Beaching Legs ~ Score: Gravity – 1; Engineering – 0.5

26 Sunday Jul 2015

Posted by shemaya in Sailing/Boat Handling, the boat

A couple of weeks ago, on the mud flats in Joy Bay, we tried the beaching legs. These are stilt-like boards that go on either side of the boat to hold it upright, resting on its keel, when the tide goes out. For people who know what they’re doing, with the correct arrangement, this is a commonly used technique, though it is seen much more in the UK than on this side of the Atlantic. It is used successfully with enormous keel boats as well as for smaller craft.

When AUKLET was built, in commiseration with the builders we decided to try brackets on either side of the boat, with 1″ x 4″ legs that would slide into slots in the brackets, to then be adjusted for height depending on the slope of the bottom on which the boat might be resting. A couple of years ago I went to test this system, but discovered that the original legs had swollen in such a way that they would no longer fit into the slots. In the intervening time since then, we made a new set of legs, and it was exciting, and interesting, to try them out.

The more usual way to attach beaching legs is with a bolt through the hull and the top of each beaching leg, and lines from the bottom of each leg to the bow and stern of the boat. These lines hold the legs steady, and also prevent the boat from twisting, with one leg shifting forward and the other aft, relative to the twisting hull. Alternatively, as described in the book Sailing the Big Flush, the legs can be lashed to the shrouds (wires that support the mast, side to side), and adjusted for height from there, also with lines to bow and stern to prevent twist. AUKLET, with a freestanding mast, has no shrouds, and I was not excited about putting bolt holes in the hull, so we tried the rather unique brackets instead. Both location and angle of the brackets was experimental. It seemed like the fore and aft lines would not be necessary, because of the configuration of the slot; I was wrong about that. It also would have been better if the slots angled away from the boat, so that the feet of the legs ended up farther from the side of the boat than the tops of the legs.

In mud, it’s necessary to put plywood boards under the feet of the legs, so that the legs will not sink into the mud. This can be arranged with a pin in the bottom end of the leg, and a hole in the middle of each pad, to deal with the issue of the plywood pads wanting to float and slip away when there is still water and one is getting the whole arrangement in place. The pin arrangement would be best – I can attest that an alternative arrangement with a line through the middle of the pad and a hole through the bottom of the leg was less than satisfactory, though it did work more or less, with help from a boathook.

It’s quite a production to deploy beaching legs, and it’s helpful to have more than one person, so that the legs can be adjusted simultaneously as the boat settles onto the bottom. Doing this alone, as I was, added extra complications. But then, there were a lot of complications, as a result of trying a new procedure and never having seen it done in person. Also, I made a tactical error that is perfectly obvious in hindsight.

Some time back, as part of this post: http://sailingauklet.com/2013/09/22/the-pool-table-effect/ I described a technique, told to me by Tim Pfeiffer (thank you Tim!), for rocking the boat and letting the keel dig a bit of a hole into the mud so that the boat will settle level, into its mud cradle. Not thinking perfectly clearly, after the beaching legs and mud pads were set for deployment, but not down all the way, I had the idea to do a little of that digging with the keel, by rocking the boat. On the one hand, this did dig a little bit of a cradle, but sadly it completely displaced one of the mud pads, though I was able to rescue it as it started to float by. I was not, however, able to get that mud pad back into position. The situation became a further experiment, as to how far the leg would sink without the pad. The answer is: quite a bit, though it did seem to stop.

The boat had been positioned previously, using two anchors on fairly long lines opposite each other to avoid the occasional rocks in the mud flat, which came into view as the tide went down. By adjusting the anchor lines it was easy to guide the boat away from the rocks. That part was a success. After that one mud pad came free I gave up on keel-digging, committing to the possibilities of the beaching legs supporting the boat.

After the water was almost gone the boat was beautifully upright – for about 5 minutes. It started to list to port, and I somehow had the feeling that the keel was sinking into the mud, and that easing the starboard beaching leg just a little bit would help things come back to level. In hindsight, and after seeing photographs, I expect it’s more likely that the port beaching leg, which was missing its mud pad, was simply digging in further. At any rate, I went to ease the starboard leg adjustment, and the boat started to come over on the starboard side, but more than I was hoping for. Trotting myself over to port, and jouncing to try to bring the boat back over that way, was unsuccessful, and the boat gradually settled more to starboard, coming to rest – temporarily – at about 15° of heel. There is a clinometer in the boat – a gizmo like a level that shows degrees of heel – so it’s easy to see just what’s going on. I’ve done this grounding out before, intentionally letting the boat go down on its side. More about that can be seen here: http://sailingauklet.com/2013/08/04/kneeling-camel/

As it turns out, in this new situation the boat was resting it’s weight sideways on the starboard beaching leg. This is not what that board was designed for, and it was not nearly strong enough to support that kind of weight applied crossways. I was inside the cabin getting organized for being over at such an angle for the duration of the low tide, and there was a snap, a bit of a jolt, and the boat went over another 3° or so. This was definitely not in the plan! However, the boat was now settled. From the float by the shore Suzanne was able to confirm that nothing in that process had made any holes in the hull, so there was some time to relax.

When the tide had gone out the rest of the way I took a little trek in the mud, retrieved the beaching legs (one snapped completely into two pieces), tied the stuck mud pad so that later when everything floated free it would be possible to get it back, and surveyed the situation.

The mud in Joy Bay is very slick – it’s as if the boat was sitting on grease. There was twisting, perhaps contributed to by the gusty wind, even though the sails were all down. Undoubtedly losing that port mud pad contributed, but I do not feel confident that things would have been okay with that mud pad in place. Lines from the lower ends of the beaching legs, led bow and stern, would have stiffened things up considerably, and I do think that with both mud pads in place and those lines it probably would have worked, provided that the lines were actually able to set up the correct tension to keep the legs securely in position.

Besides all that, the biggest thing that I learned is that deploying beaching legs is a huge production. The first time of anything is almost always 10 times more effort than after familiarity and routine are established, but it still looks like a big job. Added to that, there is the issue that there really should be two people, in order to set the legs correctly as the tide goes down. What I have absolutely confirmed is that if I were to try this again, I would change the attachment for the legs, adding a pivot bolt hole to the existing brackets, and refreshing my memory on how to make the length of the legs adjustable when a pivot bolt is being used. I’ve read this, somewhere.

As it is, I’m quite up in the air about whether or not I will pursue the beaching legs trials. In soft mud, my preference would definitely be to forgo all that effort and potential drama, and simply use the keel-digging trick, hoping to settle at an angle of something better than 15°. I’m looking forward to trying that in Joy Bay, some time in the next couple of months. It’s doable enough, to wait out a few hours over at an angle, and who knows, in the right location the boat might dig itself enough of a cradle to go down level even with the tide all the way out to bare ground. That’s an investigation I’m interested in making! In the meantime, much was learned, the boat is fine, and so am I.

On the day in question, about four hours after we went down in the mud, just before dark the tide came back, the boat floated, and I got some nice, horizontal rest. At about four in the morning, before things went back to mud, the anchors came up and we relocated back to the mooring in the channel. It’s been a fascinating exercise, and I’m still thinking on the many results.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Note: In the process of putting together this post I went back to looking on the Internet on the subject of beaching legs. There is more there now, than when I first came to this subject. I would have done well to read up before this attempt! Sturdier legs would be in order – at least 2 x 4’s, for this boat, in my updated opinion, and for larger boats people are using 4 x 4’s. A number of people have completely foregone adjusting the length. Instead, the legs are built just slightly shorter than the depth of the keel where the legs go, to allow for the keel settling into the bottom, and the whole business is called good, with apparently successful results. At least one individual doing it this way singlehands, and reports the process being easy.

It is worthy of note that this ease for singlehanding was achieved by having the pin permanently mounted in the beaching leg for each side, so that it could be easily positioned into the hole on the side of the boat. An interesting detail was that when one of these folks set up this system, he used lines from the bottom of each leg to the bow and stern, and marked those lines for the correct length. When deploying the legs, the lines were first tied at the correct length and then the pin was put into the hole. The leg, and the pin in the hole, were then supported well enough, while the boat was floating, for the singlehanded sailor to go inside the boat and fasten the washer and nut on the inside.

An assortment of folks said that they had initial concerns about the holes in each side of the hull, but found them to be easily stoppered, and not a problem. One writer used wine corks, and another used tapered plugs like those for seacock emergencies; both were completely satisfied.

Here are a couple of references that I found helpful:
http://www.classicboat.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=88484

http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?432110-Boat-legs

And one for the book Sailing the Big Flush, by Eileen Beaver (nope, not receiving anything for printing this link):
http://www.amazon.com/Sailing-Big-Flush-Eileen-Beaver/dp/1596637854

Anchoring and the AUTHORITIES

28 Thursday May 2015

Posted by shemaya in Sailing/Boat Handling, Trips

≈ 5 Comments

For a number of days this past week I was in and around Narragansett Bay. On a good wind, the boat and I went the 25 miles or so from Noank, Connecticut to Dutch Harbor, Rhode Island, and had a sweet night anchoring in the tiny south cove on Dutch Island, protected from the northwest wind. It’s a little roly, open directly to the south and out the bay, but it was great to be out of the wind. I’d never been in to that particular spot, and it was a treat.

The next day, it was up to Wickford, to be out of the new south wind, and the strong northwesterly forecast for the next day after that, and hopefully some visiting with friends. There’s a great cove, well inside that harbor, with moorings and enough water on the edges for comfortable anchoring. The first night was fine, and half the next day. It’s beautiful in there, with marsh, and trees, and egrets working in the shallows.

