The fish that really flies

ONE THING that has niggled at me for a long time is the fact that so many marine biologists say that flying fish don’t fly. These supposed experts maintain that flying fish simply extend their fins and glide. And I have always maintained that they do fly.  I have seen them from the close and low vantage point of a small yacht as they burst out of a swell, glide for a certain distance, then waggle their tails in the water as they descend, gather speed again, and then flap their “wings” strongly before starting another glide.

I am glad to say I have now found a supporting voice. And a famous one, at that. Last night I was re-reading Conor O’Brien’s book, Across Three Oceans, and he agrees with me. O’Brien was an Irish master mariner who sailed his 42-foot ketch Saoirse around the world in 1923. This is what he had to say about flying fish:

“I am prepared to swear that they can and do fly, all the statements of the anatomists notwithstanding. At least I say that by vibrating their wings they can increase their height and their speed and make abrupt turns in circumstances which preclude the hypothesis of an ascending puff of wind under them. But they cannot rise from the deck, and they are very good eating.”

Thank you, Captain O’Brien. I needed that. I’ll sleep more soundly now.

Today’s Thought

 An expert is somebody who is more than 50 miles from home, has no responsibility for implementing the advice he gives, and shows slides.

— Edwin Meese III, White House counsel

Tailpiece

  “O’Flaherty, what are you doing here? Your brother called and said you were sick and wouldn’t be coming to work today.”

“Ah begorrah, the joke’s on him. He’s not supposed to phone until tomorrow.”

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

Sleep -- the forgotten factor

ONE THING that people seldom think about when they’re planning an ocean passage in a small boat is how they’re going to get enough sleep. But sleep is actually very important — and sometimes it’s not as easy to come by as you might imagine.

Without sound sleep, the crew will soon start showing signs of frayed tempers. Arguments will spring up out of nowhere. They will start losing interest in food. They will have difficulty concentrating on their jobs and they may place everyone in danger by dozing off while on watch. In short, they will become very inefficient, and if the deprivation lasts long enough they may experience illusions.

The problem is that it’s often not possible to enjoy a long, undisturbed sleep on a boat that’s being driven hard in a brisk breeze. If you haven’t been to sea on a small sailboat, you can’t begin to imagine the noises that emanate from blocks and winches, the slapping of halyards and sheets against the mast or deck, waves thumping against the hull, and pots, pans, and cans of food sliding around in the galley lockers.

Furthermore, in short-handed boats the crew’s sleep is often disturbed by calls to appear on deck to make or shorten sail; and, of course, we haven’t even mentioned the physical problem of sleeping on a boat that’s being tossed around in  head seas or rolling excessively in a following trade wind.

There may well be some sailors who can come off watch, crumple up in a bunk, and fall sound asleep in minutes, no matter how the boat is performing, but I always found it difficult to get any sleep at all during a gale, even if I were in my berth, safely tucked in behind the lee cloth. In the first place, there’s the noise. Few landlubbers would believe the volume of the noise that’s made by a gale-force wind howling through the rigging, or the way it can make the whole boat vibrate as a terrier shakes a rat.  You never get used to the pitch of the wind, because the low-down thrum of a wind blowing against boat a boat lying ahull rises several octaves as the boat rolls to windward; and the fear factor rises with it.

I would guess that those lucky souls who can fall asleep with no problem are likely to be crew members and not skippers. When you see a skipper lying wide-eyed in his bunk during a storm, unable to get a wink of sleep, it’s his responsibilities that are propping his eyelids open, not just the noise or the motion. He, or she, is suffering from an anxiety that won’t abate until decent weather returns and the wind stops its infernal howling.

What’s to do about it? Well, in normal weather, the crew on watch should try to keep the noise down as much as possible when others are resting below. Take up the slack in that sheet that’s slapping the deck. Ditch that empty can that’s rolling around the cockpit floor. Try to make sail changes and reefs only at the change of watch, and generally have sympathy for those engaged in the difficult task of grabbing 40 winks. The world voyager Eric Hiscock even went so far as to block the sunlight from the cabin when his wife Susan was trying to sleep down below. “During the afternoon sleep, which is a necessary part of the routine when night watches are kept, bright light should be subdued as much as possible, and the tinkerbell, caused by a shaft of sunlight from a deck- or port-light, flashing to and fro across the cabin as the yacht rolls, should be extinguished,” he wrote.

