invited to behold a miracle. Unbounded wonder was the intellectual meaning of his eye, while incredulity was seated in his whole countenance.

"A gale is a gale, Mr. Jukes," resumed the Captain, "and a full-powered steam-ship has got to face it. There's just so much dirty weather knocking about the world, and the proper thing is to go through it."

Or this when, upon the typhoon assailing the Nan-Shan, Jukes is swept across the bridge and fetches up on a stanchion:

It seemed to him he remained there precariously alone with the stanchion for a long, long time. The rain poured on him, flowed, drove in sheets. He breathed in gasps; and sometimes the water he swallowed was fresh and sometimes it was salt. For the most part he kept his eyes shut tight, as if suspecting his sight might be destroyed in the immense flurry of the elements. When he ventured to blink hastily, he derived some moral support from the green gleam of the starboard light shining feebly upon the flight of rain and sprays. He was actually looking at it when its ray fell upon the uprearing sea which put it out.

It gets better. And there is, of course, a theme and a depth central to Conrad which you will approach while you are enjoying your read.

Other Conrad novellas to look for are "An Outpost of Civilization" (hah!), "The End of the Tether" (how, how can it come to this, for such a good man?) and "Youth" (oh, Youth!).

If you have not read Conrad, and do read him, please let me know by comment if I have mislead you. I don't think I have.

Inheritors - Part Two

2009-12-17T05:41:00.003-05:00

Cartoon, two guys sitting around a dock, one says to the other: "I just realized why there aren't any old timers around anymore. We're the old timers!"

I called the first part of this essay Part One (December 14) mostly because I wasn't sure where I was going with it. It is fine to say we are the Inheritors of the nautical tradition, but what do we do with that? I'm not sure, but I do know I like to teach younger folks how to navigate and run a ship, and sometimes - often - that means teaching them the old ways and why it was or is done that way.

On the cutter Steadfast we were rigging new monkey lines, the vertical man ropes the boat crew hold while the boat is being lowered, so if the falls let go the crew don't drop. The lines, ten to a boat and two boats, were one and 1/2 inch manilla, and they needed splicing and whipping. So I taught the deck gang how make an eye splice and how to sew a whipping. A sewn whipping in big three strand manilla is a pleasure to make and looks great, and whipping all those lines was a nice break from a needle gun and a paint brush. The guys liked it and I think it gave them some pride. Anchor drills and towing drills were similar opportunities to re-learn the old ways.

The junior quartermasters all learned in A School how to make a running fix and how to double the angle on the bow, but of course they forgot it pretty quick and they'd never done it on board. I worked with the chief, and the junior petty officers relearned those skills. Running along a coastline at a standard bell of 15 knots one can do those two fixes pretty rapidly and it is kind of magical how one can make a good fix off two lines of position derived from a single landmark. (Here's a nice illustration.) For that matter crossing the Gulf Stream's 4 knots from Florida to the Bahamas we retaught the concept of a DR (dead or deduced reckoning) plot and although they'd learned it in school it was satisfying for the petty officers to see, dramatically, how a DR plot and a fix are compared to give set and drift and a corrected course.

On watch we'd block off the gyrocompass repeater and the helmsman would steer by magnetic compass for minutes at a time. This was a little challenging because the magnetic compass was mounted a deck above and the helmsman saw the lubber line through a periscope, but one patrol the gyro suddenly crapped out and stayed bad for the trip and the guys were already comfortable steering by magnetic compass.

On Journeyman we also show the kids the old ways and why it was or is done that way. We might also talk about Joshua Slocum and others, if a teachable moment occurs. In 1901 Slocum wrote a lively book of his circumnavigation (Sailing Alone Around the World) and he could be glib, but I defy any mariner to read his account of transitting the Straits of Magellan without becoming in awe of his abilities.

I hope these sorts of exercises, and many others, give young sailors a sense that others came before them. I know they do for me.

Bungee clamp

2009-12-16T05:30:00.000-05:00

Like most cruisers, I use bungee cords for various applications on board. To secure the bungee it is usually necessary to form a loop, and I have seen loops formed using tiny hose clamps. I used to sew a miniature seizing to form a loop (slow, but it made a nice looking job).

I have since discovered a tool used by commercial fishermen which clamps a bungee very easily. It uses the stainless C fasteners seen in the photo. I bought mine at Hamilton Marine, with a huge bag of fasteners, for just a few bucks.

I use a short piece of bungee to hold open the cockpit hatches, looping it over a cleat on the coaming. It works perfectly in that application, more secure and less fussy than a piece of line.

