A deceptive turn of speed

AN ACQUAINTANCE who is looking for a boat says he’s attracted to the Westsail 32 for her space down below and her sheer solidity. But he’s heard the old rumor that she’s slow, can’t point, and is outdated, with her bowsprit and full-length keel. “Would you buy one?” he asks.

If I wanted to sail around the world, or take long cruises, or just live aboard, I would.  If I wanted to take part in Wednesday-evening races around the cans, I wouldn’t.

There are a couple of myths about the Westsail 32 that deserve to be dismissed. I tackled them in my book, Twenty Small Sailboats to Take You Anywhere, in which I quoted David King, of Portland, Oregon, owner of at least two Westsail 32s, and a professional delivery skipper.

He was the one who convinced me that the Westsail 32, a design greatly influenced by Colin Archer’s Norwegian sea-rescue ketches, is not a slow boat. In 1988 he entered Saraband in the Pacific Cup race from San Francisco to Hawaii. She came first in class and first overall on handicap, a shock result that caused an uproar among the owners of larger dedicated racing boats.  What made it worse was that none of Saraband’s crew of five was a racer.

But once wasn’t enough. To hammer the point home, King entered Saraband for the Pacific Cup again in 1990. She was first in her class to finish, first in her class on handicap, and third overall on handicap.

How did this come about? “We have an automatic feathering propeller and it makes a big difference,” said King. “Saraband gets up to 7 knots pretty quickly.” But she sustains her speed well, too. “I did 184 miles all by myself in one day,” he said. “She goes best on a close reach. In fact it’s very interesting that she goes from her comparative worst (a beat) to her comparative best (a close reach) in a matter of a few degrees.”

Also very interesting is that fact that her waterline length of 27 feet 6 inches gives her a theoretical top speed of more than 7 knots, and even if she normally reaches only 90 percent of that speed she’s going to be sailing faster than most other 32-footers with shorter waterlines.

That’s why she does well on long passages, where it’s not maximum speed that counts, but sustained high average speeds.

If you want to cross oceans swiftly, and take everything with you (including the kitchen sink), this rugged 20,000-pound cutter will do it in style and safety.

Today’s Thought

There is more to life than increasing its speed.

— Mahatma Gandhi

Tailpiece

I see there’s a trend toward smaller cars again. Most Americans are not crazy about them, but they do have one distinct advantage. You can squeeze one helluva lot more of them into the average-sized traffic jam.

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

There's bad luck . . . and bad luck

OKAY, WE’RE BACK IN BUSINESS. The flu doctor knew his business and the computer is sputtering along nicely again.  I’ve been looking at pictures of that monster of a cruise ship that was adrift in the Gulf, and thinking what a scandal it is that the engineering crew didn’t have the skills and/or resources to get her engines going again after the breakdown. Shame on them.

The rescue tugs seem to have had a time of it, too, what with the tow line breaking and all. One begins to wonder what has happened to the art of seamanship in these days when cruise ships are shaped like gigantic apartment blocks and the air-conditioned bridge stands a hundred feet up in the air, remote and isolated from that nasty old sea.

It all reminded me of the only time so far I have needed a tow into port.  I was singlehanding back from Canada on a dead calm day when the Westerbeke’s water pump quit and I had to shut it down.  It took me six hours to sail the four miles to the nearest marina at Chemainus, on Vancouver Island.

I dropped the sails about a quarter mile outside the harbor entrance, hopped into my 10-foot fiberglass dinghy, and attached a tow line to the thwart.  I sculled with one oar over the stern, and noted how little power it took to move the boat, a Cape Dory 27-footer displacing between 7,500 and 9,000 pounds, depending on which marina crane driver you believed.  I waggled the oar back and forth, keeping a nice steady pressure on the tow line, and the boat followed obediently at perhaps a knot or so in the calm water. I didn’t even raise a sweat.

A couple of kind Canadians came running when I entered the marina on a shortened tow line, probably more concerned about the damage I could do to their boats, but I managed to nudge the Cape Dory sideways into a vacant berth and they helped me make fast.

A kind skipper of a 50-footer from the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club invited me to supper aboard his boat with friends, and also gave me a 10-mile tow to Maple Bay next day, after I discovered there was no marine mechanic available in Chemainus.

