The perfect crew

WHAT KIND OF PERSON makes the best crew? Sometimes I try to rank the assets of a good crewmember.  For example, is a sense of humor more valuable than the ability to steer a nice course to windward? Is a good cook better than a hand who can apply bottom paint without supervision?

The permutations are endless, but every time I come up with the same answer. The best crew is the one who is almost invisible. The one who is always in the right place at right time. Never in your way.  Never sits on companionway steps. Never blocks the gangway down below. Just glides into a bunk and disappears. Never hogs the head.

This person has a sort of sixth sense regarding his or her presence in relation to other people, particularly the skipper, and always keeps clear. Without consciously knowing it, this person is acutely aware of exactly where other people are and where they are likely to want to be in the immediate future.

Now and then you see people like this in airports and on planes. They always have their shoes off without being asked. They never get pinged by the metal detector. They always have their ID ready to show alongside their ticket and boarding pass. They never have to search their carry-on for their missing passport. The main thing about them is that you never notice them unless you're specifically looking for them. They're never the center of any fuss. They never seem to need help. They just quietly and efficiently go about their business, slipping in and out of exactly the right lines. And they all had a pee before they left home, just like their Mom told them.

I have a theory about these people.  I think they're somebody's crew.  Some sailboat owner has trained them.  Sailors, all of them.  Sailors of the best kind, bless 'em.  Why can't everybody be like them?

Today's Thought

How often the highest talent is wrapped in obscurity.

— Plautus, Captivi

Tailpiece

"Mom, what are those things?"
"They're blackberries."
"But they're red."
"Yes, blackberries are always red when they're green."

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$pring is $prung

IT'S A SURE SIGN of spring and the new sailing season when the mailman delivers the West Marine catalog.  I'm not sure, though, that I get enough respect from the mailman.  I'm thinking of getting me a gold frame for my mailbox, so the mailman knows I belong to the Mitt Romney set, the 1 percent whom West Marine optimistically presumes can afford to order stuff from their catalog.

Mitt says his wife has two Cadillacs. Ha! She should have a boat. Then she'd need winches. Winches are on page 11 of my new catalog.  Andersen winches, made by Ronstan.  The top-end ones retail for $11,069.  And that's not for two.  That's $11,069 each, though I must admit you can get a $300 mail-in rebate if you should deign to ask for it.

Flip forward to page 21 and you can see the sort of Rocna anchor you might need.  I have never liked Rocnas, not because they don't perform well, but because it's such a hokey name.  It's just anchor spelled backwards without the "h."  Somebody's little joke. But the price is not a joke. The big ones go for $4,100 each.  Mitt is just lucky his wife's Cadillacs don't need anchors.

They probably don't need touchscreen GPS plotters, either.  Sailors seem to, however, because West Marine is offering top-of-the-line Garmin GPSMap network multi-function displays for a mere $6,099.99.  You might wonder at the 99 cents.  I think it has something to do with forcing the cashier to make change when people come in and start flinging 1,000-dollar bills around. Giving them 1-cent change must make them feel they're getting a better deal.

I don't quite know how to explain a charge of $17.11, however.  I can't imagine a back-office number-cruncher figuring out that this is the exact sum for which an item should sell to make exactly the profit anticipated. Nevertheless, West Marine is charging $17.11 a foot for large-sized anchor chain.  That's $1.42 an inch, which should impress the mailman if nothing else does.

It's a good job sailors belong to the Romney 1 percent because although they don't have to do their own painting and varnishing, they still have to pay for the anti-fouling and varnish that the hired labor needs.  My catalog lists Trinidad's fine SR antifouling paint at $244.99 a gallon, and that's a bargain price apparently because it's normally $264.99.  As for varnish, well, it's  a steal.  Interlux's Schooner Gold varnish retails for $52.99 a quart.  That makes it only $211.96 a gallon.

But even the big spenders like bargains, of course, and it's only fair to mention that not everything in this catalog is reckoned in the thousands. For instance, there's a Tiller Tamer for only $31.99.  It does the same job as a 5-cent piece of old rope, of course, but it looks more sophisticated.

In the same league, on page 13 there's a Robship Line Holder, a scrap of material that will hold a coiled line to a pulpit railing.  It costs a mere $19.19 (another problem for the cashier) and it creates a feeling of high-tech savvy for newbies who don't know that you can keep the same coil in place just as securely by tucking one end through the loop.