You can see a little Halon fire extinguisher mounted on the underside of the hatch, handy when my wife catches the stove on fire.

I anchor each end of the bungee under a finish washer secured with a short fat wood screw. The finish washer really grips the bungee, such that there is no need to fashion a loop.

Night Moves

2009-12-15T05:38:00.002-05:00

This trick might actually be as ancient as the first campfires, but I suppose people are being born every day who haven't learned it.

If it is dark and you need to preserve your night vision but you must also turn on a light, shut one eye. You'll still have pretty good night vision when you shut off the light.

The Inheritors (Part One)

2009-12-14T05:30:00.001-05:00

When I was a kid my father and I, carrying a torn mainsail, visited a sail loft in the back streets of a Martha's Vineyard town. The sailmaker, who'd repaired sails all his life, was old, maybe 75 or 80, and this was about 1970. So he'd worked on the sails of schooners, which filled Vineyard Sound into the 1930's. Maybe he'd worked on the sails of the last of the square rigged ships; the Peking and others didn't retire from the nitrate and grain trades until 1932 and beyond. I remember the sailmaker as a man of few words and I am making some assumptions here, but I think I'm safe in doing so.

I was already pretty into sailing by this point, including marlinspike seamanship and some canvas work, and while the sailmaker sewed I told him about my interest, in the way of a thirteen year old boy. The sailmaker said little, but when we left he put into my hand a lump of beeswax and some sail needles and twine.

Much has changed about sailing over the years, but the essentials are constant. The sea is still an implacable wilderness, caring no more whether you live or die than when it drowned the crew of a Phoenician galley. Still, there is Mansfield's "the wheel's kick and the wind's song and white sail's shaking, and a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking." Still, as Bob Griffith wrote, "On watch at night you hold the lives of your sleeping shipmates in the sharpness of your eye, the computer of your mind, and the palm of your hand. You participate in the mystique of the watch, the unbroken succession of helmsmen on a passage."

While some of my best friends are schooner trash, I am far from a yo ho ho, sway up the deadeyes kind of sailor. Give me a 40 knot carbon fiber multihull any day over a decaying gaff rigger ready to sink at the mooring, and I just love fiberglass. But all of us, from the skipper of a bowrider on up, are inheritors of the tradition informed by the unchanging nature of the sea.

Better Ladder

2009-12-12T13:40:00.001-05:00

When I built a new ladder for Journeyman for use on the hard, I angled each step as pictured. Now I can, with a certain amount of care, walk down the ladder facing out and carrying something in both hands. It is a big improvement over a regular ladder. I built it of two by fours, and end-nailed each step with three big nails. An adjustable carpenter's square helped in getting each angle identical.

Halyards, New

2009-12-10T21:40:00.002-05:00

Journeyman's halyards had grown old and tired and were overdue for replacement. Normally I'd undertake that sort of work myself - I rebuke myself for laziness - but I decided to ask Jan Pedersen of Bayview Rigging and Sails to do the work.

Mr. Pedersen is Norwegian. His father was a fisherman and ran a boat yard and Jan began working on sails at age 12. His work is both art and science, and my halyards are things of beauty, with superb detail. (Notice the twin whippings in the shackle end of the red halyard, above.) The price ($780.00!) took my breath away but considering the result, the halyards' cost per use over say ten years, and the material cost and skill that went into them, I am very happy.

Jan built the halyards of Sta-Set X Plus, by New England Ropes. This rope uses a Dacron sheath and a combination of Spectra and Dacron in the core.

My old jib halyard was Dacron and 7 by 19 wire. When the sail was hoisted I could put several turns of wire on the halyard winch and the luff was as firm as you could want it. I find with the new jib halyard I must sometimes top up the halyard a little when beating in a breeze. I also must, this spring, carefully roughen up the drum of my halyard winch so it can grip the rope better.

I take the halyards off the mast in winter, to keep the sun off them.

Those Little Things

2009-12-09T13:30:00.004-05:00

In writing yesterday's entry, I was reminded that part of the rudder - tiller connection in Journeyman involves a shear pin. I never noticed it until last spring, when on our first sail I felt some give in the connection. The tiller secures to the head of the rudder post with what is essentially a clamp, tightened with a big Allen bolt. I tightened the bolt tight, but still the tiller gave. Scrutiny showed a stainless fastener passing through the bronze clamp assembly, through the top of the rudder post, and to the other side of the clamp assembly. The fastener was tapped or cut flush on each side, but I could see that the diameter of the fastener on one side was perhaps 1/4 inch, and on the other side perhaps 3/16 inch. I had encountered a tapered shear pin, now sheared.

