Drowning like a gentleman

I THINK I WOULD BE CORRECT in saying that most amateur sailors, and certainly most Americans, believe it is their right to be rescued when they get into trouble at sea, no matter how inexperienced they might be.

But I was struck lately how different things were a few decades ago.  I have been reading a memoir by Stuart Woods, entitled Blue Water, Green Skipper.  Woods has written 50 novels, including the best-selling Stone Barrington and Holly Barker series. 

In 1977, Woods decided to take part in the Observer Singlehanded Transatlantic Race  (the OSTAR) in a brand new Ron Holland-designed 30-footer, which he named Irish Harp.  He came 63rd out of 125 entrants, probably because he loaded his lightweight racer with all kinds of heavy gear, cases of French wine, fancy provisions from Harrods of London, and an early model EPIRB.

He mentions in the book that “Blondie Hasler, one of the founders of the OSTAR, would probably not approve of this equipment [the EPIRB] since he was against any competitor making use of rescue services. He has been quoted as saying, a competitor who got into trouble  ‘ . . .  should have the decency to drown like a gentleman and not bother the rescue people.’ ”

Hasler was not entirely joking. The feeling was quite prevalent among ocean cruisers in the 1970s. Eric Hiscock said much the same thing in print, and never carried an EPIRB on any of his circumnavigations. He believed that people who worked on the sea in a professional capacity were fully entitled to any rescue services available, but he thought that people who went to sea by choice, for their own personal pleasure, should never expect others to risk their lives to save them when they got into trouble. Self sufficiency was the watchword, combined with a very stiff upper lip.

I must confess that I was influenced by these cruising stalwarts.  I crossed the Atlantic twice in boats of 30 and 33 feet that had nothing more than VHF radios in the way of emergency transmitters.

Technology has changed the way we communicate now.  We are all much more interconnected by satellites, cellular towers, and the Internet. We talk more and more  about less and less and we feel the urge to be in touch whether or not we have anything important to say. I don’t think that is going to change in a hurry, but I like to think there are still a few cruisers out there, perhaps the ones who are getting away from it all, rather than taking it all with them, who think and act in the manner of Hasler and Hiscock. We don’t hear much about them but I’m sure they do exist.

Come to think of it, aren’t the only ones we hear about those who make the headlines by getting into trouble?  Those who don’t harbor any hope of being rescued are the ones who sail quietly and competently from port to port without any fuss, without bothering the rescue people, and expecting fully that they will drown like gentlemen should the occasion arise.

Today’s Thought

Self-preservation is the first law of nature.
— Samuel Butler, Remains

Tailpiece

“How’s work going?”
“Great. My wife just hired a new personal assistant for me.”
“Blonde or brunette?”
“Neither. He’s bald.”

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

How I wrote a kids' book

A FRIEND WHO ASPIRES to become a writer, bless her misguided soul, asked me the other day how it was that I came to write a children’s novel called Danger, Dolphins & Ginger Beer. It was all about sailing.

“How did you get the idea?” she wanted to know.

Well, I told her, I had been a writer almost all my working life, but I’d never written a children’s book. I had been a newspaper journalist, a common hack writing the usual news stories and, later, writing a daily humor column.  But it occurred to me one day that a good journalist ought to be able to write just about anything, so I decided to write an adventure novel for kids.  I had one big advantage to start with — I knew where the action would take place. My family and I had sailed our own boat in the British Virgin Islands in the Caribbean Sea.

There we saw a beautiful little island in Virgin Gorda Sound. On the chart it was called Mosquito Island. It had white sandy beaches and dark green palm trees rustling gently in the sweet-smelling trade winds. And, very importantly, it was just the right size for kids to have an adventure on.

Now this is a very romantic part of the world. It’s just a few miles from the island that Robert Louis Stevenson called Treasure Island in his famous book, and even closer to an island called Dead Man’s Chest, where 15 mutineers were stranded with no food and one bottle of rum, yo-ho-ho!

