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Boat Heaven - Boat Heaven

[ April 2007 ] [ June 2007 ]

How to enjoy your boat. In the previous blogs I have talked about fire, life jackets, rules of the road, communication, life rafts and signalling. It all amounts to not very much if your vessel is not the best you can have. So if it is not suitable for offshore don’t do any more than run around on a lake or river. Don’t expect your boat to do what it is not made to do. Here is a bit of a check list that in my opinion will see you right.

The weather: Always check the weather and learn from www.bom.com.au how to read the weather.

The boat: It doesn’t matter if it’s a canoe made from corrugated iron sheets or a palatial yacht, it is your ticket to the fun park.

Your mission: Plan to have fun and remember that everyone else you invite along wants to have fun as well.

Be a skipper: Be a skipper not a captain Bligh. You are a leader not a big shot boss!

Learn: Learn as much as you can. Not everything is available in books or on the net. Join a sailing club, take lessons from a professional and see that your partner & 1st mate does so too. (not the same class as you)

Learn some more: when you know everything, be a bit humble and learn some more. I have been on the water for over fifty years and I am currently enrolled in a full time mariner’s course, learning!

Boat condition: Have a shipwright check out your boat. He will tell you scary things but everything must be taken in context. He is covering his butt and looking for work, Dig through what he tells you and do what you feel is right, get a second opinion. Your boat must be in the best condition it can be in.

Safety gear: Your local authority will have rules and regulations. Before you go out and buy heaps of gear, have them check out your boat and tell you what is required. They appreciate being asked.

Communication: You need a minimum of a VHF radio and operator’s licence. There are radios that don’t require a licence but remember your learning curve. Being at these kind of classes is a great learning opportunity for all kinds of things. Great marine networking.

Get a set of flags: Learn to code messages and send single flag messages. Not many people know how to do this but you are part of a chain, changing how things are done. This is fun and a great skill.

Morse code: Not required but an easy skill to learn and use.

Navigation: Learn to use the coastal navigation system of paper charts and compasses then go and buy the cutting edge of techno gear. At least you will know what it is supposed to do. Also remember that you will probably never know everything about navigation, it is a giant learning curve. Even at school you must learn to write on paper before using a computer.

Other sailors: The more they claim to know the more they will knock your wanting to learn old sailing skills because they don’t have the inclination. Pick the wheat from the chaff and work out who is giving you the best information. Standing at a bar or propped on a stool waves are four times higher and boats twice as long and the wind hardly ever get below force 8. Tall stories are fun but take them for what they are.

Love your boat? The two best days of a man’s life are when he buys his boat and when he sells it. In between these two days you will have a love affair bordering on being immoral. Your partner needs to be part of this menage-a-trois if you want a peaceful coexistence.

Boating is just about the best thing you can do with your time. Apart from learning many skills, enjoying time on the water, enjoying the sporting side of it, there are many other hobbies that spread out from here. Try and involve your partner in any way you can. I do know of one wife that to placate her husband, goes boating each weekend with him. She wears a large sun hat, sits in a deck chair and knits. She doesn’t touch ropes, scrub decks or anything slightly nautical. She is however very supportive because nothing else is asked of her.

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life raft home truths

May 30th 2007 20:09

Some home truths about life rafts:
I have never entered a life raft in anger so what I write is not from first hand experience but is mainly anecdotal and my experience of having done three professional maritime sea safety and survival courses and preparation for being able to teach the subject myself. So I am not an expert but have a working knowledge of what is required.

In the recreational field and I believe that is mainly whom I write for, we try to emulate what our big brothers do out there in the “big stuff”. Not many recreational boats have the space and not many of the skippers have the money to buy the top of the range gear that commercial vessels do. Manufacturers however tend to be the same so they may make smaller and cheaper versions of a product but as their name is on it they can’t make a dodgy product as their name is everything in the big pond of commercial shipping. As and example when a ship comes into dry dock it has specialised company representatives that do nothing for months but service that ship with safety gear, or paint, or rigging, machinery and so on. So it is safe to assume we are getting pretty good stuff from name companies.