This was a new one on me, and I made my problem known to the Albin Vega egroup. As is usual, someone had encountered the same problem and I was told where to source a replacement pin (McMaster Carr, "Over 480,000 Products"), and the part number.

Upon receiving the pins - I bought a spare - I lined up the tiller, drove out the broken pin with a hammer and punch, tapped home the new pin, cut the ends with a hacksaw, and touched up the ends with a bastard file. Every once in a while a job is easy.

The broken pin was apparently stainless, yet it had fractured in two places. I assume it is a special alloy, brittle and with a known failure point, exactly what is wanted in a shear pin. By using the right replacement, I still have a tight, play free connection between tiller and rudder, and a weak link protects the rudder and tiller.

By contrast, another egroup member said he had replaced his broken shear pin with a stainless bolt. The years had ovaled the hole, and the bolt now allowed play, not good. And that bolt likely had a far higher shear strength than did the shear pin for which Per Brohall had designed the system back in 1964. I suspect my shear pin broke in the launching process; perhaps the rudder hung up on the trailer's hydraulic arm. Had the pin been a stainless bolt this accident might have twisted the internal structure of the rudder, or fractured the tiller head, instead of breaking a two dollar shear pin.

In most instances a careful engineer or naval architect has designed the various systems on our yachts, and one deviates from the design at his peril. That is not to say one must slavishly follow what has been done or built before, especially if, as certainly is common, time has suggested a failure mode the engineer may not have predicted. But it is sloppy to deviate from the designed system - it is sloppy to replace a shear pin with a bolt - without understanding the system and without deliberately deciding that the new way is probably an improvement.

Rudderless

2009-12-08T13:34:00.000-05:00

We were sailing our Soling from Vineyard Haven to Edgartown one blowy day when the tiller broke off at the stock! The tiller, a robust piece of teak, had been weakened by the corrosive products of the stainless throughbolts reacting with the aluminum tiller head. We got a tow in.

Short of an oar over the transom the rudder - tiller combination is as simple as steering gear can be, but like everything structural on a yacht it is subject to decay, corrosion and wear. Ian Nicholson wrote in his excellent book Surveying Small Craft (Adlard Coles Ltd. 1974): "A simple tiller might seem a pretty safe piece of equipment. In fact, the history of ocean cruising is littered with cases of tillers breaking off short."

In addition to making certain the rudder - tiller connection is beefy and sound, there are the rudder bearings to consider. On Journeyman the rudder is keel mounted, and the lower bearing is contained in a fairly massive bronze shoe bolted to solid glass at the after end of the keel. It's a good arrangement, but one day the bearing will wear out.

I'll know it's worn out because every year I test the bearing. The test is simplicity. With the boat hauled, I lash the tiller firmly in place, grab the rudder itself, and give it a good couple of shoves, athwartships and fore and aft.

If there is much play at all in the rudder, the bearing may need replacement. When that happens I will reach for a recent Ocean Navigator article written by my friend Peter Stoops, who replaced the rudder bearings on Freedom, his Swan 36 (Ocean Navigator, May/June 2009).

There is none so blind . . .

2009-12-05T07:10:00.000-05:00

as he who has been splashed in the face by the sulphuric acid in an exploding wet cell battery. Batteries really do explode (the charging process creates oxygen and hydrogen, the fuel for some rockets), and every year surgeons remove the eyes of people who thought they could blink ahead of an explosion.

A friend of mine, a smoker, once needed light to check the level in his boat battery, so he used his lighter. His vision survived the blast. A few years later he was sewing a heavy sail on a machine and the needle splintered and pieces pierced his eye. Expensive, but his eye survived that too. Then last year he was incinerating garbage and a Pam aerosol can exploded and the nozzle struck his pupil at high velocity, finishing the job. He can drive, with his head cocked.

Safety glasses are wonderful things, and I keep a pair handy on board. I never but never check battery fluid levels, or wire the batteries, without the glasses on.

Go Bag

2009-12-04T05:21:00.000-05:00

The grab it and go bag has various flares, rockets and smoke flares, of course, as well as a signaling mirror and an orange poncho, packed in a small river bag. The big tubes in the photo are parachute flares, SOLAS quality, 1000 foot altitude and forty second burn time. They cost $50 each but I get them for free.

SOLAS is the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, and it imposes certain very rigorous standards on life saving equipment. Merchant ships are generally required to have on board only SOLAS certified flares, rafts etc. SOLAS gear is much more expensive than similar items which are merely US Coast Guard approved.

In my town there are shops which inspect and repack liferafts, service EPIRBS and the like for merchant ships. These ships cannot have on board flares which are past their expiration date, and if I ask at the shop I can have a few for free. The flares are past their dates but as SOLAS gear they still have years of reliable use. I think.