In a storm there’s nothing much you can do about the noise or the motion, but the skipper may help things along by projecting an air of calmness and confidence, even if he or she doesn’t feel it. In storm conditions, incidentally, I have found that merely lying down with your eyes closed is almost as good as the sleep it’s impossible to get, particularly if you can calm your mind and stop imagining all the horrible things that could happen at any moment.

You might think that there would come a time when the lack of sleep would catch up with you and you’d simply fall into a deep slumber, no matter what. But experience has shown that most people deprived of sleep by physical conditions will experience mental problems, have trouble making decisions and concentrating on even the simplest tasks of navigation, and often will suffer from illusions.

In the case of singlehanders who try to maintain a constant look-out, all these problems are exacerbated, of course. Many of the long-distance racers train themselves to sleep for 20 minutes at a time day and night, and they keep this up for months on end. I doubt that I could do that. But then, I no longer have the desire to race. Well, not unless I can find another smaller, slower boat to annihilate, anyway.

Today’s Thought

It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.

— John Steinbeck

Tailpiece

“Do you know a man with one eye called Falconetti?”

“Dunno. What’s his other eye called?”

 

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

Backward nuts to beware of

MOST BOATS with inboard engines have two nuts holding the propeller in place. And most propeller nuts are installed backwards.

I didn’t make this up. This is the word from Dave Gerr, a top U.S. boat designer. In his book, The Nature of Boats, Gerr says:

“There should always be two propeller nuts: a jam or lock nut and the main or load nut. Because it seems natural that the nut directly in contact with the prop is the one that ought to be doing most of the work, many boatyards install the full size nut here [against the prop hub]. This is the wrong way around!

“The correct procedure . . . is to install the small, half-height jam-nut first — against the hub. Tighten it up as hard as you comfortably can, by hand with a standard wrench. Then screw on the full-sized nut and tighten that down independently — again, as hard as you comfortably can, by hand with a standard wrench. Finally, fit the cotter pin, and you’re ready to go.”

Well, this obviously isn’t intuitive. It just doesn’t seem right. But here’s the expert’s explanation: As the second nut (the outside one) is tightened down, it rotates the smaller nut slightly, just a fraction of a turn. This relieves pressure on the nut against the hub, so that all the load is taken by the bigger outside nut.

“Since the top nut thus does the brunt of the work, it should be the nut with the most threads — the full-sized nut,” says Gerr.

Well, don’t just stand there. Get that boat out of the water and swop those nuts around immediately.

Today’s Thought

The bad workmen, who form the majority of the operatives in many branches of industry, are decidedly of opinion that bad workmen ought to receive the same wages as good.

— John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

Tailpiece

 “Why so gloomy?”

“I got married three days ago.”

“So why is that making you gloomy?”

“Well, I gave all my life savings to my new husband.”

“And where is he now?”

“Dunno. I’m still waiting for him to come back from his honeymoon.”

Real food for real sailors

LAST NIGHT we had one of my favorite meals, Jolie Brise soup. It’s a seagoing soup, of course, named after the world-famous, wooden, gaff-rigged pilot cutter that, even in its dotage, is still a force to be reckoned with. In 2011 she was first in class and overall winner of the Tall Ships Race — and not for the first time.

Jolie Brise started life in France in 1913, as a working pilot cutter in Le Havre, but she was bought for private use in 1923 by an Englishman, Commander E. G. Martin. He sailed her to a win in  the first Fastnet Race in 1925 and became famous for more ocean-going exploits in other yachts in later years.

Commander Martin sailed with a hefty, hardworking crew in Jolie Brise and they brought with them some hefty appetites, so it’s not surprising that one of his favorite meals was onion soup. It’s just what a hungry crew needs on a brisk night at sea, hot, tasty, and chock-full of energy. It’s quick and easy to prepare and handy because onions keep well on a boat.

You should try it sometime. Here’s the original recipe from Commander Martin:

Place four medium-large onions, peeled and cut into quarters, into a covered saucepan with 3 to 4 cups cold water.

Add 2 tablespoons Bovril (or other strong beef stock), 4 ounces butter, a dessertspoonful Lea and Perrins Worcestershire sauce, a little black pepper, and (when the cooking is nearly done) a small glass of sherry or rather more white wine.

Boil gently for 30 minutes or until the onions have fallen to pieces and are soft, stirring occasionally.