It didn’t take me long to write the book, and I thought I was very smart.  But when I sent it off to the publisher, my editor there wasn’t happy. She made me rewrite the whole book and add new characters — a pair of twins — to complicate the plot.

I’d started the book with the youngest character, Andy, sitting on a hill, acting as a lookout and guarding the camp on Crab Island. “Wrong,” said my editor, “in a children’s novel you must introduce the main character immediately, and the main character is Sally.” So I changed the beginning to Sally sailing back to the island in a small dinghy. I still don’t like my editor’s finished version as much as my original, but if you want to get a book printed you have to do what the editor says, whether the editor is right or wrong.  

I discovered, rather belatedly, that children’s novels are subject to all sorts of strict rules. They’re not at all easier to write than adult novels. Kids are very clever and they know the difference between a good book and a bad one.

My biggest challenge was to prevent little Andy from taking over the book — he’s such a bouncy, appealing character and he wants to be everywhere, doing everything, all the time.

Percy the pelican, and the little bird who sits on his head when he’s fishing, are real characters, though. We saw scores of them on Crab Island and laughed every time a pelican dived at full speed into the shallow surf with a big whoosh of rumpled feathers and that huge beak wide open to scoop up little fish. I could never understand why they didn’t break their necks.

Scorpion Island is real too, but its name on the nautical charts is Anegada. The book’s main character, Sally, is no-one in real life that I know of.  She’s a different sort of main character from most. She’s not flashy, not a show-off. She doesn’t draw attention to herself or demand praise. She’s quiet and thoughtful and loving and brave and resourceful. I think if I were a girl, I’d like to be Sally.

Danger, Dolphins & Ginger Beer was first published by Simon & Schuster in New York and for about 10 years it was used as a school textbook in various parts of America. It was also in libraries all over the country, of course, and it was translated into German and published in Hamburg. It’s now out of print, but you can find used copies on the Internet. 

I have a large file filled with letters and pictures from schoolkids saying how much they enjoyed the book. But I’ve learned not to get too swollen-headed about that. I soon figured out that their teachers mostly made them write those letters to me as class exercises.

And then, flushed with success at having sold my first children’s novel (and having proved my theory that a good journalist could write anything), I promptly wrote two more. Alas, nobody in the publishing world wanted to publish them. Some people might surmise from this that some journalists are not quite as smart as they think themselves to be. But my theory is that some people just don’t recognize a good thing when they see it. Stupid publishers.

Today’s Thought

I discovered that rejections are not altogether a bad thing. They teach a writer to rely on his own judgment and to say in his heart of hearts, “To hell with you.”
— Saul Bellow, NY Times, 21 Jul 85

Tailpiece

One from the Walnut Street Gazeout (should be Gazette):
“How’s your husband doing with his drinking these days?”
“Much better. One bottle of beer puts him flat on his back now — if I aim it properly.”

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

How much heat you need

WHERE I LIVE, it’s the season of spiders’ webs and cold, clammy fog.  The silky glistening strands whose presence is revealed by the condensed moisture remind me that this is also the season when boaters need to start thinking about on-board heating, if they haven’t done so already.

If you’re starting from scratch, how can you find out how much heat you need?

Well, you can estimate pretty closely the hourly amount of heat you need for a cabin by multiplying the volume in cubic feet by a number varying from 10 to 20, depending on how fiercely cold the winter is in your area. The result is expressed in British Thermal Units, or Btu/hour.

In sub-tropical Florida, for example, the number would probably be 10; in southern California it would be 12 or 13; Washington state would rate about 15 or 16; and New England would be about 20.

For example, let’s say you have a cabin measuring 10 feet by 8 feet by 6 feet. That’s 480 cubic feet.  If you lived in San Diego (number 13) you’d need a heater capable of putting out 480 x 13 = 6,240 Btu/hour.