We also have a flare kit handy to the cockpit, with a flare pistol. I buy a few new cartridges every year, to be Coast Guard compliant. True to our propensity to practice and drill, the kids and I shoot off the oldest ones each summer, in daylight, toward the water.

Emergency Checklist

2009-12-03T05:34:00.000-05:00

When we bought Journeyman the children were nine, eight and six. I sailed a lot with just them as crew, and I often wondered how well they'd do if I dropped dead or something. We used to go over scenarios, and I made up a checklist for using the radio. We'd drill, too, and I'd throw in real-world conditions like the radio being switched off at the panel. I am pretty sure if they'd had a big problem at least they could have kept the boat under control, fixed the position, and gotten a Mayday off.

I carry a waterproof handheld VHF radio now, and I should add that to the list. When we are offshore I keep that radio in the grab it bag, so it would go in the dinghy in any event.

Boat Book

2009-12-01T19:44:00.000-05:00

Not the log - that's different. Every cruising boat needs a book for lists, standard procedures, and the radio stations for Red Sox games. Such a book does Journeyman have.

The book itself is a Rite in the Rain, by J.L. Darling (riteintherain.com). These books are tough, waterproof, easy to write in and cheap. I buy mine at a surveyor supply store.

In the book I keep the number for the taxi, Red Sox stations, abandon ship procedure, checklists for getting underway and for leaving the boat, wrench sizes for transmission dip sticks and the like, so at least you have the right tool when you finally get to the nut, job lists, etc. I treat the books as expendable, and replace one every three years or so.

Winter List

2009-11-29T17:13:00.000-05:00

Here is the work list for 2009-2010, minor items omitted.

Remove bow and stern lights. Journeyman has masthead running lights and there just is no sufficient reason to duplicate these by retaining the original lights at the pulpit and stern pulpit.

Fix steaming light. There is a "steaming light" mounted on the mast about ten feet off the deck, used when motoring and also useful at lighting the foredeck when changing sails. It has not worked for several years, despite several efforts at repair. I will probably replace the light itself and the circuit.

Attend to propeller shaft packing. The shaft packing hasn't been changed out in a long time and I ought to do this if only to force myself to really inspect the fitting. I may try some of the newer teflon-goretex packing. It is claimed that the material is so self-lubricating that there is no need to allow the packing gland to drip occasionally.

Reframe forward windows. I reframed the main cabin windows last spring, because they had started leaking. The forward windows (two, very small) present the same problem.

Cole stove shielding. We overnight more and more each fall, and when the stove is hot I worry a bit about the deckhead ("ceiling") and the adjacent bulkhead. I want to put in some attractive shielding, which may be a challenge.

Cole stove deck leak. There is a leak around the smokehead (stovepipe), lets in some rain.

Redbed cleats, winches etc. Last spring I rebedded all the stanchions, pulpits, chainplates and cabintop rails, a major job. I need to finish up that job by rebedding the hardware I didn't get to.

Better reading lights in salon. The reading lights are attractive and original, but not really good for reading.

Replace dodger. With new hardware and a top-notch job, this could cost $1500 or more, which I can't easily afford. I asked Seabags, a Portland maker of handbags which also does some sail repair and similar work, to quote me a price for replicating the original dodger, reusing the existing hardware. I'm hoping it will cost $300 or so - we'll see.

The rest is odds and ends, some quite important but not major in terms of time or expense.

Zincs

2009-11-26T22:48:00.000-05:00

Journeyman's beautiful propeller has two zincs, and I am pretty careful about keeping them renewed. As anyone reading this likely knows, dissimilar metals near each other and submerged in an electrolyte (e.g., seawater) form an electric circuit. Ions (dissolved metals) from the "more noble" metal migrate to the "less noble" metal. This statement approximately exhausts my knowledge of electrolysis, but it is about all I need to know: if I have a zinc on my bronze prop, the zinc erodes instead of the prop. But if the zinc is all gone, or if I bolted the zinc onto a greasy shaft, the circuit forms between the steel propeller shaft and the prop, and the prop erodes . . .

Bronze that has been subject to electrolysis takes on a reddish hue. Pitting may appear, and metal may be gone from thin edges.

The first few years I owned Journeyman I had a problem with shaft zincs loosening through vibration. A trick prevents this. Tighten the zinc over a nice clean shaft. Then tap the zinc firmly all over with a hammer, re-tighten, and repeat. I usually back up the hammer with a sledge held against the zinc, so I won't punish the shaft.