That second afternoon, a big gray inflatable with an enclosed center console and the word “police,” in big letters, pulled up. I was at the edge of a large number of unoccupied moorings, with a couple of boats two or three moorings away (see photo above), with enough swinging room to avoid even touching the empty mooring buoys. Alas, I was still busted. With a small craft advisory in effect for the northwest wind, the officer informed me that there was no anchoring in Wickford, except for outside the breakwaters (miserably uncomfortable from boat wakes, in any conditions). At least three times, he said that this information was posted on the town website, and that I was breaking the rules not only by anchoring within the harbor, but also by anchoring within a mooring field. Having been in here without problems a number of times before, it had not crossed my mind to look at the town website…

This was all very disconcerting, and more so when I brought up about the weather of the moment and was told something about how many times he hears that. He must have seen the worry all over my face, at the prospect of trying to move the boat effectively onto a mooring or into a slip in that amount of wind, because he relented, and said that I could stay until morning. This in spite of his having received TWO complaints! One wonders from whom – there are houses scattered along the shore, and very small amounts of boat traffic, being at the far inside end of the harbor – perhaps the folks on the workboat out tending to moorings were unhappy? Or at the marinas, in view down the way?

After the police boat left I did two things: called my friend Sarah, who lives up the cove, and got on the town website. Sarah very kindly chased around and made arrangements for use of one of the local yacht club moorings, which I moved to early the next morning when the wind had eased up.

The town website was fascinating: rather than a prohibition on anchoring, it stated that “No person shall anchor or moor a vessel in any anchorage, mooring area, or mooring field in a manner or in a location which under the circumstances existing creates a probability of damage to other vessels moored or anchored nearby.” http://www.nkpolice.org/Old%20Site/Harbor%20Division%20New/Harbor%20Ordinances%203.htm#Sec.%207-81%20Thoroughfares;%20designation;%20moorings,%20anchoring%20and%20swimming%20prohibited; ( Sec. 7-106. (c)) There’s also, very reasonably, no anchoring allowed in channels.

The above implies not only that general anchoring is okay, but that anchoring in the mooring field is okay. Geez. The same webpage also talked about transient town moorings available just inside the breakwaters (a lovely spot, where I have anchored in the past), available for free with a 24 hour time limit. So much for the information available on the website. I’m told, by the fellow from the yacht club, that now those town moorings are $25/night; it was striking to me that the officer didn’t mention them at all. When I went by the next day, they were all unoccupied…

It had been a couple of years, before this recent visit, since the last time I was in Wickford. Rules change, but also, when I’d been there before it had generally been in the middle of the season, with the harbor jammed full of boats. If somebody really paid attention, they could have noticed that I was anchored (in this boat, or in the little Peep Hen SERENITY), but for the most part I think that my presence blended in. Ironically, now after such a long, late winter, there is loads of room in the harbor, but now is the time that I get kicked out! I debated going into a slip, which I’ve also done on a few occasions, when I’ve stayed several days at a time for both shore support and repairs, and even for hurricane Sandy. This time around, it was Friday of Memorial Day weekend when I was given notice, and if I had acted quickly I’m sure that I could’ve made arrangements for a Saturday arrival. Visiting would have been easier, if I had done that! Only the upcoming hot weather forecast dissuaded me.

Instead, next day, after a breakfast stop at that nice mooring, I caught the north wind back down the bay to Dutch Harbor (which runs about 10° cooler than Wickford when the weather heats up). About the time I arrived, as predicted the wind shifted south, where it was expected to stay for days. Heading for another favorite anchorage, I anticipated being well protected from that strong south wind. No deal. In exactly the spot that lets a small boat get close enough to the shore to not get bounced around, the area is now outlined in buoys that are labeled “conservation area” and “no anchoring.” Anchoring is available, but out so far from the shore that in a 15 knot wind through the night one is pretty much guaranteed a miserable time. Rats! Having so recently had that police experience, I wasn’t keen on inviting another one, especially in the face of specific signs, so I passed it by.

Instead, since I was likely to bounce around no matter what, I rented a mooring, which achieved also having launch service, so that folks could come visit. There are no slips in Dutch Harbor. The wind blew like they said, the boat bounced, and I made plans to get out of Dodge. Suzanne came early the next morning, bringing supplies that were to have come the day after that with Amanda and Alaina. Amanda and her sister had been planning to come for a sail, after all that work on rigging the boat, but then had car trouble and had to postpone. In the end, both that and other visits were sadly missed, but Suzanne and I got a bonus hello, when she made that quick run on Sunday morning. Then off I went, with hopes for my third regular anchoring spot in Narragansett Bay to be more successful.

This next one, fortunately, was indeed better, and I arrived towards evening after a nice, feisty sail of 10 miles or so (okay, so four hours were spent tacking against the current, to get the 3 miles out of the westernmost arm of Narragansett Bay – but it was still fun). This new spot was near the mouth of what’s called the Sakonet River – actually a long bay, the easternmost arm of Narragansett Bay – where there’s a beach that extends perfectly for protection from southerly winds. There are some moorings, and when I arrived, three or four boats were at anchor. As I approached my favorite corner, close up to the beach for least bouncing, a little ways away there were some of those stick bouys that can mean so many things. I didn’t go close enough to read whatever they might have said… Sometimes you just don’t want to know.

After two nights and a good rest, on leaving I was happy to see that indeed those buoys said nothing about anchoring. But they could have. It’s a frustrating thing, to see so many good anchorages blocked off, causing unnecessarily difficult nights for those in small boats. Stage Harbor, in Chatham, was the same way a couple of years ago. With a perfect tree-covered bluff over the curve of the harbor, sheltering from prevailing winds, anchoring is only allowed inside a wide-open sand spit. Safe, but pounded by the wind, in perfect sight of sheltered peace, with plenty of room available for small boats with a shallow draft. I don’t understand the reasoning for these rules, in harbors were there is indeed plenty of physical space. Perhaps there have been abuses of hospitality. Regardless, there are legal debates ongoing about who has jurisdiction over the water in those perfect coves; it’s possible that towns have no legal standing in establishing these kinds of restrictions.

While all the concerned parties sort that out, my primary solution is to go north, beyond the crowds. Thank goodness that’s still possible! Downeast Maine is calling, loudly. Soon, I say, soon.

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Creek Anchoring

19 Tuesday May 2015

Posted by shemaya in Sailing/Boat Handling, the boat, Trips

≈ 2 Comments

Those favorite creeks, that I like so much, are a little tricky for anchoring. It’s been a progression, developing a routine that works in a way that feels satisfying and reliable. There are narrow shores to contend with, a deeper middle, current reversing with the tide, and overhanging trees. All keep things interesting. A lot of different strategies have been tried, over the course of my many creek visits, and nowadays there’s a routine that has been working quite well.

First, what didn’t work:

1 – anchoring with a single anchor in the middle of the creek. 15 feet deep in the middle, enough anchor line to hold the boat also lets the boat swing into the bank. This is not a problem until the boat is visiting the shore when the tide starts to go out… This is still not a problem during the day, when it’s handy to just push off from the shore. Sleeping through that, however, would not work out so well.

2 – anchoring with a bow anchor and a stern anchor. It has to be said that I tried this with a lousy stern anchor (too small, too light, bad shape) that had no chain. Of course it pulled out of the soft mud, leading to problems mentioned above. Wind and current catching the boat crossways because of the bow and stern anchoring arrangement did not help, and even with an improved stern anchor, I’ve been uninclined to try things that way again.

3 – two anchors from the bow, with substantial slack in the downstream anchor line (with or without slack, this is technically called anchoring Bahamian style). The anchors are set by letting down the first one, sailing extra far downstream and setting the second one, and then pulling in the line on the first anchor until the boat is somewhere in the middle. This keeps the boat from going where it doesn’t belong, but the slack in the lines leads to complications, including the slack line sometimes hanging up in the rudder, and the boat turning repeatedly with the tide, twisting one anchor line around the other one with each reverse of current (naturally the boat turns in complete circles, rather than twisting and untwisting itself first one way and then the other). The completely twisted lines hold the boat in place just fine, but are a fair amount of work to untangle when it’s time to get the anchors back. Snagging of the slack line between the rudder and the hull – or anywhere else – is a problem one would rather not have, that leads to both stress and aggravation. This is not the point of anchoring in the creek!

Finally, the prize-winning combination:

Two anchors from the bow, set as described above in number three, with two modifications. First, there is not a lot of slack in the anchor lines, once the boat has been pulled back to the middle between the anchors. If you set the anchors at some distance from where the boat eventually rests, so that the anchor line scope (ratio of depth to line length) is quite generous, there is no problem with steady pressure on the two anchors. In addition, I’ve started using a kellet on the primary anchor line.

A kellet, also called an anchor sentinel, is a moderate weight – about 5 pounds in this case – attached to the anchor line with a big carabiner (or some other slidy thing), and to the boat with a string/light line that controls how far the kellet can slide down the anchor line. This weight pulls the anchor line farther under the water, and adds tension but allows the line to stretch out if there’s a big bunch of wind. Conveniently, it keeps that primary anchor line out of the way of passing motorboats, which is also relaxing. Ordinarily a kellet is used to make an anchor more secure on less anchor line, though that wasn’t my primary purpose in this situation. I wanted it for tensioning of the two-anchor system, while still allowing for movement in a pinch, as well as for sinking the nice new primary anchor line out of range of passing boat propellers.

On this boat, which has a long shallow keel, and the rudder attached at the back edge of the keel, this whole arrangement of moderately taut anchor lines means that when the boat changes direction with the tide or the wind, the keel and the downstream anchor line lie alongside one another, preventing the boat from turning beyond the anchor line. There is not enough slack for the line to catch above the rudder and make problems, and even more beautifully, the boat cannot turn in a circle! When it’s time to leave, there is no unscrambling of the two anchor lines at the bow. I was a very, very happy camper, when I discovered this.

I left the most recent creek sooner than I was expecting to, running to the coast to avoid extremely warm temperatures, so I did not get photos of this arrangement in action. They might have been very boring photos anyway. The significant bit is that each line was in a bow chock, leading toward the anchor on its respective side. Something about how the boat landed, during anchoring, meant that it made sense to move the starboard, primary anchor line to the port side, and the port secondary anchor line over to starboard, to prevent crossing. This had to do with the wind direction across the creek, and letting the boat go crossways between the anchors in the direction that it wanted to. Making that adjustment helped everything to settle in well.