I found one in Maple Bay all right, but he discovered that the water pump was beyond repair, so I had to order a new one from Seattle, which meant a wait of four days. I couldn’t complain, though.  Maple Bay was a good place for an enforced stay.  It had a pub and restaurant just a few steps away from my berth.  It wasn’t a totally luxurious holiday, but it was heaven compared with what the thousands of passengers on that cruise ship have had to put up with. At least I didn’t have to eat raw onion sandwiches or dodge streams of sewage coursing through my cabin.

Today’s Thought

What evil luck soever

For me remains in store,
’Tis sure much finer felows
Have fared much worse before.
— A. E. Houseman, Last Poems

Tailpiece

“Did you see the doctor?”
“Yeah, he said I had water on the knee.”
“Did he fix it?”
“Yeah, he gave me a tap on the leg.”

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

It's virtual flu season

Folks, I'm sorry to say my computer has caught the flu.  I'll call in the computer doctor and see what can be done, but it looks as though I won't be posting for a while. 

Meanwhile, if you're desperate for something to read, there is an archive of more than 600 old columns over there on the right.  Just click on the arrows and you'll find the way.  Or, if you have a particular subject in mind, scroll down to the bottom of this long page and click on anything that tickles your fancy.

How to Rename Your Boat

HAVE YOU NOTICED what silly names other people give their boats? As the buyer of a used boat, it’s only natural that you (a civilized, intelligent, educated person of wit and charm) would want to change the old name to something more suitable.

I mean, it’s such a pity. There’s this gorgeous boat just waiting to be looked after and coddled by someone wise and sensitive like you, and the previous owner named it Phluphphy or Bumphluphph. Or possibly Swashbuckle; Trashcan; Scutt le Butt; Hasta la Pasta; Tuppence Ha’penny  (dinghy : Penny Farthing); Malgré Tout; or  Beauzeaux.

Enough said. You don’t have to convince us that a name change is in order. But you’re scared, right? You’ve heard that it’s unlucky to change a boat’s name. Well, not so. Not if you take precautions.

One of the most popular articles I ever wrote was Vigor’s Interdenominational Denaming Ceremony. It described the steps I took when I wanted to rename a 31-foot sloop I intended to sail from the Indian Ocean to the United States with my wife and 17-year-old son.

The guts of it was a formal little denaming ceremony, a request to the ancient gods of the wind and the sea to erase the boat’s name from their records, and to accord her the same protection she had enjoyed from them before, when she was re-baptized under a new name.

It worked for me, and I’ve had no complaints from the hundreds of people who have used it since.

You will find a free printable copy of the ceremony and full instructions if you click on the “Denaming Ceremony” tab in the list on the right. Alternatively, you can buy the book, How to Rename Your Boat, which has a whole lot of other interesting stuff in it, or you can do an Internet search using the words “denaming ceremony,” which, I should warn you, might bring up some inferior rival ceremonies. And finally, you can get a nice free version by going to and looking in the article archives.

Today’s Thought

Who hath not own’d, with rapture-smitten frame,

The power of grace, the magic of a name ?
— Thomas Campbell, The Pleasures of Hope.

Tailpiece

“Did you get those camouflage trousers you wanted?”
“Nah, I couldn't find any.”

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

Gathering vital sailing statistics

A NEW STUDY being undertaken by the Department of Statistics of SoCal University involves interviews with veteran sailing couples who have crossed at least two oceans.  The Dean of the Department,  Dr. Earle Dentworth, said : ‘There is a lamentable lack of statistics regarding the voyages being accomplished these days by small yachts. We don’t even know for sure how many private yachts are sailing around the world at any one time, but this increasingly large demographic appears to number many thousands.  Interestingly the vast majority of them are citizens of the United States and Northern European countries. Very few of these cruisers originate in developing countries such as Russia, China, or Brazil.’

 Dr. Dentworth declined to reveal full details of the study plan, but he indicated that each cruise can be broken down into percentages. He said the study would try to establish the amount of time amateur sailors spend on a cruise while experiencing:

Ecstasy

Pleasure

Anxiety

Misery, and 

Terror

The study will also explore the percentage of time voyaging sailors spend in:

Waiting for weather to improve

Cursing the engine

Waiting for engine spares

Trying to clear Customs and Immigration

Searching for fuel

Filtering water and sludge from fuel

Searching for fresh produce

Searching for someone who speaks English

Searching for a mechanic

Searching for a mechanic who speaks English

Repairing the refrigerator

Patching the inflatable, and

Arguing about where to  go next

‘We hope the statistics will enable us to discover why people go cruising in the first place,’ Dr. Dentworth added. ‘It’s not an entirely reasonable thing to do, on the face of it. The motives are obscure. There are easier, cheaper, and less irritating ways to go around the world — but it’s possible that long-distance cruising appeals to people with regressive genes.’