And what's more, the mailman doesn't need to know you're buying a line holder rather than a set of $11,000 winches.  All he needs to know is that you belong to the 1 percent who get West Marine catalogs.

Today's Thought

"Vile money!" True. Let's have enough
To save our thinking of such stuff.
— William Allingham, Blackberries

Tailpiece

"I want a corset for my wife."
"Yes, sir, what bust?"
"Nothing. She just wore it out."

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The green non-flash

A MESSAGE from "Crystal," in the Sea of Cortez says:

"Before we left San Diego we head lots of stories from fellow cruisers about how easy it is to see the fabled green flash at sunset.  We've been in the Sea of Cortez for more than a month now, and we haven't seen any sign of a green flash.  What are we doing wrong?"

Well, Crystal, first of all, you need a sea horizon to the west of you at sunset. If you're in the Gulf of California you have land to the west of you all the way from Cabo San Lucas north almost to the U. S. border.  That means you won't see the sun set  over the sea unless you are a good distance offshore, and I imagine that you're pretty close to the shore when you anchor most nights.

Secondly, the green flash is an elusive phenomenon. You can watch until you're blue in the face and never see one.  But on rare occasions, when atmospheric conditions are right, you might see a green flash in the very last rays of the setting sun as it sinks into the sea.

It has been mentioned by several well-known ocean voyagers, and I've seen it myself in the middle of the South Atlantic on a calm evening in the southeast trades. It usually lasts only a fraction of a second but you can prolong it slightly by standing up immediately you see it. If you're really lucky, your boat might be lifted on a swell at that moment, which will save you the trouble of standing up, but don't count on it.

There are a lot of pictures of green flashes on the Internet to whet your appetite, Crystal. Mr. Google is just dying to show them to you. And there's a good backgrounder on green flashes by Andrew T. Young [1].  Meanwhile, however, you should steel yourself to the fact that you're not likely to see a green flash until you sail out of the Sea of Cortez. I'm afraid you're in green-flash-proof territory down there.  I'm sure there is a lot to compensate for this small loss, however.

PS:  I'm told the green flash sometimes occurs at dawn, too, when the bleary sun is just struggling over the horizon. If you're desperate enough, you might watch out for it.

[1] http://mintaka.sdsu.edu/GF/index.html

Today's Thought

Nature is a rag-merchant, who works up every shred and ort and end into new creations; like a good chemist whom I found, the other day, in his laboratory, converting his old shirts into pure white sugar.
— Emerson, Conduct of Life: Considerations by the Way

Tailpiece

"What's Paddy doing with the big roll of barbed wire?"
"He's practicing for the Irish fencing team."

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

Seaworthy centerboards

THIS COMMENT just in from someone called Hugo:

"Hello Mr Vigor! As per your book The Seaworthy Offshore Sailboat, boats with a combination of keel and centerboard may not be seaworthy. Since I am considering buying a Jeanneau Sun Rise 35 with a combined pivoting centerboard and stub keel, I am writing to you for advice. Would you consider this particular boat safe and seaworthy enough to cruise from Bermuda to Polynesia and sail around the islands, with side visits to New Zealand and Australia?.

"I shall very much appreciate your expert opinion.

"Best regards,

"Hugo."

Well, Hugo, I don't recall saying that keel/centerboarders are not seaworthy.  What I said was that the seaworthiness of such a boat is very difficult to evaluate in terms of its recovery from an upside-down position.   And I don't remember claiming to be an expert  on the subject, either.  So take what advice I have to offer with a liberal dose of salt.

I must say that Jeanneau has had a lot of experience with keel/centerboarders of various sizes, even if they weren't exactly designed for ocean voyaging in the first place. Most of the type are designed as coastal cruisers in areas where shallow waters prevail.  There is no profit in building a centerboarder if your usual cruising waters are deep enough for a fixed keel.

On the other hand, many of the hardest-working ocean-going sailboats are deep-sea racers, and there was a time when, for rule-cheating reasons, many of them were built with centerboards protruding from a stub keel.  The stub keel gave them ballasted stability, of course, and the deep, thin centerboard made them very efficient to windward.