Other tidbits are that it’s helpful to notice a mark on shore when you drop the first anchor, and then again when you drop the second one. If the boat drifts a bit during anchoring, it can be hard to keep track just by checking the amount of anchor line that is out. It’s also a good idea to look at overhanging trees, while deciding where to start putting down anchors. Masts and trees do not go well together! Ideally, there would be enough space so that if an anchor did drag, none of those trees would be a problem. I wasn’t so good at this last, in this recent creek visit. Happily, the anchors stayed put, but if the more northerly one hadn’t, things might have gotten interesting. I’ll know for next time.

When it’s time to leave, the process goes in reverse, letting one anchor line go loose while retrieving the second anchor, then pulling all that extra line back in. It can take some time. Working with the tide, rather than against it, can help…

The funniest part of this recent experience is that when it was time to leave there was some funny oil on the surface of the creek, broken up in small but numerous patches. It didn’t go by in a few minutes, so I decided to go ahead with the anchor retrieval process, having a tide to catch. This moved anchor line and chain through those bits of oil, and as it came up I checked my hands – fish! Somebody up the creek must have been cleaning a substantial amount of their catch, or maybe an osprey was tearing apart a particularly large and oily meal. The next time I anchored, there it was again on my hands, eau de fish, and I noticed that the inside of the boat had a faint tinge, when first coming back in from outside. The tub for the primary anchor line is in the enclosed locker under the starboard cockpit seat, and there is a mostly covered opening from that locker through into the cabin. Now a week later, it seems gone, or maybe I’m just completely used to it. Visitors will have to tell!

In the process of retrieving those anchors, a good 200 feet of the primary anchor line got that special fish oil treatment. But it was still worth it, to be so nicely snug for days, with the boat held just so between the narrow banks of that quiet creek.

Learning to Sail

28 Sunday Dec 2014

Posted by shemaya in Sailing/Boat Handling, Trips

≈ 4 Comments

Recently I was asked, in a sailing context, to write something about myself. Briefly. The bit that came to mind did not fit into two or three sentences, so now it’s a blog post instead…

Sailing and I really started early in high school. One year, before junior high, I had gone to a summer camp where they did some small boat sailing on Lake Champlain; the sailing part was great. Some time after that, my dad said that we should take a drive to Gloucester, and next thing you know we were coming home with an O’Day Widgeon in tow. This is a 12 foot fiberglass boat with a small foredeck and an enclosed storage cuddy underneath. We sailed this boat near the grandparents’ home in Long Island, and even more near the other grandparents, and cousins, in Connecticut. As I became more proficient, I got to sail by myself.

In Connecticut, in Stonington Harbor, the little boat went on a mooring. I would row the dinghy out, and be off. I think that I was 13 or 14 by this time. The amazing thing is that, as far as I remember, nobody ever told me, “When you’re sailing by yourself you have to stay in the harbor.” Or something about staying inside the inner breakwater, or even the outer one. I was a pretty obedient kid, not likely to stray where I was told I shouldn’t.

My dad and I, on special days with a good northwest wind, had at least twice sailed around Fishers Island, which is a couple of miles off the Connecticut shore and roughly 9 miles long, though only a mile or so across. My dad was the grownup after all, and could say that we could do such a thing, which was well beyond what I would consider on my own, rules or no rules. We did this motorless, with a canoe paddle in the cuddy… Nowadays that trip around Fishers Island is something that I would not undertake without more adjustment to that boat. I would like oars, for one thing, and a place to sit to use them. We did have a compass, a chart, and some tide tables, and I’m pretty sure that there were a couple of life jackets onboard. Off we’d go, blasting around the eastern end of Fishers Island to the open ocean outside, and eventually back in through The Race at the western end, tide rip and all. By the time we were halfway back down Fishers Island sound, with the sun getting low, the wind would slack off. Somehow we always made it back to the mooring before it was pitch dark. Afterwards we’d go to a restaurant over in Mystic, and each eat an entire pizza.

On my own, I had a few adventures (remember that part about no range restrictions.) Judgment, after all, is developed by experience, and how much of that have you got when you’re 14?? One time I sailed to the beach on the outside of Napatree Point, to wave to the aunt and uncle who were out with friends for lunch. This would have gone smoothly if the wind had not died, with the tide running out over the big reefs that extend between Watch Hill and Fishers Island. Headed alarmingly close to Catumb rocks, I had my paddle out, but it was not nearly up to the challenge of the current.

The good thing about a paddle on a sailboat in almost no wind is that you might as well be waving a flag, as far as your predicament. Kind folks in a big sailboat came along, under power, and gave me a tow away from the rocks. They offered to go further, but when things looked secure I said that it was fine, and away they went. As it turned out, it wasn’t exactly fine: the current was still moving the boat back toward the rocks. But in a kindness from the universe, I did not need a second tow – I don’t remember whether the wind picked up just then, or the current had run itself out for that round of tide, or both, but I did avoid the rocks, and got back around Napatree and into Stonington without further help.

The obvious question in this particular story has to do with whether there was an anchor on the boat. And there was, but I had had no experience whatsoever with it, and was hesitant to try, especially in that deeper water approaching the reef. Nowadays, when people tell me they are sailing and that they are unfamiliar with anchoring, I’m big on describing what to do. I also offer a lot of encouragement about practicing. It’s amazing what an impression one of those teenage experiences can make on a person; nowadays it’s a running joke around here, how many anchors I keep on hand.

There’s another one of these stories, to do with reefing. I’ll save that for another time, but you can guess where it’s headed…

With these for childhood experiences, out on the Atlantic swells, it’s no wonder that sailing the Chebacco all over the place – and before that the Peep Hen – feels something like normal. Things weren’t simple when I was growing up, and after that I was away from sailing for quite a while. But the gift that I was given in that time, knowing sailing, and knowing the salt water, has become a treasure. Coming back to it is one of the best things I’ve ever done.

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Fishers Island, from Stonington inner breakwater

Sail Twist

31 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by shemaya in Junk Rig, Sailing/Boat Handling

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Considering the amount of time that I’ve spent sailing, you would think that I might have developed a better grasp of the subject of sail twist before now. But that’s the fun of sailing – there’s enough to it that there is always more to learn and understand. The new junk rig, with its abundance of sail control lines, makes for a great opportunity to go more deeply into the details of sail shape and orientation to the wind.

As a result of this new opportunity, I’ve been studying more on the subject of sail twist. This refers to when the angle of the boom relative to the centerline of the boat, and the angles of each batten and of the yard relative to the centerline of the boat, are all different, making the sail into a complex curve. It’s quite pretty when it does this, and in some situations it’s ideal for driving the boat. In other situations – especially sailing upwind – it could be preferable to have less twist. Controlling this aboard AUKLET involves that long zigzag line that goes between the sheetlets (the thin lines tied to the battens) and the wooden friction block called a euphroe. That long zigzag line is called a “sheet span,” and it eventually comes back to the cockpit where it can be pulled in tighter or let out, separately from the sheet itself.

~ note sheet span tail, hanging down mostly slack

During the recent sea trials, there was a lot to learn about fastening points for all those many control lines, including for the sheet spans, of which there are two for each sail. Hardly anybody with a Western junk rig uses this traditional Chinese arrangement, of euphroes and sheet spans, and in addition to that, double sheets; it’s too early to tell whether I’m going to think it was a good idea to set things up this way. It could of course always be changed, but I’m having a good time working with it for the moment.

So far, it’s clear that for this arrangement you need a lot of cleats! Or belaying pins, or something. The mizzen sail, with the belaying pin collar around the mast and existing cleats on the partners, had almost everything it needed in the fastening-points department – except for a proper place for the sheet spans. Controlling the mainsail during the recent sea trials, on the other hand, involved a jumble of stacking as many as four lines on existing cleats that were too small for so much traffic, while I was in the process of working out where to put new bits of hardware. As a result, for most of the time on this fall trip, carefully defined sail shape was mainly a distant goal.

Still, it was fascinating. Because it was what the sails did easily, I pretty much sailed with a lot of twist in both sails, though I eventually got a better grip on the mizzen. A big contributor to all that twist is that if you ignore the tail end of the sheet span – neglecting to stack it, fastened for the moment on top of the sheet itself that goes with that side of the sail – the sheet span gradually works its way out through the euphroe, and the upper part of the sail gradually twists to a greater and greater angle from the boom and lower battens. Once all that line has worked through the euphroe, easing the sail into a nice-looking twisted fan shape, pulling the whole business back in involves shortening up on the sheet span, and then working the middle part of that sheet span through the euphroe until each batten is held in a sensible location relative to its neighbors. (There is another version of how to manage this line, involving tying the tail of the sheet span to the euphroe, but I tried and abandoned that arrangement, for various reasons.)

Before that second phase of adjusting the sheet span lengths in and out of the euphroe, what you get when you haul in on the end of the sheet span is the top of the sail pulled close, the middle of the sail farther out, and the boom close. This is not a recommended sail shape in anybody’s book. The way the line runs through the euphroe is a little complicated – it makes sense, and creates an orderly arrangement for avoiding crisscrossing among all the zigzags, but it’s not the least bit intuitive when it comes to achieving tension where you want it. I’m assuming that I’ll get better at this, with practice – in the meantime, during the learning process I decided that significant sail twist was the order of the day. It did, however, give me lots to ponder.

In sailing western rigs – the familiar triangular sails called Bermudian, and also traditional gaff rigs, with four sides to each sail (like on the famous old fishing schooners) – I had gotten as far as understanding, from various studies, that more twist would “de-power” the sail, and less twist would create greater power. You can control twist in a typical Western rig with an extra line pulling down on the boom, called a “boom vang,” and also by adjusting where the sheet comes down to the deck. That’s if you care very much, and want to go through all that. Racers care, and if I had put more effort into it, I might already be a more efficient cruiser, but somehow it never really grabbed my attention, so sail twist in my various wanderings has been pretty haphazard. (My apologies, to the knowledgeable and skilled sailing friends who are cringing at hearing that.)