If you lived in Maine (number 20), your heater should be capable of producing 480 x 20 = 9,600 Btu/hour.

If you take it into your head to cruise all over the place, you should probably work out the coldest climate and the length of time you’re likely to be there, and make some sort of compromise.  There’s not much point in having a big, fierce heater if it’s not used for the majority of the time.

Very small boats might prove an exception to the formula rule expressed above. I have cruised on boats so small that a Coleman pressure kerosene lamp was adequate to heat the cabin and dry out our soaked underwear as well.

Don’t be tempted to use a household kerosene heater, though. They are too easily tipped over on a boat and they produce enough carbon monoxide to kill you.  Remember that carbon monoxide is present wherever there is an open flame or an engine exhaust.  If your source of heat is gas or kerosene you should either make sure to open a porthole or companionway slide to admit fresh air (and thereby cool down the cabin, which seems to defeat the whole object of the exercise) or have a proper smoke stack to dispose of the fumes laden with carbon monoxide.

Finally, if you have no heater, or your source of heat fails, try rum. If your insides are toasty warm, it hardly matters how cold the surrounding air is.

Today’s Thought

We have all sinned and come short of the glory of making ourselves as comfortable as we easily might have done.

— Samuel Butler the Younger, The Way of All Flesh

Tailpiece

Doctors keep telling us that exercise kills germs. But how do you get the pesky little things to exercise?

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

Another peril of the sea

This is the Italian container ship Ital Florida on a good day.

This is the Ital Florida on a bad day. They call it a "stack attack." She lost at least three fully loaded containers in the Arabian Sea.

This is what the sea bed looks like in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, California. It was one of 15 containers washed overboard from the merchant vessel Med Taipei.

 

 

WE CAN SAFELY add the word “container” to the list of perils that threaten those upon the sea.

Based on survey results, the World Shipping Council estimated in 2011 that on average there are approximately 350 containers lost at sea each year, not counting what they delicately refer to as “catastrophic events.”  Those are times when ships lose “from 50 to several hundred” containers overboard in one accident. 

And if you include the catastrophic losses, ships lose approximately 675 containers at sea every year.

Now, nothing spoils a nice day of sailing like running full-pelt into a half-submerged 40-foot container in stormy seas. And it’s even worse at night. For small yachts, these are perils as dangerous as any reef or rock. What’s more, they’re scattered all over the world’s oceans and they’re totally uncharted.

It’s not as if these were freak accidents. They happen all the time on a regular basis, and you can bet your life that the number of lost containers is growing every year.  It seems to me that if you are going to defy the basic tenets of good seamanship, and overload your vessel with deck cargo piled so high that it topples overboard in heavy seas, then you ought by law to provide each and every container with an Epirb that activates itself if it falls overboard, plus a buoy on a long line to enable its recovery when it sinks. Then the shipping company should be made to recover the container before it is allowed to carry any more.

We worry about the amount of floating plastic and debris that is already fouling our deep-sea habitat and threatening the lives of sea creatures, but few of us pause to think how much trash is being deposited on the ocean floors in steel containers.

But besides that, human lives are at stake here. Floating containers are deadly to small boats.  This ought not to be a game to see how many containers we can stack on deck without any falling overboard, and how much more profit we can make by piling a few more on top of that. It’s time the shipping companies faced up to their responsibilities and quit laying these death-traps for small-boat mariners.

Today’s Thought

Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,

For those in peril on the sea!

— William Whiting, Eternal Father, Strong to Save

Tailpiece

“Daddy, what’s a pink elephant?”

“It’s a beast of bourbon, my dear.”

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

Sailing smooths the troubled soul

THERE IS SOMETHING about sailing that attracts people with problems.  Perhaps it is an escape —  the thought of gliding gracefully over calm waters in healing silence, far from the worries and distractions of modern civilization.  Perhaps it is the faint hiss of the wake, the beautiful swell of the sails and the gleam of the varnish.