There is an Australian standard that most gear must be equal to. Well more than that it must actually be stamped approved by and there often we have a problem in that the standard can’t often move as fast as the improvements happening in the industry. So while you may look longingly in catalogues at a piece of equipment new on the market, if it doesn’t meet approval you will have to wait. Or take a chance.

So to life rafts. With any sort of luck you will never need to use yours. What, you don’t have one? You claim you don’t need one! Well yes of course its expensive and only required when the ship is sinking, grounded on some rock in the middle of a forlorn ocean or burning out of control just in site of land. However yours will not be delivered to you in time for that kind of emergency. You may have done the right thing and now have a perfectly suitable liferaft sitting on the deck of you boat awaiting an emergency. Is it in survey? Probably 60% of privately owned life rafts excepting those owned by sailors who race offshore a lot would be out of service. Yes it costs a bit to service your raft but it needs to be done. If you miss one year it will be easier to miss two and if you have done something twice it is already a habit. So you are in the habit of leaving your life raft un-serviced, not good.
When you take your raft in for service what do you have done. Epirbs should be replaced to the newest available and I believe the Gpirb is now at a fair price. (it contains a GPS and can pin point you to within metres within a couple of hours) Replace batteries, replace water and have packed anything that you particularly want on board. Later I will list the basics.

Getting into your raft is all about being rescued. First think your self lucky you escaped your sinking ship. It should have sunk by now or you probably shouldn’t be in your raft. The safest place to be on the ocean is still in your boat until the very last moment. Before you leave your boat be sure to drink as much water as you can possible hold and then drink some more. Make sure you and every crew member takes a seasick pill. And it doesn’t matter if they kick and scream about chemicals in their body they have to do so. Everyone is going to get sick in the raft. No exceptions! From the moment you decide that you are going to leave your boat you should be putting together everything you are going to need on the raft. Forget personal belongings except for what will fit in the grab bag. Extra water, extra flares, batteries and torches. Clothes, hats medical equipment or extra first aid and perhaps a spare hand held radio.

You should have managed to get out a may day with your position but if not rely on your gpirb or epirb to get the search under way. At the very least know that your loved ones will alert the authorities to start a search as you have not contacted them by a certain time or date. This is a touchy subject. We don't want our family to worry so we tell them not to. The reverse should be true, worry about me unless you hear from me. Be anally retentive about being in contact with them. They are your best help ashore. The authorities will search and search but give up when it is starting to cost too much and hopes have faded to nothing. This is when your family and friends should show their mettle by “stirring the possum” and getting private searches under-way or refunding the official one. You are drifting out there in the best life raft available to man with all the water you can drink for a couple of weeks (you can survive without food for almost a month). You have remembered all your back up medication and you are in a pretty good state despite the raging storm outside or the hungry sharks. You need to know they are looking for you and will keep looking.
More tomorrow.

Getting into your liferaft: Trust me, it is the least pleasant place to be on the ocean! It is marginally better than being adrift in the water with or without a life jacket. But the moment you are on board your chances of being recovered have increased dramatically.

There is an adage that you should step UP off a sinking ship into your liferaft. This is the best scenario but not always practical. However the idea is that you stay dry getting into your raft. Don’t jump onto the cover as you may hurt people already inside. The cover should handle the jump without tearing but it is not a good idea to have to do this. Launch your raft as per the instructions. Remember to be tied off to a strong point on your boat until everyone is aboard. When boarding you should be wearing your life jacket. A point here. Your life jacket is designed to withstand fire for two seconds. Make your own decision when your ship is on fire! When wearing a life jacket your movements are severely restricted so be prepared to struggle a bit. Step onto the outside of the raft pontoon then directly on board. Sit down until everyone is on board. Cut the painter holding you to your ship and paddle free of the sinking/burning/infested vessel. Deploy your EBIRB or GPIRB and prepare for rescue.