What I didn’t understand is the way that sail twist can make a real difference in progress to windward. Fortunately for my sailing education, the junk rig, and in particular this junk rig, brings this issue front and center. I started asking questions, which have led to the most coherent, and simple, explanation that I’ve heard – it finally makes sense! With many thanks to Dave Zeiger…

As I now understand it (any and all errors are mine alone), when a sail is twisted, the angle of the sail to the wind is different along each horizontal line of the twisted sail. Sailing upwind, it’s quite important to have the sail at just the correct angle to the wind – too broad, and you’re not going upwind as much as you could, too close to the angle of the wind, and the boat barely moves. There’s a sweet spot in this, that new sailors learn to gauge by looking at the sail, and feeling the movement of the boat and pressure on the steering. When it’s working well, the boat moves at a good clip, making steady progress at a relatively close angle to the direction that the wind is coming from.

When a sail is twisted top to bottom by quite a few degrees, only one part of the sail is correctly oriented to that perfect sweet spot for upwind progress – all the rest of it is either pulled in too tight, or let out too far. Understanding this was a big aha moment for me – of course! So the sail, when twisted, is in fact “de-powered,” and adjusting more of the sail to the correct angle for upwind progress would increase the “power.”

There are subtleties to this: if the wind is very strong, sometimes you want to de-power the sail, so the boat isn’t getting thrown on its side in the gusts. Of course that’s also what reefing is for, decreasing sail area so it’s the right amount for the intensity of the wind. There are good reasons, I’m sure, that are not yet clear to me, for which approach – reefing or twist – is better for upwind progress in which situations. (Knowledgeable sailors, please do consider this an invitation!)

Complicating things further, in a junk rig there is the question of camber, or the bit of belly that can be built into the fabric of the sail. Most typical Western sails, Bermudian, gaff, and others, have this, while Western junk rigs used to be almost universally flat. This is presently a big topic of debate in the junk rig community, with camber having become quite a bit more prevalent among Western junk rig sails. On the other hand, there is an argument that a fanned shape of junk rig – such as the Reddish rig now on AUKLET – can work well with panels that are flat, because the twist of the fanned panels creates camber in the overall sail.

Junk sail with fanned battens

Junk sail with mostly parallel battens, a la Practical Junk Rig: http://www.flicka20.com/Data/Rig.aspx (click “junk” tab)

The big deal about camber is that it helps with sailing upwind. So now how about this? You want camber for upwind progress, but you want a sail with minimal twist for upwind progress. Now what?? Of course the beautiful thing about all of this is that you can go sailing regardless, and have a perfectly lovely time, and travel great distances – the only difference is that you might be more, or less, efficient along the way. Now and then this can really change your day.

As discussed in the post titled “Motorless,” on this recent trip I tried for a northbound run through Plum Gut on two different days, the second day finally getting around the end of Orient Point and through, to go back across Long Island sound to Connecticut. The first attempt was abandoned when I was not able to get around a particular tiny point at a bend in the shore, along the way toward the end of Orient Point itself. It was an upwind process, and the current had turned the wrong way, and tack and tack as I might, there was going to be no getting around that corner. With just a hair more progress on each tack, it might have worked. That’s when I started really thinking about sail twist, and realizing there was something truly significant there, that I really might want to understand.

During the afternoon of that first attempt there was quite a bit of wind, and waves to go with it. It was hard to tell for sure what sail arrangement was working better, or not so much. Along the way I tried pulling in the sheet span, with the idea that perhaps less twist would be good. This pulled in the top third of the sail or so (it was reefed to three panels), but as described earlier, it would have involved adjusting the line through the euphroe to make for a decent sail shape. In the waves (and rain!) I wasn’t so inspired to manage that more difficult project, especially since it was all experimental with my understanding at the time. In the end, I let the sheet span back out, to create a sail shape that looked better, being more evenly distributed from top to bottom, and back to pretty much its original twist.

The funny thing was, that when that sheet span was pulled in tight I had the odd feeling that the boat was moving better – uneven sail shape and all. But I convinced myself that I must have imagined that, because how could it be possible, with the sail looking so crazy. Knowing (after some effort) that it was beyond sensible in the bouncing waves to get the sail both untwisted and even, with my baby level of euphroe-adjusting skills, that was the end of that. But now I wonder if that poor middle shape didn’t matter that much. Perhaps what happened was that with the upper panel pulled in almost even with the boom, at the best angle to the wind for progress, there was indeed more drive in the sail, and it didn’t really matter so much about the middle section that was all crazy.

Interestingly, if that was true that the irregular shape was less important than having another panel at the correct angle to the wind, it would seem to say that the consideration about the fanned flat sail creating camber by twisting was not the primary issue either, at least in that particular set of conditions. It would appear that the aspect of the situation that was making the most difference was having the most sail area possible at the correct angle to the wind, and if that was the lower panel and the upper panel, with a chaotic middle, so be it. (Of course, just think, if they were all at the correct angle!) Now I wonder if I would have made it around that point, if I had left the sheet span pulled in tight like that, even with its uneven distribution and funny-looking sail.

~ earlier, tacking across Orient Harbor

As it was, with the afternoon advancing, I turned around and had a nice, zippy ride back downwind to Shelter Island, and everything worked out just fine. But I’m really looking forward to going further with this subject of sail twist and upwind efficiency. It’s a treat, to see this long-term puzzle finally becoming clearer.

more sea trials

01 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by shemaya in Junk Rig, Sailing/Boat Handling, the boat, Trips

≈ 4 Comments

This last round of sea trials has actually been on the sea. The other day the boat and I took off from our little spot behind Goose Island, early to catch the tide, with the idea of going into North Cove in Old Saybrook. This was about 4 miles further down the river, quite near to where the river opens onto Long Island sound. North Cove is a good place to stay, sheltered from the river and boat wakes, but on the ocean side of the sometimes difficult drawbridge, and a great jumping off place for trips into the sound.

As it turned out, even with some ignominious stops on the sandbars south of Goose Island, we were at the entrance to North Cove by about a quarter to eight in the morning. It was a beautiful day, and the breeze was much too nice an opportunity to decline. I had a theory that it might make sense to follow the tide out into the sound, sail around for a while, and then when the tide was going back in, to return to North Cove for the night. That definitely would have been the sensible option.

Another possibility, once I was a couple miles out from the river entrance and the tide had turned westbound into the sound, was to sail west. That really would have made sense. There is a perfectly good anchorage at Duck Island, about 5 miles west of the Connecticut River. With the tide running and the breeze, we would have been there in no time, having had a nice sail.

I really considered that option, measuring against the desire to go east… Of course one can see where this is headed. East was a bust, against the current, even with a favorable wind. But angling across, and taking a good long time about it, meant arriving at Plum Gut with the current going the right way. That’s important, for that passage – without a massive motor, there is no going through Plum Gut against the tide. Even traveling with the tide it can get interesting, as the contents of the wide part of Long Island sound rush in and out through a few narrow passages. The “boils,” or upwellings of current, are particularly impressive.

The wind does tricks in here too. It’s quite common for the wind direction in Long Island sound and that in Gardiner’s Bay, on the other side of Plum Gut, to be opposing. This leaves a big calm spot right where you would most want your best wind. No wind, and an impressive, wide, jouncy tide rip. If you line up for it properly this is not a huge problem, as the current will carry you right on through, but it’s important to be on the correct track to miss various rocks. We came in a bit low – in hindsight, it would have been better to change plans and continue down the north side of Plum Island. Instead, hoping to go into Orient Harbor for the night, with some chagrin I turned on the motor, in order to go across the current enough to maintain a comfortable margin around the bit of rocks near our path. This worked out fine, and once safely clear, off went the motor, with the boat now in the middle of the various waves, boils, and practically no wind.

The boat, already problematic about holding direction with the new rig in very light wind, thought that the concept of direction in this situation was utterly ridiculous. Knowing we were perfectly safe, I was just left with the task of relaxing about looking ridiculous to any outside observers. We traveled backwards, sideways, and did a couple of full circles. Now and then we would actually be going the right way, but then, just like in a rushing river, we would hit another swirl, and be turned wherever it took us. For a couple of minutes I ran the motor again, which sorted out the steering, but it didn’t seem worth using up so much battery reserve for something that wasn’t really a problem, so I turned it off.

By ten minutes later we were out the other side, with a light breeze from the new direction. Orient Harbor didn’t turn out to be reachable, given the wind and ebbing tide. Even getting inside Gardiner’s Island, with various possible anchorages, didn’t work out. On the bright side, what we did have was wide open water. Montauk Point was about 10 miles away in the direction we traveled easily, and if the wind quit it would be easy enough to just stay out, with no worries about things to run into in the night.

In the end, the wind kept up for long enough to eventually get to the entrance to the harbor at Montauk. It took until about nine o’clock that night, and I had some concern about going into the harbor in the dark – I’d only been there once, about 12 years ago. But it’s pretty basic, and well lit. The motor came on again, at the outer breakwater when the wind went still. By 20 minutes later we were anchored inside Lake Montauk.

“Motorless in training” has taken a bit of a hit this week – but I’m learning from every round. The boat is doing well, though it’s involving some getting used to, adjusting to the new rig. Learning the sail controls is one aspect of that, but the more noticeable change is that the boat handles differently. It’s a little frustrating, to feel so awkward at maneuvers that had become quite fluid. I used to know what the boat could do, and how to get it to do that, fairly reliably. My latest guess is that the large mainsail area forward of the mast is a big part of this different feel, and handling. The new easy reefing is worth a lot, and gosh it’s fun when the boat drives along in a good wind – I’m looking forward to becoming more adept.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Leaving Montauk

It turns out that Lake Montauk is a party scene. Blasting dance music comes from clubs on the shore, and row after row of marina docks are filled with varying sizes of recreational fishing boats, and go-fast noise machines called “cigarette boats.” There’s also a substantial commercial fishing fleet, though that was pretty quiet on the weekend.