The interesting thing is that the size of the boat doesn’t seem to matter.  I can remember two occasions when I took grown men sailing in an 11-foot Mirror dinghy.  They were seeking salve for their troubled souls, and they didn’t seem to mind cramming themselves into a boat designed for one adult and one child.

The first occasion involved an older friend who was going through a palace revolution at work. He was a director of a large and powerful company and his future was to be decided by the full board of directors at a special meeting after lunch.

He asked if I would take him sailing in the Mirror. “I don’t know what to do with myself,” he said. “Two things can happen. They can kick me out — and then I’m done for. Or they can promote me — and I’ll be in the catbird seat.  Meanwhile, I can’t stand the stress.”

We went sailing on the bay.  I gave him the helm. I thought it would distract him from what was happening at work, and I guess it did.  He never did lose his tenseness completely, but the soothing, calming effect of sailing worked its magic on him and the farther we went the more he relaxed.

After a few hours, when he judged the board meeting would be over, we headed back, and he drove off.  I learned next day that he was the new executive boss of the company, destined to become rich and powerful, and never to set foot in anything as small as a Mirror again.

On another occasion a military man asked me to teach him to sail. He was a major in the army. He, too, took the helm of the little Mirror and  was soon sailing with some confidence. He seemed to be a very nice man, not at all as fierce as I had imagined an army major might be, and he was obviously a quick learner. I thought him very smart, in large part because, at the end of the lesson, he praised me for being a good teacher.

Two weeks later he committed suicide. Shot himself in the head.

I was shocked, and didn’t know quite what to think of that, or how I might have borne some responsibility. In the end, I decided that the magic of the Mirror came too late to save his troubled soul. I can only hope he found a few precious moments of mental peace while we were out in the Mirror together.

Today’s Thought

To know how to suggest is the great art of teaching.
— Amiel, Journal, 16 Nov 1864

Tailpiece

Heredity is one of those scientific terms that can be very confusing, but basically it means that if your grandfather didn’t have children, then your father wouldn’t have either, and neither will you.

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

The role of inertia

OF THE PEOPLE who find themselves at sea in a small ballasted monohull, few realize that their continued existence depends largely on the outcome of a constant fight between wave impact and inertia.

It is generally understood that a deep-keeled monohull sailboat of almost any size can be capsized by a breaker plunging down the face of a large ocean swell.  But what is not so well understood is the fact that it’s inertia that resists the initial effect of the wave impact. It’s inertia that prevents sudden capsize.

The deeper, heavier, and longer a boat is, the more inertia she possesses. In fact, heavy-displacement keelboats may have as much as five times more resistance to being rolled over than ultra-light boats of the same length, according to renowned research scientist and naval architect Tony Marchaj.

Now, if you have trouble understanding the physical property called inertia, it might help to know that it has two opposite effects.  Matter that is at rest wants to stay at rest. It will resist any attempt to move it suddenly.  And the more matter there is, the more it resists. That’s why it’s difficult to make a boat with a heavy mast roll suddenly: the mast resists quick movement.

But when matter is already moving, it wants to keep moving at the same speed in the same direction. It doesn’t want to be disturbed, and it will resist any sudden changes.

Now, you should not assume that a mast with great inertia will prevent rolling altogether. A steady force will always start the mast moving. What inertia prevents is sudden movement, so that a wave breaking against the side of a heavy-displacement boat with a heavy mast will not be able to throw her over on her beam ends, as it might a light-displacement boat.

There are limits, of course, to the amount of inertia a heavy mast can produce, and as is usual with everything to do with yachts, there are penalties to be paid. Inertia will certainly slow down the frenzied, jerky rolling of a boat running in the trade winds and let her tick slowly from side to side like the pendulum on a grandfather clock.  But, if she falls into a rhythm that coincides with the intervals of the swells, the distance of her rolls to each side will be amplified, and you will end up with the sickening feeling that she’s never going to recover from a particularly heavy roll and just keep going over forever.

