• Boat Life,  Marina,  Nature

    Birds on a Wire

    Ain't that pretty?

    Aww – ain’t that cute? All those pretty little birdies all lined up nice like that. Birds are beautiful – nature is just wonderful! Awwww.

    Of course, you don’t have to clean up the line of crap left behind by Tweetie and friends. Not so cute!

  • Baby On Board,  Boat Life

    Keeping Kids Safe on a Boat

    We recently added another tool to the toolbox of keeping The Boy safely on the boat. He is now at the age (3 1/2) where he is curious, impulsive and wants to try and do everything. That means that, in a flash he can be out of the cabin and onto the deck of the boat. If he can fly out of here so fast, then we have to consider the possibility that he could just as quickly end up in the water. It worries me sometimes with A here and taking care of Baby Girl, that The Boy could get into trouble.

    So we bought him a turtle watch.

    Actually, it is “Safety Turtle personal immersion alarm” that he wears on his wrist or ankle that will send a signal to a Base unit if it gets wet. i.e. falls in the lake. The base unit stays plugged in and is kept centrally in the boat along with one of the smoke detectors and the Carbon Monoxide detector. If the “turtle” gets wet, the base alarm sounds an ear-piercing siren that is loud enough to be heard anywhere around the boat.

    So … it had it’s first ‘test’ the other day. The Boy was out on deck and all of a sudden the alarm went off. A. bolted out the door to see what was going on and found The Boy … licking his new turtle watch. Huh?! Yep, licking it. Nope, don’t know why. Anyway, now we know it works and only his wrist had to get wet to check it out.

    Keeping kids safe on a boat is a topic that I’ve put a lot of thought into over the past couple of years. (Other post here.) I always seem to come back to the concept of Vigor’s Invisible Black Box. Check out the post Safety at Sea from a couple of years ago for a description of VIBB. Every time you envision what could go wrong and then plan for it, you are adding another piece of equipment to your VIBB. Safety, not just at sea, but generally in life is a combination of awareness and small corrections. Awareness of what could go wrong – awareness of something that is going wrong and then the small corrections to prevent or stop that situation. Of course, I’m not saying that disaster will not strike, but with planning and awareness you can prevent the series of small events that lead to catastrophe.

    Safety is a state of mind – it is living fully aware.

    John Vigor wrote an article for Good Old Boat about the Black Box theory – check it out, it’s an interesting read.

    Finally – every boater who ever leaves the dock should have John’s book, Seaworthy Offshore Sailboat: A Guide to Essential Features, Handling, and Gear. Even if you have no intention of going off-shore, the concepts and planning will help keep you safe anytime you are out on the water.

  • Boat Skills,  Marina

    Take Care of Your Bow

    Docking Lesson No 1: When maneuvering your boat in strong winds, always be aware of your bow. It is the lightest part of your boat and is usually the furthest point from you and easily forgotten when looking for your slip or trying to set up your dock lines. Like the children’s song says, “When the wind blows, the bow will break,” (I know – it’s bough) and before you know it, the mad scramble begins to try to regain control of it and ultimately your boat.

    On Sunday our neighbour went out in his beautiful (and new) Delphia 33. Beautiful boat! The sun was shinning, the wind was blowing a good 20 knots – basically a great day for a sail. Getting back into his slip became the tricky part. His plan was to back into his slip with the wind blowing straight down the slip. His initial approach was perfect – he came slightly past his slip, jammed it into reverse and with the wind blowing the bow to line up the boat began to back in. This is where he made his first mistake – he had the wheel turned the wrong way which made his boat go sideways instead of backwards. Back into gear and pull forward – no problem yet. Then he made his 2nd mistake (and the more costly one) instead of turning straight out into the channel and realigning the boat to back up for another approach, he just went forward a short distance and then tried to reverse back into the slip again. Only now because of the wind, prop-walk and momentum he was no longer lined up with his slip. Back into forward again, but now it was too late. The wind had caught his bow and swung him straight out, so that when he went into forward he was going straight at the boats in their slips on the dock across the channel. He tried to correct with hard port rudder and more gas but the bow was too far gone. CRASH. After unhooking himself from the boat anchor that he was hung up on, he went down the channel a ways and then reversed into his slip perfectly.

    However, the damage was already done.

    Delphia Damage

    Bow Damage

    Some tips when working in a wind:

    • Use the wind to your advantage. Be aware of exactly where the wind is coming from. Use your experience to know what that wind is going to do to your boat and then use the wind to your best advantage.
    • Sometimes when the wind is blowing, it is easier to just go in bow first rather than losing your momentum and stability in the wind by going into reverse. It is far more fun coming back tomorrow to switch your boat around than doing repairs (and paying for other boat repairs.)
    • When trying to dock directly into the wind, reverse might be the best option. Your bow will simply follow where you go – the wind will keep it in line – you don’t have to hardly even think about it anymore.
    • When everything goes to crap – simply pull out – go down the channel a ways – catch your breath, and then get everything lined up for another shot. The reverse – CRAP … forward hard – reverse again – AH NOOOO … forward will full gas scenario is not what you want. If you bung it up, start over.

    Maybe humming Rock-a-bye-baby will help you to Take Care of Your Bow.

    Rock-a-bye baby, in the water channel,
    When the wind blows, the boat will rock,
    When the bow breaks, the boat will crash,
    And down will go baby, bow and all.