My nighttime arrival was on a Saturday, during an unusually warm weekend of beautiful weather. On the plus side, it was sweet, approaching the harbor to the smells of seafood and hot summer town. Once anchored, the music started, and then stopped, and then started again. Knockout tired, I was asleep soon regardless. There were a few wake-ups to more music, well after midnight, but eventually it was quiet. Then in the morning the engines began – for some reason that I don’t understand, cigarette boats seem to have a need to run in place for a long time at the dock before they get around to leaving. With the cost of fuel these days, I wonder at this, but maybe they want to make sure that those racecar style engines are warmed up enough to not stall when the driver hits the gas. Whatever the motivation, it was a rude awakening in the morning, that went on and on.

My original plan had been to stay at Lake Montauk for at least a couple of days, resting, and waiting for the northeast wind that was going to be coming along. By noon of that day, however, there was a sweet southwest breeze, and all I could think was how easy it would be to sail out of the narrow harbor entrance, without the motor, on that wind. And the blessed quiet that I had experienced all the previous day, out to sea.

Off we went, once again with Orient Harbor in mind. Fishers Island was a consideration, but the tide was backwards for getting through that pesky outlet from Long Island sound. The wind blew pretty well for a while, and by late in the day we had gotten almost around Gardiner’s Island, before it slacked off. The forecast was for the wind to pick up from the southwest in the evening, which was part of why I thought it was an okay idea to try for such a long trip in the first place. Later on, the breeze started, developing an interesting chop, which we were trying to sail into.

It took all night. Tacking into the chop, sometimes driving well, sometimes not so well, trying to judge the speed of the water past the boat in the dark, and the best heading, with the autopilot sometimes content and on track, and sometimes wandering widely. On the plus side, it was an absolutely beautiful, warm, perfect night. The crescent moon set fairly early, and there were lovely stars. There was no traffic, and I thought many times about how extraordinary it was to be out there having that entire huge bay all to myself. The ferries came around Orient Point in the distance, lit up like cruise ships, moving predictably and well out of the way. Gradually we advanced on the various lighted markers.

In the dark, progress was measurable both by plotting on the chart, using GPS latitude and longitude, and also by leaving lights gradually off the beam and then behind us. (Taking bearings on lights would have worked also – feeling tired, I opted for saving my strength and using the GPS.) But looking at the lights ahead was another matter, as far as judging distance by eye. They seemed so close, and at the same time so unattainable. I haven’t done that much night sailing close in to shore, and it’s an interesting process, learning to interpret what you’re seeing in the dark. After finally reaching two or three of these lighted buoys, I noticed the way they brighten when you get close, and you can see the light reflected in the water, as well as the height of the buoy extending above the skyline, to let you know that you are indeed within something like 100 yards. A chartplotter (electronic gizmo that shows both the chart and your position on it on a screen) is starting to look a little more appealing, though for now I’m still a holdout. Manual plotting of position feels both satisfying, and helpful, but I’m still working on relating that calculated position to my intuitive grasp of the situation in the face of confusing visual cues.

As if that wasn’t enough of a challenge, a couple of times my eyes played tricks – maybe from being overtired, as well as from the unfamiliar darkness. Lights on shore appeared to be close, as if they were nearby in the water. I was startled to think, at one point, that I was approaching my initial buoy goal but that it now appeared to have two smaller lights nearby, on the kind of thin stick buoys set out privately in harbors, although these did not show on the chart. I was jumpy with thoughts of hidden obstacles like fish weirs, to avoid running into. Then shining the spotlight on them, there was nothing there, and suddenly it all came into focus. My initial buoy was still there, though at a substantial distance, too far for the spotlight to pick it up, and the other two stick buoys were actually distant house lights on the shore. Jeez.

This happened again later, approaching my harbor entrance, where there was an oddly lit flag on a pole, that looked for all the world like a triangular apparition hovering about 50 feet away from the boat. Again with the spotlight there was nothing there, and two blinks later the flagpole and it’s strange lighting came into clear resolution on the shore. I keep thinking about all-night drivers talking about seeing giant bunnies the size of cars, hopping across the road – hallucinating from exhaustion. I’ve never experienced that, in spite of many all-night drives, but I wonder at the source of these strange perceptions, losing any sense of depth and distance awareness, and if it has anything to do with that sort of process.

Eventually there was a choice – slog on for another 2 miles close to the now minimal wind, to one harbor entrance, or crank up the motor and go 1 mile to the nearer harbor entrance, directly into the fading breeze. Thinking all the while about how I wasn’t exactly succeeding at motorless in training, I opted for resting sooner, blessing the fact that I had the choice. Still, on slow speed because that preserves battery energy, it took about an hour to get to the harbor entrance. But the slow speed was worth it, because when we got there the tide was rushing out the narrow entrance, and the battery still had plenty of reserve to crank up and push the boat through. The dawn started to come up as we were anchoring.

There are several things I might have done differently in that night, but staying in Montauk harbor probably wasn’t one of them. Sailing out to sea might have been nice, and would certainly have been more restful than sailing close in. You can take naps when it’s just open water. But you never know how things might go – getting back to land might have been more of a chore. As it is, there have been more boat studies, tinkering with euphroes, and learning more about how to make realistic judgments about possible forward progress against wind, current, and chop. I’ve been learning this new area, of Shelter Island and Gardiner’s Bay, and having a lovely time being back on the open water. It’s all good.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shelter Island

That was day before yesterday, going into Coecles Harbor (pronounced “cockles”). Then there was a lot of sleeping…

Yesterday, feeling somewhat refreshed, the promised northeast wind was getting into gear. My anchoring spot was okay, but not ideal, with the strong wind coming across a narrow spit. On top of that, in this beautiful, still harbor, the folks with the fancy estates are utterly determined, in their yard maintenance. Trucks come and go on the tiny road, and out come giant yard machines, and a seemingly constant supply of weed whackers, running pretty much nonstop throughout the day. My search for the perfect harbor is ongoing…

Just around the corner, 2 miles down, is the entrance to the next series of harbors that circle Shelter Island. This was the destination that had seemed too far the other night. The wind was now blowing about 12 to 14 knots, and made for a lovely sail out the mouth of Coecles Harbor, just, and then around the next point going east. There was some rain to begin with, but by the time we arrived inside Northwest Harbor, near the town of Sag Harbor, New York, everything was drying out.

In the search for the combination of protection from northeast wind, and a little more quiet, we anchored further up the bay, away from houses and in the lee of a great bluff with a nice stand of mature trees on top. It’s not perfectly snug – the bay is broad, with gentle but constant rolling from the wake of a continuous back and forth tiny ferry, that is distant but seems to send waves ricocheting constantly throughout the area – but it’s safe, and it’s not pounded by that big wind, that you can see shaking the trees up on the bluff. And it’s quiet. There’s just the sound of the waves breaking on the far side of the point. Quiet and out of the wind – worth a little rolling!

Tomorrow the weather is supposed to clear up, and I’m thinking about continuing around Shelter Island, to see the sights. If this works out, the waterway will eventually open again into Gardiner’s Bay by passing through Orient Harbor. Maybe I’ll finally get to see it, the long way around!

Sea Trials

26 Friday Sep 2014

Posted by shemaya in Junk Rig, Sailing/Boat Handling, the boat, Trips

≈ 2 Comments

Suzanne making adjustments to the mizzen rigging

After a little over a week at the dock, taking care of everything from remaining rigging to another tidbit of wiring, a couple of days ago we got to see the sails actually move the boat. Systems were tested, challenges found, and after that little sail the night was spent anchored in back of Eustasia Island, about a half a mile down the river from Warren’s dock. The following morning, early to catch the last of the outgoing tide and the morning north wind, we had rig test number two. And, most importantly, a beautiful sail in the morning mist.

For those in suspense about the minimal camber in these sails, I’m happy to say that the boat does indeed sail upwind, rather nicely, so far. Better than I was doing with the Paradox mainsail, at least it seems that way at this point. I’m going to have to try more upwind work with no current, to be more sure about it.

Surprises on that first day, in the very light wind and bit of current, were issues with steering. The shifting tiny wind on the now much larger sails was often not enough to move the boat fast enough for the rudder to work well on the water, but it was enough to shift the orientation of the boat dramatically. I was glad there was no traffic. I had the pleasant company of Warren and Margo, and they were very good-natured about our various pirouettes, gradually riding the current north, and then after the tide changed, back toward the dock in Deep River.

Funnily enough, Warren and I met originally because of another steering problem after the very first launch of the boat in 2012. Like in this new test, my understanding of how the sails were working together was a work in progress, and the small trolling motor that I had at that time was not enough to overpower the tight mizzen sail, which should have been released at the first sign of steering distress. As it was, in that first launch 2 1/2 years ago the boat wanted to go only in a straight line, perpendicular to the opposing wind and current, and only good luck with quick anchoring prevented sailing broadside directly into Warren’s docked boat. (His boat is an enormous steel sailboat, so is fortunately well defended.) After that experience we got the Torqeedo, and I started to understand how to manage a yawl rig.

The other day, with Warren here in this very same boat, and the new junk rig, we once again had issues with ineffective steering. This was true while sailing in very light wind, turning unintentional circles, and then again having dropped the sails and having direction-holding complications while motoring to the dock, after the wind had picked up a little. Like two and a half years ago, it was again wind against tide, this time with the complication of all the new windage from the furled mainsail in the bow. On the bright side, I could be looking at this situation as an opportunity to embrace motorless sailing, including for docking in complicated situations. At least if the sails are up, once you understand their mechanics you know what they are up to, and with any breeze at all you have considerably more power than comes from a very lightweight motor. Another alternative would be a motor with more torque, and effective reverse – perhaps the next size up of Torqeedo, the 2.0.