So, the job of the yacht designer is to find that happy compromise between beam, draft, length, displacement, and distributed mass which results in a reasonable amount of inertia, but not so much as to cause sickening rolling, excessive hobby-horsing, or a downgrading of performance. Few people who go to sea in ballasted monohulls appreciate how difficult that job really is.

More information

I’VE HAD SOME SQUAWKS from readers who couldn’t quite believe what I said in my last column about the Coast Guard constantly and deliberately contravening the law of the land and the Constitution of the United States by boarding private yachts for random inspections.

Well, doubters might like to click on this link for more information:

http://www.sailfeed.com/2012/10/coast-guard-boardings-and-your-fourth-amendment-rights-part-1/

Today’s Thought

Architecture is preeminently that art of significant forms in space — that is, forms significant of their functions.
— Claude Bragdon, Wake Up and Dream

Tailpiece

“Have a good time at the party, darling, and be a good girl.”
“Jeez, Mom, make up your mind.”

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

What's missed most of all

ALTHOUGH MODERN CRUISING YACHTS seem to be able to provide almost all of the luxuries of the modern home — right down to the toaster, the microwave, and even a form of washing machine — there is one appliance whose absence is rued more than any other: the dishwasher.

It’s ironic, to say the least, that the dishwasher, the most desirable of all electric mod-cons, should be the one that’s missing.  Very few people find any kind of enjoyment in washing dishes by hand, even on shore, but when it comes to washing up in salt water in the cockpit of a boat rolling its gunwales under at sea, even avowed martyrs tend to cry off.

I know what I’m talking about.  I have solid dishwashing credentials. I have washed dishes three times a day for four men for 33 days in a row while crossing the Atlantic.  I was the designated dish washer and dryer because I couldn’t take my turn at cooking.  Not only was I unable to cook, but any attempt made me seasick.  As I was also the navigator, they needed me to be un-seasick in order to fathom out where we were, so we came to a compromise.  I would wash up and they would cook.

I also washed dishes professionally as a crewmember of an ocean liner plowing a wake between South Africa and London. I was, in fact, a paid-up member of a seamen’s union — catering branch.  The job involved fetching food and washing up for six men in the starboard greasers’ mess.  But after a couple of nights of dutifully washing their dishes, the greaser’s steward from the port greasers’ mess across the way wandered by and asked what I was doing.

He laughed when I said I was washing up, of course. He said nobody did that any more. “Throw them out of the porthole,” he said.  “Pick up clean dishes from the dishwasher in the Tourist Class galley.”

I felt a little guilty at first, throwing all that perfectly good crockery into the sea, but it did give me a lot of spare time to go on deck and catch a nice tan to show off in dreary London, and I was much obliged to my new friend across the way.

I have known cruisers who advocate putting all your dirty mugs, dishes, and cooking pots into a mesh net and dragging them behind the boat overnight.  The theory is good, but I have never had the guts to try, fearing that some hungry shark would be attracted to this nice shiny bundle and devour all our cooking and eating utensils.

Experienced singlehanders do all they can to reduce the number of plates and pots they use. The male variety, especially, tend to save labor by eating and drinking straight from the can, deliberately living on baked beans for days on end, and treating everything edible as finger food. 

Well, when you’re on your own and there’s no one to criticize your table manners, what does it matter how you actually transfer food from the stove to the mouth?  All it takes afterward is a good suck of the fingers, and you’re good to go. No washing up. What a joy.

Today’s Thought

It’s not labor that kills, but the small attritions of daily routine that wear us down.

— Roy Bedicheck, Adventures with a Texas Naturalist

Tailpiece

‘Waiter, there’s a button in my plate of crab.”
“Terribly sorry, sir. It must have come off when the salad was being dressed.”

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