You should be rescued quickly but it will be dependent on weather conditions, availability of shipping in your vicinity and search aircraft. No water for the first twenty four hours. You should have loaded up before you boarded so you will need to be to taking a leak soon anyway. There will be enough water on board for three days with half a litre per person. The water is in 100 mil plastic bags. No food will be required for up to a month. Depending on how your body can handle the stress. These days life rafts are packed with biscuit not glucose. The biscuits taste something like a shortbread. You have about ten thousand kilojoules per person. Eat only when you have water to wash it down. Fish hooks are only there for recreational purposes. The only part of the fish you can enjoy is sucking the juices from the backbone. All the rest is going to dehydrate you. By all means slice it and dry it in the sun till you have water in good amounts. Similarly seaweed should not be eaten but dried.

You will have sponges on board to wipe the inside of the raft for condensation. Wipe the bottom of the raft to dry it out from salt water. There is a rain water gathering point for replenishing fresh water. The bottom of the raft feels like a giant water bed that needs topping up. It can be pumped up to insulate you from the water. You need as many clothes as you can wear, include a warm hat. You have to crap over the side in site of others but lets hope they promise not to look. Clean your self with your hand dipped in salt water. No loo paper on board and not even a yachty bucket. Vomiting will be provided for by plastic sick bags but as these are best used to collect rain water try to prevent seasickness.
There are many chapters in books dedicated to survival in life rafts and I can’t help you with everything in a couple of sentences.

Recovery. You will be found either dead or alive. The condition you are in is entirely up to your will to live! Setting off a 406 EPIRB ensures that rescuers know of your predicament, who you are, the boat you were on, within two hours and can pinpoint you on a chart to a couple of nautical miles. For you it is a matter of hurry up and wait. When rescuers arrive they will be in a chopper or ship. A fixed winged aircraft might have spotted you first and dropped off emergency supplies and tried to contact you by radio. You have probably removed your life jackets to be able to move about the raft. Don them now because you will be weak, exhausted and in no condition to take a chance on a dip and drowning in front of your rescuers. The helicopter will pull you up on a sling, a basket or rigid stretcher if you are injured. Your rescue boat will try to approach from downwind and may have out scrambling nets to climb up the side or a boarding ladder. If you are too weak to climb a sling might be lowered down to you.

Take your grab bag with you. It should contain your wallet, passports, never used credit cards and maybe a phone card to ring home. Remember to thank everyone involved in your rescue!
More tomorrow.

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more sea safety

May 29th 2007 20:09

More on safety:
Some years ago a member of my club fell into the river next to his boat which was tied up to the club wharf. The wharf is not designed for yachts but it handles them without much trouble. It is really a dinghy launching area. This gentleman was a very experienced sailor and had sailed has yacht twice around the world. He was wearing foul weather gear as it was cold and raining. He fell into the river and could not climb back onto his boat and the wharf had no ladder to climb up on. He swam around to the shore and it was all rock walls. The tide was out and it took three and a half hours for him to drift high enough with the incoming tide before he could climb out. He was well into the early stages of hypothermia. Not a new chum to sailing, an old hand but caught short just this once and almost lost to his family.

Another older gentleman, at a different club I belong to fell in between his boat and the wharf. It was bright sunny summer day. It was however a week day and not too many people about even though the wharf is packed with boats. He could not reach his safety ladder as it was tied up out of the road. There was no ladder again on the wharf as nobody is supposed to swim there and it is only twenty five metres or so from shore. This poor guy however was not that much of a swimmer or had tired himself out trying to get on board his boat. His very faint cries for help were heard eventually by a liveaboard yachty, (yes I know its illegal). This yachty barely heard the faint cries for help but luckily was able to effect a rescue.