The Torqeedo I have now (the 1003) has an extremely stiff locking tab to hold the motor down – it’s virtually impossible to lock and unlock, so I leave it in its unlocked position. This is fine for gentle reversing out of a slip, but with that lock unsecured, doing any kind of heavy reversing causes the motor to tip up, creating all sorts of havoc as well as not doing the job at hand. My present understanding of the docking issue, with all the windage and resulting steering problems, is that one would need to come in with more speed so the boat had better steering, and then be able to use reverse to slow the boat in a short distance. Of course, if I was a truly elegant boat handler, the thing to do would be to understand all the forces, working with what the boat wanted to do, and place it in such a way that all that windage would be used to advantage, moving the boat into its desired location. I’m studying on that.

Further thought on the unintentional pirouettes while sailing has led me to the hypothesis that this is the result of my tinkering with the sail area. This makes boat designers crazy – people start messing with designs and then are unhappy when there are completely unexpected results. My present guess is that putting so much sail area on this hull – a good bit more than the original design, and a lot more than I had with the Paradox rig – does not work well together with the designed keel and rudder. The boat becomes like a dry leaf falling from a tree through swirling winds, going this way and that with not enough shape under the water to provide direction against that large spread of “leaf.” I think that in a consistent tiny breath of air there would probably be no problem. This issue is not the boat’s fault – after all, I’m the one who went and put on all that extra sail area. Counterintuitively, the solution is probably reefing for tiny, shifting light wind, particularly in combination with complicated current.