According to Ted Brewer, the well-known naval architect, "One true rule beater was the 1950s Olin Stephens-designed Finisterre. This beamy keel/centerboard yawl took advantage of the rule without really bending it. Her wide beam (moderate by today's standards), shoal centerboard draft, hefty displacement, modest ballast, and yawl rig combined to give her a favorable rating. Combined with Olin Stephen's design genius and Carleton Mitchell's expert handling, she was the boat to beat in any race she entered, and won a room full of trophies. Finisterre's success inspired a host of keel/centerboard yawls, ranging from Bill Shaw's lovely little 24-foot MORC racer, Trina, to Bill Tripp's handsome Block Island 40 and Bermuda 40 and big 50-plus footers such as the beautiful Innishfree, designed by George Cuthbertson, founder of C&C Yachts." 

Eventually, this combination of keel and centerboard gave way to fin keels and spade rudders, but when the keel/centerboard combination ruled the roost, such boats went to sea in all weather conditions and did just fine.

I don't think you have anything to worry about on the score of seaworthiness, Hugo.  These boats are not terribly popular now because it's more expensive to build in a centerboard, which, incidentally, also introduces another thing to go wrong at the most awkward time.

There are advantages, though.  Besides allowing you to sail in water less than 4 feet deep, your Sun Rise 35's centerboard will help you balance the boat to its sailplan by moving the board back or forward to change the center of lateral resistance.

At least, that's the theory.  I don't think you're likely to bother too much with this while you're swanning around the South Seas distracted by the rustle of grass skirts, but it's nice to know that you could if you wanted to.

So go for it, Hugo.  Happy Sun Rise to you.

Today's Thought

 The fruit of my tree of knowledge is plucked, and it is this: "Adventures are to the adventurous."
— Benjamin Disraeli, Ixion in Heaven

Tailpiece
"What's the orchestra playing now?" 
"According to that board over there, it's a Refrain from Spitting."

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It pays to be single

IT ALWAYS GIVES ME a good feeling when a boat I'm on has two means of propulsion, sails and an auxiliary motor.  So I'm always rather glad, for safety reasons, that I'm not aboard a motor cruiser that has only one diesel engine and no way to make sail.

There are an awful lot of powerboats that have only one engine, including the majority of the world's fishing boats, and it used to puzzle me why this should be.  But after a little research I discovered the answer:  In general, two engines are not twice as good as one, whether they be inboards or outboards.

As a rule, twin-screw installations are comparatively wasteful of power. They also cost more, need larger fuel tanks, require more servicing, and weigh far more.  In addition, twin-screw installations are commonly rather cramped, and leave little room for access, thus almost guaranteeing that the engines will be poorly maintained.

The commonest reason for having twin engines is safety. But that can be misleading. Many twin-screw powerboats with planing hulls are almost unmanageable under one engine in bad sea conditions — the very conditions under which engine failure is most likely.

What is often overlooked is the fact that a boat with two 100-h.p. engines cannot make the same use of all the available power as a boat with one 200-h.p. engine. Added weight, added friction in drivetrains, and added underwater drag from extra struts and rudders are high prices to pay.

The rule of thumb is that a twin-screw installation wastes about 20 percent of the power available compared with a single engine of comparable horsepower. With fuel prices reaching record levels, that's a formidable price to pay.  Besides, modern diesel engines are extremely reliable if they're given the simple maintenance they require.

I still prefer to have an alternative means of propulsion up my sleeve, but now I can see why designers and builders turn out so many single-engined motor cruisers. They're trading fuel economy and efficiency for safety, certainly, but the odds are on their side.

Today's Thought

Power is so far from being desirable in itself that it sometimes ought to be refused, and sometimes to be resigned.

— Cicero, De Officiis

Tailpiece

A sailor rowing a dinghy came across a man in the water fighting off a shark. Nearby, on a 45-foot ketch, the man's wife stood calmly by with a rifle in her hand.

"Why don't you shoot the beast?" the sailor asked.
"I will if I have to," said the woman, "but I'm waiting to see if the shark will save me the trouble."

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A bigger fish to fry

FRENCH FISHERMEN have caught the biggest fish in the Indian Ocean — a 28,000-ton Italian luxury cruise ship with more than 1,000 people on board.

