Anchoring to Trees

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

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

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)

                














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

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

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

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.