In that first test the other day, the tiny air movement was shifting direction, and on top of that the current was doing different things in different places, as the river came back together after flowing past an island. Having no effective steering was an odd sensation – this was not my experience with this boat in extremely light winds, once I had come to understand the yawl rig and how to manage it. In fact, this boat did a very nice job of holding its direction in tiny wind. Thinking on the leaf example, my new plan is that I will indeed try reefing the sails in those conditions of minimal and changing wind, especially when combined with shifting subtle current. The large sail area may very well come into its own on the open water in very light wind, where the air movement holds its direction. It’ll be interesting to see.

~~~~~~~~~~

The next day…

On the second morning, there was no problem steering. The mainsail had only four panels up, instead of six, and the mizzen sail had five panels instead of six. The breeze was very light, but enough to riffle the surface of the water (unlike the previous tiny wind test, when the water was mostly glassy). Again we were traveling with the current, and there were occasional swirls. It was both peaceful, and satisfying. A rainstorm with northeast wind was predicted for the next day after that, so my destination was a side creek off of the river about 5 miles south from where I had just spent the night. This creek is particularly well sheltered from the northeast, and is quite pretty, with some very interesting bird activity. I was pretty set on getting there.

Leaving first thing in the morning from the back of Eustasia Island meant that there would be favorable current for a couple of hours. If the northerly wind picked up, it would then be possible to sail against the beginning of the flood tide. As it turned out, it was a very pretty sail, but that increase in wind didn’t happen. A little over a mile short of my destination the current started to get going in the other direction, and with progress diminishing, I turned into another side creek that I had always wanted to explore. It was perfect as a place to wait for the next ebb tide, though unfortunately likely to go to mud flat when that tide went out, or I would have stayed; with so much already happening, testing the new beaching legs was more than I wanted to take on. One day in the future I’d like to go in there with the right timing for low tide to investigate if there’s a little deep spot somewhere – because there’s so little water, there is no activity in there, and it’s quite peaceful. This is in back of Nott Island, across from Essex, Connecticut.

As it was, by early afternoon when the tide was running out the wind had picked up from the southeast. This means a lot of tacking to go south in this part of the river, but with the current helping it’s not so bad, and interesting to weave in and out of the huge mooring field at Essex, with a number of elegant traditional sailboats to see along the way. The wind came up some more, which was particularly good from a sea trial perspective. I’m happy to say that the boat sails quite nicely in those conditions with the new rig. Particularly noticeable is that it tacks comfortably, settling in on the new heading without a lot of falling off, which has often been an issue. Perhaps this good behavior had to do with the current, but I’ll be especially pleased if it continues generally.

During the interlude at Nott Island I had the opportunity to make adjustments to the mast lift and lazy jacks. They had been set quite low in order to allow for full raising of the mainsail, but I had neglected to take into account just how fully that low boom and overall sail would block visibility from the cockpit. Coming down the river in the morning, with the sail out wide to starboard, a lot of contortions were required in order to see forward off the starboard bow. Tweaking those lines was a big improvement, though it came at the cost of not being able to fully raise the last panel of the sail.

Really, the new mast could’ve been another foot taller. Or the new sail could have been made with boom and battens at 12 feet instead of 13 (boom/batten length determines the rest of the dimensions in the Reddish junk sail design process). Given the steering experience discussed above, the slightly smaller sail dimensions would probably be ideal, but I’m still pondering on this. As it is, with one or two panels reefed the boat still has a lot of sail area, carried lower… maybe that’s okay too, nicely filling the space above the cabin. Conventional wisdom says that it’s better to have a certain amount of height, rather than a very broad shorter sail, to most effectively drive the boat, so we’ll see how it goes.

While we were sailing south, a big Nonesuch catboat was tacking down the river, coming out of Essex with us having a good head start. They of course eventually passed us by, but I was impressed that it did take some time, and a number of tacks for both boats, before that happened. And that boat was under full sail. The wind was something like 12 knots – easy for a larger boat, but time for reefing in my world, though with some sacrifice in speed. Anyway, with that other boat for a measure, the new rig came out looking quite respectable. And that’s with AUKLET heavily loaded for cruising!

By the end of the day I was snug in my creek, in back of Goose Island. Further rigging adjustments are in progress, based on all the new information, and it’s perfectly beautiful watching the water, and the gentle rain, and the trees on the hillside just starting to turn toward their fall colors. I couldn’t be more pleased.

Safety Tethers

23 Sunday Mar 2014

Posted by shemaya in Sailing/Boat Handling, the boat

≈ 3 Comments

A couple of months ago, in the letters section of the January, 2014 issue of Practical Sailor, a man named Tripp Presnell laid out a number of significant concerns to do with safety tether systems on boats. (“Thoughts on PFD Design,” found on p. 7.) This is something I’ve thought a lot about, but without proper background, I’ve had only my intuitive sense with which to back up my own concerns. It was great to see a coherent explanation of the problems, and potential solutions.

First, the problems. The issues are: harnesses that concentrate strain in unsafe locations on people’s bodies; distance of fall in a typical sailboat tether arrangement; and lack of elasticity in the tether system. My own concerns had been related to distance of fall, the abrupt stop at the end of the tether, and the problem of getting back aboard as a single-handed sailor on a moving boat, dragging. Yikes.

I’ve responded to these concerns by trying, though not terribly effectively, for shorter tethers to prevent actually going over the side, and then by giving up on tethers almost entirely. Instead, I have focused on maintaining heightened awareness of not falling overboard, knowing that if I do, that will be the end of the ride, but measuring the risk of that bad ending against the concept of falling overboard with a tether, massive injuries to my rather delicate physical well-being, and the prospect of a truly horrific end of the ride. Obviously, neither possibility is anything one would want to do.

The letter-writer in Practical Sailor brings rock climber background, as well as sailing knowledge, to this question. His letter was a great beginning, and with the clue to look at rockclimbing materials, I have since found a lot more good information on the Internet. He also talked about tree workers, and folks doing construction, and I found some interesting discussion coming from those groups, as well.

The bottom line is that falling any distance – even 2 feet – into an abrupt stop on a harness creates enough force to cause serious injury to muscles, bones, and organs. There are formulas for calculating this force, truly surprising in the magnitude of their results. Added to that, if the harness is inappropriately fitted, so that the horizontal strap around the torso is too low, floating ribs are extremely vulnerable, can be snapped, and then even worse, their broken edges can be pushed into organs, causing great damage and internal bleeding.

With an average sailboat tether arrangement, it would be more than easy to fall a distance greater than 2 feet. Further, sailing harnesses are often combined with inflatable PFDs. The appropriate position for anchoring the PFD is not immediately below your armpits, where an ideal tethering harness would be located, but lower. A woman of average height is likely to find that an inflatable PFD strap rests right at, or below, her floating ribs, just where it does not belong as a tether harness. There is a warning that comes with this gear, that users must be at least 5’8″ tall, but with no explanation of why – I hadn’t remembered that it was there (and it’s not included in the catalogs where they are sold). The bottom line is that tether harnesses, problematic in themselves, are seriously problematic for the average person when arranged as part of an inflatable PFD, except perhaps for tall individuals. Even then, it’s not ideal, just not quite as dangerous.

The ideal tether harness, according to various sources, is not simple. Rock climbers use a harness that carries their weight at their hips, with wide, load-distributing straps around waist and legs. These are like the gear that some folks use for going up a mast. Chest harnesses as sole support for rock climbers have long since been abandoned, after numerous disasters. It turns out that worn slightly incorrectly, in a suspended fall a chest harness alone can compress a person’s rib cage, causing difficulty breathing, and resulting in very sad outcomes. Among rock climbers, upper body chest harnesses are only used as an additional, secondary part of the system so that a person is held upright in a fall, while their weight goes into the lower body harness. And often, rock climbers use only a lower body harness.

On a boat however, a lower body harness, alone, is not appropriate. The tether attachment point ends up below a person’s center of gravity, which is a terrible hazard if a person is in the water, potentially being dragged by the boat, oriented head-down. That outcome is unacceptable, so the alternative that has been adopted is the upper body harness, with its risks of poor support during a fall, and the potential for resulting internal injuries.

Apparently (though I haven’t done follow-up research on this), equipment failure in boat tethers used to be a big problem, due to the forces involved in a fall on a boat. Nowadays, the equipment is more heavily built; the equipment no longer fails, but injuries resulting from abrupt stops have escalated. Somewhat more ideal than the standard upper body harness is the strongly built upper and lower body harness for sailors, but gosh, what a production – and you still have the problem of abrupt stops. I’m still puzzling on the harness question, thinking about how the various considerations combine with the issue of the tether itself, and how to avoid ever going far enough in a fall to experience the problems of an abrupt stop.

This brings us to the subject of the tether itself. The letter writer in Practical Sailor discussed rigging a chest-high jackline – which I took to mean over the cabin, but it’s possible that he meant something more like a chest-high lifeline along the perimeter of the boat. Either way, this would be an alternative to the typical sidedeck placement. If the jackline is down on the sidedeck, where it is often found, the problem is that the tether needs to be long enough to reach up from the deck to one’s torso. With the jackline so low, if you do go over the side there is a much longer fall – double the length of the tether – before that abrupt stop. This is much farther than the 2 feet that is already such a serious risk. If the jackline is led over the top of the cabin, the jackline is then closer to chest height, as well as allowing for a snugged up tether that only allows you to fall toward the boat, rather than going over the side at all. I have personally opted for a more central jackline, but have used a commercially available tether, which was of course much too long.

The answer, once provided, seems completely obvious (like so many things, after you understand them!) And brings us back to the rock climbers and tree workers. These folks work with adjustable tethers, as a matter of course. There is an elegant knot for assembling one of these – the Purcell Prusik, really an arrangement that includes two different knots: a Prusik hitch for the adjustable loop, and a double fisherman knot for the larger, overall loop. The Prusik hitch works somewhat like a rolling hitch, but better, for this application, being more secure (it has more wraps), and holding its adjusted position under strain from either direction. The overall arrangement provides an adjustable loop on one end, to clip to one’s harness, and a loop at the other end to clip to a pad eye or jackline. Here’s a video about how to make a Purcell Prusik:
(I have no idea why sometimes the blog program puts a link, and sometimes it puts a video, all ready to go…)
http://www.outdoorsafetyinstitute.com/index.php/news/single/make_a_purcell_prusik/

And another, focusing in more detail on the Prusik hitch itself:

Rock climbers use carabiners for the end attachments, but to me it seems worth considering using the typical specialized attachments on commercially produced boat tethers – a snap shackle with a beaded pull cord for emergency quick release at the harness end, and a clip requiring two maneuvers for opening, at the boat attachment end. Climbers use locking carabiners at the tether ends, which are secure but very tough to manage with wet, cold fingers, and when under strain they cannot be released at all. This is a serious consideration on a boat, if one were to be entangled under water. Snap shackles, on the other hand, are more likely to be releasable under load. Either way, a sailing knife close to hand is not a bad idea.

The overall tether can be made at whatever length is appropriate to the situation, and with attention, the potential distance of fall can be negligible. This I like, and overall, I’m anticipating a more secure season of sailing.

The letter in Practical Sailor also talked about elasticity in jacklines and/or tethers, as a way to reduce the force of a fall. I do think that perhaps the author was reversing things, on this, as he talked about nylon jacklines being a problem, and that polyester would be stretchier, and thus better. Numerous references state that nylon has more stretch, and polyester much less (nylon dock lines/polyester halyards, etc.). He did not get into that whichever material is the one with stretch, the characteristic of stretch is actually a bit different from elasticity.

My own experience has been with commercially available nylon webbing jacklines which do stretch, but not when you want them to. You set them up snug, they get wet, and then need to be retightened (repeatedly). Stretch during a fall would be nice, but better would be a snug jackline with some give in the event of a fall. Something to do with a slightly elastic section built into the system somewhere. There is more to study on this, but for now it’s clear that if nothing else, the tether itself should be made of line with some stretch (I would choose nylon), and should absolutely not be made from low stretch material such as polyester/dacron, or the newer high-tech stuff. Rock climbing websites emphasize this point. My personal experience with nylon jacklines is from over 10 years ago. I see now that at least some commercially available jacklines are actually polyester. This seems problematic, unless elasticity is built into the system in some other way.

Construction workers also use harnesses and tethers for protection from falls, and there is quite a lot of material about this on the Internet as well. Some construction tethers incorporate heavy shock cord to deal with the issue of abrupt stops. There are also many discussions related to dangers of being suspended in a harness for as little as ten or fifteen minutes after the initial fall, because of disruption of circulation by narrow straps. This has sadly led to many deaths. It’s not an easy subject, the safety tether issue, and has a surprisingly wide range of considerations, with possible severe outcomes if one does not get it right.

The take-away from all this, for me, has been the focus on adjustable tethers that make it possible to keep oneself securely held on the boat, with minimal slack, thereby preventing falling even against the harness on the boat, as well as specifically preventing being able to fall over the side. A midships jackline and/or pad eyes, and a Purcell Prusik tether, with elasticity included one way or another, seems most promising.

Meanwhile, the other interesting tidbit that I came across recently, related to safety tether strategy, is in Roger Taylor’s book, Mingming and the Art of Minimal Ocean Sailing: More Voyages of a Simple Sailor. This is another concept that is perfectly obvious once somebody says it, but had not occurred to me.

Ever since sailing a 24 foot Bristol Corsair, I’ve spent a lot of time puzzling over how to be secure on the foredeck of a boat. I had a near miss on that boat, singlehanding in the dark – and on the bow of most any small sailboat the possibility of going over the side is ridiculously close, in three directions.

One friend likes tethering to the mast, but from my perspective, that’s not quite so good for if you need to be right up toward the bow (tether too long, and worse, behind you). On the other hand, there was Roger, discussing going forward, with TWO tethers. This is common, for leapfrogging forward, with one tether always attached. However, what Roger did is that once he arrived on the foredeck, he sat in the middle, with one tether clipped in on each side, port and starboard. (Maybe everybody but me knows this?) From there he proceeded to carry out his jib project. How is it that I never thought of that??