Now, you might be a little taken aback at the amount of butter in this recipe, but you must remember that it was meant to satisfy the energy needs of hardworking men in a cold climate. And anything with that much butter in it is bound to be delicious. But now I cut the butter ration in half, to 2 ounces, and still find it very tasty and satisfying. I tried a vegetable spread substitute once and it was a disaster. Stick to butter.

We can find Bovril occasionally in the British section of our local supermarket, but I more often use beef stock cubes instead — enough to make 5 cups of bouillon.

So give it a go, and save some of that sherry or white wine for a small toast to a real sailor and a wonderful boat: Commander Martin and Jolie Brise!

Today’s Thought

Onion soup sustains. The process of making it is somewhat like the process of learning to love. It requires commitment, extraordinary effort, time, and will make you cry.

— Ronni Lundy, “The Seasoned Cook,” Esquire, Mar 84

Tailpiece

Notice on a thermostat in a hotel room in Kobe, Japan:

“You do not have to get yourself hot in this room. Please control yourself.”

If it's not broke . . .

EVERY TIME I SEE an advertisement for an epoxy barrier coat, I flinch. I am reminded of a terrible mistake I made while trying to waterproof the bottom of my boat. It was an attempt to make sure that my 26-year-old Cape Dory would never fall victim to the dreaded boat box, the blisters that knowledgeable people call osmosis. But it turned out to be a big waste of time, labor, and money.

It occurred to me one day that I should remove the great wodge of bottom paint that had built up over 26 years. None of my boat’s previous owners had bothered to scrape the bottom down to bare fiberglass. So, at the next haul-out, I set to. It took me weeks, working on my own, to remove all the old modified epoxy antifouling paint, and when it was all done I was very glad to see that underneath it all the  gel coat was as good as new.

But I couldn’t leave well enough alone. The devil came to me during the night and whispered: “Now that you’ve got all the paint off, why don’t you apply a good barrier coat to prevent osmosis?”

“But she hasn’t got osmosis,” I pointed out. “Her bottom is perfect.”

“Ah, but she could get it at any time — especially now that you’ve removed those thick layers of paint. And besides, when would there be a better opportunity to barrier-coat the bottom? Everybody’s doing it, you know. You’ve seen the advertisements, haven’t you? Osmosis is a dreadful thing. You don’t want osmosis,”

Yes, I had seen the advertisements. And yes, the devil had his wicked way with me. I applied two coats of epoxy barrier coat, following the instructions meticulously. On top of that I applied two coats of modified epoxy antifouling paint. And so I went about my daily tasks smiling and whistling happily and thinking to myself that however my good old Cape Dory might deteriorate in the coming years, she would at least never catch the boat pox. Yeah, right.

Two years later, when she was hauled out for new antifouling paint, her bottom was covered in tiny blisters. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I called in a surveyor. He laughed. “Why did you put on a barrier coat if there wasn’t any osmosis?” he asked. “If a boat has been in the water for 26 years without blistering, there’s not much chance she’s going to get blisters now. What made you do it?”

“The devil made me do it,” I said.

“Well, you’d better send the bill to the devil because you’re going to have to remove the barrier coat,” he said. “It’s not a big problem — the blistering is between the gel coat and the barrier coat; it’s just cosmetic, not a structural problem — but all those pimples will slow you down terribly in light weather. Take her down to bare gel coat again, and just apply straight antifouling.”

Thus, I learned the hard way that you must never give a fiberglass hull a barrier coat unless the hull is absolutely dry. And I don’t mean surface dry, but dry right through. It can take many months for a hull to dry out, even if you use hot air to help it along.  And you’ll need a moisture meter to find out if there’s still any water present in the layup. If there is, your barrier coat will simply seal it in.

The other thing I learned is that you shouldn’t barrier coat a hull that’s spend 10 years or more in the water without developing blisters. I would have saved myself a whole lot of time, labor and money if only I had remembered the wise old saying: If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.

Today’s Thought

What cannot be cured must be endured.

— Rabelais, Works  

Tailpiece

“Darling, will you still love me after we’re married?”

“Sure, why not? I’ve always been partial to married women.”

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

Another Dear John letter

I’VE RECEIVED a lot of Dear John letters in my lifetime. Luckily, they mostly don’t say “Sorry, but I’ve run off with a sailor man.” Mostly they just ask for advice. The latest one comes from Lucy, of Seattle, who says she is a rower.

She was having an argument recently with her cox about how much horsepower human beings generate in a boat. She says she remembers a column I wrote years ago about this very subject, and could I dig it out for her?   