The tuna-fisher Trevignon responded to a call for help from the Costa Allegra when a fire destroyed the cruise ship's generators and disabled her engines. Although tiny in size compared with the Allegra, the Trevignon has powerful engines designed to haul heavy seine nets through the water.

The fishing boat got a line aboard the stricken liner and towed her at 6 knots for three days to Mahé, capital of the Seychelle Islands. Along the way, the Frenchmen refused to hand their prize over to two more powerful tugs from Mahé, which could have towed the liner faster and got her passengers ashore about a day earlier. Without electrical power, the passengers had no working toilets, no air conditioning, and no hot food.

Now, with the Allegra safely berthed in port, the Trevignon's crew can look forward to a salvage award that could mean they'll never have to catch another tuna in their lives.  

According to Captain D. Peter Boucher, a retired master mariner living in Coral Gables, Florida, once that towline was passed and accepted, the standard maritime salvage rights were established for the FV Trevignon. Even though the fishing boat is French and the  liner is Italian, English Law will apply, Capt. Boucher maintains.

Lloyds' Open Form (LOF) is a salvage agreement almost universally accepted by seafarers. "It is a "No Cure No Pay" agreement, which was put in place in the 19th century by Lloyds' Insurance of London, United Kingdom," says Boucher. "No amount of money is quoted in LOF, which is about a page-and-a-half long, and quite basic. Once the salvage is successful (that is, "cured") then an arbitrator sits down and assesses the entire operation to come up with an award amount for the "cure," based on the value of the ship, its cargo and/or passengers, risks involved, dangers involved, and the overall degree of difficulty.

"Usually the arbitrator is a Queen's Counsel of the English Admiralty Bar who follows English Civil Law on Salvage and decides on the award to the tower vessel. Clearly in the current case of towing the MS Costa Allegra, a passenger vessel, this award could be considerable."

It can take many months to decide such matters, of course, but if the crew of the Trevignon are like many other sailors I know, I bet they're swilling champagne and living the high life in Mahé right now and celebrating the biggest catch of their lives.

(The Costa Allegra, incidentally, belongs to the same company as the cruise liner Costa Concordia, which capsized recently after hitting rocks off the Italian island of Giglio.)

Today's Thought

This is our special duty, that if anyone specially needs our help, we should give him such help to the utmost of our power.
— Cicero, De Officiis

Tailpiece

Fruit fly to horse fly:  "Uh, don't look now, my friend, but your human is undone."

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A word to savor

ONE OF THE ANCIENT SAILING WORDS that should be used more often, lest it disappear from our vocabulary, is futtock.  I love it.  It has a fascinating ring about it. It's a word to savor. I always think it sounds like something you shout when you accidentally hit your thumb with a hammer, or drop your sunglasses overboard.

But no, futtock is a corruption of foot-hook.  In wooden ships, futtocks are the curved parts of transverse frames extending from the floor-timbers at the turn of the bilge to meet the top-timbers.

Most of us will know the word from maritime historical novels, such as Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series, where neophyte sailors are always getting into trouble at the futtock shrouds on large sailing ships.

According to Cornell's old Encyclopedia of Nautical Knowledge, the futtock shrouds were usually iron rods, the harbingers of the rod rigging found on today's ocean racers.  These rods were downward extensions of the topmast shrouds. They helped stiffen the top in addition to taking the stress of the topmast rigging.  They were adorned with ratlines so that sailors could swarm up and over them, but the interesting thing about the futtock shrouds was that they slanted outward from the mast, and thus presented what the encyclopedia calls "an interesting obstacle to the beginner as he scrambled aloft."  Interesting indeed.  You had to be able to climb upside down, almost like a fly landing on a ceiling. How they kept their feet on the ratlines I'll never know.

Most ships also had an opening next to the mast, through which you could crawl instead, but no real sailor would be seen dead using what was called the lubbers' hole.  So they all went a-futtocking, and sadly some of them fell off.  Perhaps it's for the best that futtock shrouds have almost disappeared, but do let's try to preserve the word itself.  Say it after me. Futtock, futtock, futtock.  There, doesn't that feel better?

Today's Thought

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.
— Rudyard Kipling, Speech

Tailpiece

"What have you done to my article on organic milk? I wrote 1,000 words and you've only used 300."
"Sorry. We had to condense it."

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