We hear so much about deaths by drowning, accidental deaths on board or at boat ramps that we forget often the accidents that have happened but did not end up with a death and the only lasting injury was pride. Still we need to learn from these accidents. It is imperative that we look at safety and what can go wrong when working around boats. So many people think it is uncool to wear life jackets or safety harnesses. It marks them out as not being proper seamen. Wrong! The proper seaman’s life jacket and harness is faded with sun and salt water but in very good condition. His footwear is the best gripping that he can get, (not always the most expensive) his pocket knife is razor sharp and he knows the safety rules for every state in Australia. He uses the tools of his trade safely and carefully, making being a seaman seem easy.

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more safety at sea

May 28th 2007 20:09

Safety at sea: Safety at sea or indeed anywhere around your boat is more important than actually being able to handle it. In fact one comes before the other. I blush when I remember an incident I was involved in some years ago. Returning to my mooring I found a penis brained charter skipper had sailed his cruiser, lavishly decorated with topless femme fatales and guys dripping in gold chains and Brylcream through all the moored boats in our bay and had entangled himself (or at least his boat) in my mooring. This was not the first time it had happened so to avoid having my mooring cut I had placed a good length of chain between the mooring and the rope, so his prop was caught on my chain.

I noticed that he had cut my dinghy adrift while he was trying to extricate himself from the chain. Lol. I sailed calmly by and told him to get the hell off my mooring while I went and retrieved the dinghy from shore where it had drifted. I got the international finger signal for my trouble. I was starting to get a bit angry and so when I sailed toward shore to pick up my dinghy, along comes an unsuspecting stranger. He was in a brand new, first time in the water tinnie with a beautiful little 9 hp outboard. He was sitting in the back like some demigod and his two young sons were sitting in a line in front of him. I didn’t realise at the time but the fact that all three were wearing brand new life jackets should have warned me he was a new chum on the water.
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Communication at sea

May 27th 2007 20:09

Communicating at sea by sign: I have already lauded the virtues of learning Morse code and knowing your flags. I am going to amplify my feelings on this now. At sea you are never positive that your VHF, UHF or HF radio is always working. Your cell phone is good for a few miles along the coast and who can really afford a satellite phone and how many people at sea could take calls from you anyhow? Or if your radio is working can you be sure of the other vessel that you want to communicate with. Perhaps if you are in international waters a foreign ship may want to communicate with you? How good is your Russian, Moldavian, Turkish or Yiddish? Flag signals cross all boundaries and have the same meaning in all languages. For the average boater just knowing the single flag signals would be enough but make sure you have a copy of multi flag signals on board as they are coded to give enough meaning to be able to fully communicate with any other yachty in any one of 180 languages! Just how good is that?

I use a copy of Brown’s Signalling by Brown, Son & Turner, Glasgow as it is pocket sized and takes up little room. The International Code Of Signals put out by the International Maritime Association London is official and a pretty big tome. Source these from Boat Books and if you put in an order over the net get some “flip cards” as well. Flags and Morse will be handy and you should have lights and shapes as well. These are handy pocket sized cards that can help you learn your night lights, day shapes flags and Morse.
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One pot cabbage and corn beef on board

May 25th 2007 20:12

One pot corned beef and cabbage: Captain Cook was one of the first English captains to convince his crew of the advantages of eating copious quantities of sauerkraut to keep scurvy at bay. Many captains prior to his famous voyages knew of the advantages of fresh fruit and vegetables in helping cure scurvy and the German, Dutch & Russian navies and merchant fleets were virtually scurvy free due to the national passion for sauerkraut and the ease of storing it on board as a vegetable. It is a known fact that during Nelson’s time the English fleets lost only 10% of their men to cannon casualties. 90% were lost to disease and on board accidents.

So how do we in today’s modern recreational fleets adapt sauerkraut and salt horse (corned beef or pork) to make a meals for the hearty sailors. I am fond of “one pot does all” and I go back to my roots and my sainted mother’s kitchen (with wood fuel stove) and her way of making Southern Estonian Sauerkraut & chicken. Cabbage, sauerkraut, potato, carrots all in one pot for hours on the hob of the stove, yummmm.
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