Well Lucy, you’re in luck. The Blogger people are so organized that I was able to find it in their archives. So here it is, from way back in 2009:

Dear John:
I have a question for you. There’s a bottle of Gosling’s Black Seal rum riding on the answer. It’s like this: I was having an argument with the yacht club know-all in the bar last weekend. We were talking about inflatable yacht tenders, and how hard they are to row when your outboard motor breaks down. He said he didn’t think a human being could produce much more than 2 horsepower with a pair of oars.
I laughed in his face and said: “Only Superman could produce 2 horsepower. A normal man can’t even produce half a horsepower for any length of time.”
He then gripped me warmly by the throat. The bar tender intervened and suggested we make a bet of it with a bottle of the basic ingredient for a Dark ’n Stormy. So can you help?
— Manny in Minnesota
Dear Manny:
Jeez, if only you people would buy my books instead of fighting in the bar you’d save yourselves a lot of trouble. Probably a lot of money, too. On page 158 of the Boatowner’s Handbook you’ll find these enlightening facts:
“Human Power
“The average man in good condition can produce about 1/4 horsepower for about 40 minutes. He can produce between 1/6 and 1/7 horsepower for several hours at a time. This is sufficient to row a hard dinghy at a reasonable clip—say 3 to 4 knots—in calm water and no wind.
“The maximum power from a highly trained male athlete for a burst of a few seconds is a little less than 2 horsepower.”
So, Manny, I guess you’re both right, but you’re a bit righter than the club know-all because a burst of a few seconds doesn’t really count. It’s not going to get you very far in your inflatable. So the best thing to do is to sit down, get his hands off your neck, split the bottle, and make friends again. Maybe if you bought my book, Manny, YOU could be the club know-all.

Today’s Thought

Sport begets tumultuous strife and wrath, and wrath begets fierce quarrels and war to the death.

— Horace, Epistles

Tailpiece

"How's that book on gravity?"

"It's okay, but it’s not very uplifting"

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

Slow boats have compensations

THERE HAVE BEEN TIMES, I must admit, when I have envied the ability of a powerboat to plane at 25 knots. Speed, sheer speed, is an exciting component of the boating experience, and you don’t get much in the way of sheer speed from a small, full-keel displacement sailboat.

On the other hand, there have been occasions when I have grinned to see the inhabitants of a powerboat being shaken around like peas in a pod as the hull slams and crashes and bashes through choppy seas.

I have ridden in a powerboat doing 70 miles an hour, and not only my kidneys knew how uncomfortable that was. My knees did, too, and so did my spine. Seventy miles an hour on water is a not a reasonable speed for human beings to endure.

Few powerboats can match the comfort of a sailboat in a seaway. The mast and keel ensure slower accelerations and attenuated rolls; and simply knowing that a sailboat will safely recover from a knock-down position frees you from the ghastly feeling you get in your stomach when a powerboat’s rolls fall into resonance with beam seas, gradually gaining in amplitude until you have to scream at the helmsman to head up or bear away before the final death roll sends you into capsize.

When I’m happily trundling along at five knots with the tiller in my hand, and all’s well with the world, it always makes me grin to see a passing powerboat porpoising, while it’s white-knuckled occupants hang on for dear life.

Porpoising is an interesting facet of powerboating. Eric Sorensen describes it in his book, Sorensen’s Guide to Powerboats, as “an oscillation in pitch and heave, with the bow alternately rising and falling.”  In other words, the front end of the boat at speed on a plane is jerking up into the air and slamming back down again, time after time without end. Porpoising happens when the center of lift under a planing hull constantly moves forward and aft. It always reminds me of a panicked rabbit fleeing from a wolf.

Apart from the discomfort it causes, porpoising just looks so inelegant, so thoroughly out of control. It jars the esthetic sensibilities of ordinary sailing folk as they wend their graceful way across the waterways at a reasonable speed in blissful comfort.

So, on those rare occasions when I feel that envy for speed creep upon me, I console myself with the thought that a non-planing slowcoach of a sailboat has its compensations. It won’t be troubled by porpoising, for a start.

Today’s Thought

She bears her down majestically near,

Speed on her prow, and terror in her tier.

— Byron, The Corsair

Tailpiece

"Hey buddy, I thought you had a date with that blonde tonight."

"Yeah, I did."

"What happened?"

"Well, we went to her place and sat around and chatted and then she put on some quiet music and changed into her lingerie and lay down on the sofa. Then she turned down the lights — so I came home. I can take a hint."

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