Attachment points may need to be added to the boat in the right places, to accommodate this idea, but that’s a relatively small matter once you know what you need, at least while the boat is still in the driveway. There is even another project in mind that could make double use of attachment points in those locations. Aboard AUKLET, this might or might not make perfect sense – the bow area is so small, and the mainmast so very close – but I sure wish that I had come across this concept when I was sailing a sloop, with a foredeck that made it a real puzzle. The “two tethers” strategy could come in handy in a number of situations.

As a result of all of the above, I am feeling like the lights have finally been turned on over this question of safety tethers. It’s a good thing – it’s never been safe going without, nor has it been particularly safe going with. I’m perfectly delighted to finally feel like there’s a roadmap to some more satisfying answers to this question.

[For a follow-up post on this subject, see: http://sailingauklet.com/2016/03/16/safety-tethers-update/ ]

References:

Practical Sailor
http://www.practical-sailor.com at this writing, there is a glitch with the online version of the January 2014 letters section – hopefully they’ll straighten it out, as the letters appear to otherwise be available to non-subscribers.

Sailors, rock climbers and upper body harness issues:
http://www.sailnet.com/forums/gear-maintenance/53378-spinlocks-mast-pro-harness-going-up-mast.html

Rock climbers and the problem of abrupt stops:
http://www.rockandice.com/lates-news/the-dangers-of-short-static-falls?page=1

Click to access forcesinleadfalls.pdf

Construction work:
http://simplifiedsafety.com/blog/are_you_aware_of_the_dangers_of_suspension_trauma/

Note: just like everybody says everywhere, the ideas presented here are personal reflections, and do not constitute any kind of professional advice. It is each individual’s responsibility to use their own judgment regarding techniques and equipment for staying safe on boats, or on land. For professional advice and expertise, seek these from a professional – not from a personal boating blog! Above all, pay attention to what you are doing, use redundant methods for critical applications, and think through the potential consequences of whatever strategies you put to use.

the pencil dilemma

28 Friday Feb 2014

Posted by shemaya in Sailing/Boat Handling

≈ 4 Comments

It has come to my attention that, as a result of the Grease Pencils post, my trustworthiness in the vicinity of other people’s oars and unlocked doors has come into question. Tongue-in-cheek, but still!

This has to do with how I acquired said grease pencils. At the time, during the original supplies search, I had been successful only in finding a box of 1000 for sale on the Internet. What is the ethical solution for this? Probably to have tried harder, in locating a smaller number. Now they are at Staples, but I believe that we tried that, at that time, with no success. My solution, shady action at the health food store, and reimbursing the store by not correcting register errors in their favor, was still not fair. (I had asked to buy some grease pencils, but was told that they didn’t know how to do that, so, no.) Just because I needed those pencils, it doesn’t mean that the store should part with them, even though we know for sure that this happens accidentally all the time (and another employee suggested this solution).

Over the course of time I’ve had more than one assistant who accidentally left my home with everything from good mechanical pencils to Salvation Army style forks and spoons, using them during lunch breaks and forgetting that they were not their own, as they packed up their stuff. The fascinating part was that in each case, those individuals truly did not understand why this mattered to me, after we figured out what had happened. Because it was clearly important to me, efforts were made to sort it out, and all was resolved well. But I could see clearly that for them it was a reach, to understand my perspective.

And yet, I lifted grease pencils! Feeling pressed by need, and rationalizing in assorted directions, from secret payment, to the known poor treatment of staff by the large-chain health food store (nope, not really related). So are anybody’s oars safe, if I’m in the vicinity, if any of these rationalizations are acceptable?

This has nothing to do with boats, except for the oars, and that my desire for a workable navigation system is what prompted this action. This all took place quite some time ago – how would it be now, older and perhaps a little wiser, minus the modern Internet making finding things so easy?

All I can say in my defense is that this action bothers me too, and has been the source of much soul-searching. Maybe that’s why I wrote up the original post in that way, bringing the subject to light. After all, one could have just said something about that these special grease pencils (plastic, and impervious to water) used to be hard to find, but now here they are on the Internet. Instead, the mention is there, and is the very part of the post that has received notice, prompting gentle encouragement from the universe that I might like to get my act together. Thank you universe, and thank you friends!

Underway Crew Transfer

21 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by shemaya in Sailing/Boat Handling

≈ 6 Comments

In a previous post, I wrote about participating in an underway crew transfer. (That post can be found here: http://sailingauklet.com/2013/09/16/cradle-cove/ ) I had concerns about this maneuver at the time, and have since been looking into the subject.

Crew transfer while vessels are underway is not well covered, in either print seamanship resources or in materials that are easily found on the Internet. Most discussions on the Internet focus on transfers between large ships and smaller vessels. A few more specific references have turned up so far: the US Coast Guard Boat Crew Seamanship Manual; a caption underneath a photo in The Annapolis Book of Seamanship by John Rousmaniere; a manual for water taxi passenger transfer published by the Australian government; and various discussions of coming alongside for the purpose of rafting at anchor, which are found in some books and on the Internet (details and links are included farther down). As well, there are a number of Internet materials regarding crew transfer between small boats and large ships, and a fascinating manual and video of crew transfer between ships by way of a “highline.”

The preferred method of crew transfer between vessels underway is by use of a smaller dinghy between the larger vessels, if conditions allow. This avoids the problems of larger boats being thrown against one another by waves, with potential for damage to the boats and for injuries involving crushing of persons or limbs between the boats. It is my belief, though I have nothing specific to base this on, that these potential hazards of direct crew transfer may very well be the reason why the topic of coming alongside while underway, for the purpose of crew transfer, is so little discussed.

In spite of these issues, there can be situations where this maneuver is considered, or undertaken, whether because of dire need, or because people think that it is convenient. This author was involved in the latter, without a tremendous amount of forethought. Though the maneuver went just fine, it sure did inspire a lot of thought afterwards!

In hindsight, I think that this kind of maneuver is much more appropriate between smaller boats, such as daysailers, sailing dinghies and other lightweight craft, and that the hazards increase substantially as the two vessels together increase in size and displacement. This goes back to the preference for crew transfer between more substantial vessels being done via a smaller dinghy, to avoid the problems of two larger boats being thrown together by waves. Regardless, direct crew transfer between more substantial vessels has felt worth understanding more fully, because the possibility can arise.

Following is what I have learned, so far, from a good bit of reading and Internet search, and a moderate amount of discussion with a variety of experienced sailors. What is yet to be done is more discussion with those who are professionals in the field of boating and boating safety, some of whom routinely come alongside other vessels underway for various purposes. These include people engaged in commercial fishing, harbormasters, and those who provide small craft marine towing, and individuals working in the Coast Guard and various boating safety organizations. I’m going to keep working on those discussions, and will update this post with any information that I find. In the meantime, following is a list of considerations and procedures, assembled from a number of sources, each of which are referenced with initials in parentheses and included in full further below.

Crew Transfer Underway: Considerations and Procedure Notes – this is NOT an authoritative manual – see below (SL)

– Evaluate conditions, vessels, and personnel skills and physical abilities; determine whether maneuver is both possible and prudent in this situation; if planning to go ahead, double check conditions immediately before beginning procedure – it’s possible for conditions to change between the time of making the initial plan and the time when the maneuver is to be carried out. If conditions are no longer favorable, change the plan! (WC, AU, SL)
– discuss both the overall plan and specific procedures; confirm agreement regarding procedures between captains; verify that crew understands procedures (AU, CG)
– all participants should be wearing PFDs; crew who are transferring between boats, and crew providing transfer assistance on both boats, MUST wear PFDs. (AU) (CG – Coast Guard personnel on deck and underway wear PFDs at all times – it’s not a bad idea!)
– choose location away from traffic and hazards, with consideration for what will happen if there are complications that require more time than expected for the transfer to occur (AU, CG, SL)
– it is preferable if one of the boats (preferably the larger boat) is anchored (CF, SL)
– if anchoring is not possible, or is not desirable, evaluate waves/seas
– unless there is perfectly flat calm, both boats should be making way when the transfer occurs. This is because if hove-to, boats are likely to be severely bashed against each other by waves, resulting in damage and possible injury. Sailboats are more stable when under sail, and this is desirable if possible without rigging entanglement. (CG) If mismatched in size, smaller boat may sustain damage, particularly if transfer is carried out while not making way. (CF) Coming alongside while making way steadies both vessels, reducing potential for damage. (CG)
– Both boats should proceed at slowest speed that ensures steering for both boats. (AU, CG)
– if there is a substantial size difference, and both boats are maneuverable, smaller boat approaches larger boat (larger boat is more stable, and can more effectively hold steady course and speed through waves) (SL)
– approach is made to leeward of boat that is holding its course and speed. (See CG reference for exceptions, including when approaching boat is larger, and can create a lee for vessel holding its course and speed) (ABS, CG)
– if two sailboats, pay careful attention to the rigging of one boat being offset from the rigging of the other boat, to prevent entanglement and breakage of rigging. Masts have been lost… (CF, as well as numerous other guidelines for rafting available on the Internet)
– if at least one boat is powered by sail alone, and transfer will be done while making way, consider doing maneuver on a heading that provides a beam reach, for best speed control and maneuverability of sail-powered vessel (SL)
– If neither boat is an inflatable, several closely spaced fenders are placed where the boats will meet, (ABS, CF) with extra fenders beyond where the contact is expected; one boat or the other should be fendered, but not both (if both boats have hanging fenders, the fenders are likely to disrupt one another, leaving none in proper position). (SL)
– approaching boat begins by matching pace with the boat that is maintaining its course and speed, beside but still with separation between the two boats (CG)
– when matching speed is achieved, approaching boat maneuvers sideways so as to place forward quarter of approaching boat alongside aft quarter of boat that is maintaining its course and speed (ABS, CG)
– this positioning is for two sailboats (ABS), other positioning may be appropriate for other combinations of boat types (CG, CF)
– depending on the specific situation, consider the possibility of attaching lines to maintain position alongside, as in towing “on the hip,” or consider use of a “sea-painter,” as described in the CG manual on page 377 (section 10-48). (CG, discussion with experienced sailors)
– Both helmspersons should maintain awareness that if transferring person falls overboard, engine(s) should immediately be put in neutral, and steering (motoring or sailing) must be focused on avoiding crushing of crew overboard between vessels, followed by all other standard crew overboard procedures for recovery, to be undertaken after COB is clear of both vessels. (SL)
– when successful transfer is complete, approaching vessel moves away by slightly increasing throttle and gradually steering away from vessel that is maintaining its course and speed (avoiding possible suction at stern of the vessel maintaining its course and speed). (CG)

References

(ABS) Annapolis Book of Seamanship, fourth edition, by John Rousmaniere. See photo and caption in section on running aground, p 344.

(AU) “Code of Conduct for Carrying out Passenger Transfers between Water Taxis and Other Commercial Vessels Which Are Underway” Waterways Authority – Australian government publication.
http://www.maritime.nsw.gov.au/docs/cvdocs/CoCPaxTferUnderway.pdf (retrieved January 19, 2014)

(CF) forum series includes discussions of rafting, use of fender boards while rafting/coming alongside, coming alongside underway, and video of crew transfer between cruising sailboat and container ship.
http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f90/tips-for-coming-along-side-and-rafting-off-93522.html (retrieved January 20, 2014)

(CG) US Coast Guard “Boat Crew Seamanship Manual,” section 10-45 to 10-49, pp 374-378, “Maneuvering Alongside Another Vessel”
http://www.uscg.mil/directives/cim/16000-16999/cim_16114_5c.pdf (retrieved January 19, 2014)

(WC) Wind Check magazine article on crew transfer that was considered between sailboats during 2012 Newport-Bermuda race
http://windcheckmagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&id=1459:sailboat-to-sailboat-rescue-of-sailors-at-sea&Itemid=416 (retrieved January 18, 2014)

(SL) Shemaya Laurel – this author is NOT an authority on proper boating practice. Background includes recreational safe boating certificates (State of Connecticut, and Boat US), substantial home study, and time on the water. I do not have a USCG captains license (though I would have trained and applied for one if I thought I could pass the required medical exam, and have done some study of captains license educational materials). All critical points in this article come from the above-named sources; the details referenced to me are based upon my limited experience of crew transfer underway.

This article is in no way meant to encourage underway crew transfer – I felt that my experience with it was hazardous, even though it was carried out successfully and without incident. I might or might not choose to do it again. Either way, I came away from the experience feeling aware of a complete lack of background as far as appropriate procedures for this maneuver. This lack of background was in spite of previous study of quite a number of general boat handling references, and home-study courses and materials, including from The US Power Squadron, Chapmans, and a wide range of sailing videos and texts. It was surprising to me that I did not recall seeing anything about this maneuver discussed, and I came away from the above-mentioned crew transfer experience with an interest in filling that gap in my knowledge. This search for information has resulted in the reference list, as well as the compiled procedural notes, that are contained in this blog post. Since it has been such a project to put together, it has seemed to make sense to share this material. However, I want to reiterate that what I have written is not “authoritative,” and is in no way meant to encourage people to try this maneuver! Please include this paragraph, if you copy this post!

It is my hope that people with qualifications much more substantial than mine will begin to include “underway crew transfer between sailboats and other vessels” in their writings about seamanship and boat handling. Either to say “don’t do it,” and why, or to explain procedures with the same kind of detail as that provided by the US Coast Guard and the Australian government in the references listed above.

If readers have come across other underway crew transfer references that I’ve missed, if you would be so kind as to include them in a comment, I would appreciate it very much.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Highline ship to ship crew transfer (just because it’s so interesting!)

Sailing AUKLET

~ Small sailboat cruising and related thoughts

Category Archives: Sailing/Boat Handling

Beaching Legs ~ Score: Gravity – 1; Engineering – 0.5

Anchoring and the AUTHORITIES

Creek Anchoring

Learning to Sail

Sail Twist

more sea trials

Sea Trials

Safety Tethers

the pencil dilemma

Underway Crew Transfer