Today’s Thought

I’d rather go by bus.

— Price Charles, aged six, when asked if he was excited about sailing to Tobruk on the royal yacht.

Tailpiece

How many men does it take to put the toilet seat down?

Nobody knows; it hasn't happened yet.

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

Is sailing an art?

HAVING WRITTEN ON THE SUBJECT in the past, I was naturally curious when I spotted a list of books that mentioned Einstein and the Art of Sailing. The first thing I remembered was that Einstein wasn’t very good at sailing. He certainly showed no talent for artistic boat handling.

And then I was forced to wonder: Is sailing actually an art?

According to Wikipedia, which knows everything, “Art is something that stimulates an individual’s thoughts, emotions, beliefs or ideas through the senses.”

Unfortunately, that definition is far too loose to be useful.  After all, the appearance of a pretty girl  may stimulate a young man’s thoughts and emotions, but one would hesitate to call the result “art.” 

We often hear mention of the art of gardening, knitting, floral arrangement and so on. Until the 17th century, an art was any human skill or mastery, but in later years the grand arts were separated for special treatment, and it was held that no life was complete unless its possessor had a true passion for one of them: music, painting, ballet, literature, opera, sculpture, drama, architecture, and the likes.

Many of us have harbored a passion for sailing, often at the cost of neglecting the grand arts altogether, but I wonder how many have ever associated the act of sailing with art? And yet, when to you come examine it more closely, there could be a case for such a designation.

There is undoubtedly flowing art in the lines of a yacht lifted from the naval architect’s drawing board. Photographs by Beken of Cowes of the great racing yachts under a full press of sail lack nothing in that category either.

I sometimes think that art is something that makes you halt in your tracks, and this often happens to me when I see a handsome hull in a pretty anchorage.  And what can it be that makes so many of us stop and turn around for a last look after we have safely berthed a boat and walked away?

And then there is sailing itself. The curve of a sail in a breeze is art.  The steeve of a bowsprit and the sheer of a bulwark is art. The angle by which the mizzen mast of a ketch drifts aft from the vertical, compared with the mainmast, is art, and the human eye is offended if the two masts are wrongly parallel.

No one with a soul can deny there is art in the foaming wake of a sailboat at sea.  Even the shivering rectangle of the ensign that so stirs our national pride surely qualifies as art.

And finally, we come to the real proof. We know that true artists have to suffer for their art.

And we do. I surely don’t need to tell you how.

Today’s Thought

 The role of art is to make a world which can be inhabited.

— William Saroyan

Tailpiece

A drama critic is a man who leaves no turn unstoned. — George Bernard Shaw
A tanning booth is a place where no stern is left untoned. — John Vigor

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

Take more care at night

GEORGE DAY, a former editor of Cruising World magazine, wrote this in his book Safety at Sea: “There is a strong correlation between losing sight of a victim and the fatality of that victim.” In other words, if you fall overboard and the crew on board can’t see you, you’re likely to die. This is especially true at night.

At sea in anything except a dead calm, your chances of being saved at night are very bleak indeed. In fact, if you don’t have a light on you, your chances are about zero. Even if you’re wearing one of those personal strobe lights that attach to your arm, your chances aren’t a whole lot better.

An electronic flash may look quite bright, but when it’s so low down on the surface of the water its range is very limited.

At five knots, a boat travels about 10,000 yards in 60 minutes. She therefore covers 100 yards in 36 seconds, so by the time the first minute has elapsed the victim is nearly 200 yards away. Given the usual conditions of swells, breaking waves, and spray that’s too far.

The message is clear: You should take extra precautions to stay aboard at night. Wear a harness and make sure there are strong attachment points in the cockpit and on deck.

I know this sounds like advice you’d expect to get from a socialist-liberal nanny government, but I’m only doing what I know to be right. On the other hand, I regret to say I can’t count the number of times I’ve reneged on a promise to my wife that I’d faithfully wear a harness and lifejacket whenever I was on watch in the cockpit alone.

I suspect many of you are guilty of the same crime. I promise to try to be better in future, and I would urge you to give it a go, too.

Today’s Thought

Who can hope to be safe? who sufficiently cautious?
Guard himself as he may, every moment’s an ambush.
— Horace, Odes

Tailpiece

Confucius, he say if man think by the inch and talk by the yard, he will be kicked by the foot.

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