ramblings on the outhaul

Click to EnlargeRunning rigging is anything that shapes or moves the sails around. Standing rigging is anything supports the mast. Generally, if it's made of metal or wood, it's standing rigging, and if it's made of cloth or fiber, it's running rigging.

On a sail with three points, you have the head (top), tack (bottom forward), and clew (bottom aft).

A sail with a boom, which for most people is just their mainsail, uses a line called an outhaul to pull the clew (bottom aft) part of the sail towards the end of the boom.

It's pretty straightforward: if you have a three point sail, you're probably going to need to pull on it in three directions in order to make it stand up and be flat. And that, honestly, is about as complicated as it needs to be.

A case in point is the outhaul pictured here. It's just a line, wrapped and tied nicely around the end of the staysail boom, that is pulling on the clew, extending the sail out.

This particular outhaul leaves a lot to be desired (it's a poor choice for reefing needs, as another point on the sail is used as the clew), and in future posts we'll go over how to reef and rig outhauls in easy and simple ways!

sailboats do not have right of way when overtaking

As I mentioned in a previous blog entry,  I'm currently studying for my captain's license. As such, I'm going over piles and piles handy nautical factoids that I think some of you might be interested in.  

There is a common but incorrect assumption that vessels under sail have right of way over anything else on the water. A prudent sailor knows that idea breaks down quickly when you're in the channel with an aircraft carrier or other vessel that is "constrained in its maneuverability".

The "Rules of the Road" (available here from the Coast Guard) dictate that another time a sailing vessel will not have the right of way is if she is overtaking another vessel, even a power boat doing 2 knots operated by a 22 year old blasting terrible music. If you're the overtaking vessel, you don't have right of way.

Specifically, Rule 13 states:

(a)     Notwithstanding anything contained in the Rules, any vessel overtaking any other shall keep out of the way of the vessel being overtaken.

(b)     A vessel shall be deemed to be overtaking when coming up with a another vessel from a direction more than 22.5 degrees abaft her beam, that is, in such a position with reference to the vessel she is overtaking, that at night she would be able to see only the sternlight of that vessel but neither of her sidelights.

(c)     When a vessel is in any doubt as to whether she is overtaking another, she shall assume that this is the case and act accordingly.

(d)     Any subsequent alteration of the bearing between the two vessels shall not make the overtaking vessel a crossing vessel within the meaning of these Rules or relieve her of the duty of keeping clear of the overtaken vessel until she is finally past and clear.

So there you go. The next time you're sailing up on a slow moving fishing boat (or a kayaker), remember that they are the stand on vessel. What to do next? Stay tuned for a future post dealing with appropriate inland and international signaling during over taking scenarios.

use your noaa coast pilot

The Coast Pilot is a free (in digital form; $25 or so in print), available from NOAA, and probably one of the best navigation and piloting resources that a sailor can have.

There are several Coast Pilot volumes out there, covering any US waterway up and down the east and west coasts. Also included are US overseas territories such as America Somoa.

You'll get accurate and detailed information about the area that's covered. Specifically, for every navigable body of water and harbor, you'll get:

• Channels
• Depths
• General description
• Anchorages
• Bridges and cables
• Caution regarding aids to navigation
• Local weather
• Tides
• Currents
• Freshets
• Pilotage

If you don't want to carry the full printed version, at the minimum keep the digital PDF version your laptop, and use the Coast Pilot to research your routes and destinations.

set and drift

It's all about current. The water you're floating on isn't stationary. In fact, it's frequent to encounter current that moves faster than some rivers.

The Mississippi River averages around 1.5mph, tidal speeds can easily exceed that. In the Bay of Fundy, 115 billion tons of water go in and out of the bay in 24 hours. That's a lot of water moving around, and your boat is involved in it.

A vessel has course and speed. Current is described in terms of its set and drift.

Set is the direction which the current is moving. In a harbor, the current can be "setting in" or "setting out". At sea, it might be "setting north", if the current was heading north.

Drift is the speed across the ocean bottom. The current offshore here in San Diego is currently "setting south-south-west, at 1 knot".

That also means that if you're heading north-north-east (directly against the current) and your knot meter is saying 7 knots, you're really only moving 6 knots, since one of those knots is lost to current. Likewise, if you were sailing with the current, your SOG (speed over ground) would be 8 knots.

Close to shore, currents tend to go along with the tide, although offshore currents have their own patterns independent of tides.

Studying for my captain's license

I've had the study book for a while, with off and on spurts of studying. This time around I'm going to give it a shot. I figure that if I pass and make it happen, that's obviously pretty cool, and if I stop studying, at least I'll have a lot more information in my head than I do now for navigation, rules of the road, and deck operations.

I'm trying to dedicate one hour a night to studying; alternating between rules of the road (which can range from interesting to down right snooze-a-thon).

In addition to passing four modules of written tests, there's a drug test, sea time verification, and off course a fee.

Maybe this is just a short lived burst of enthusiasm because the rig is back and I can be a sailor again, but having a captain in the family can't be anything but good! And I'll be able to post interesting little factoids that I learn in my studies!

bending the yankee onto the seafurl 5 roller furler

 I remember taking the yankee off the furler a long time ago; it was pretty mysterious to me back then. I'm really down on furlers in general, and would feel much better with a hanked on sail. But my rigger convinced me otherwise, and honestly spending time on the bowsprit dousing a sail is pretty rough.

But it was pretty interesting, because I had a conceptual idea of where things went (head up, tack down, clew out).  I know the furler, well, furled. But I didn't know how the luff (leading edge) of the sail connects to the furler.

I managed to get it 80% up, then it jammed. I went for the winch handle, and as I fit it into the winch I started remembering that somethings are not supposed to be winched.

I called up the rigger, and he told me the track (that the luff tape sits in) might be dirty, so I should clean it out, use a lube, or both.

I opted for the lube, and had great results. So the yankee is on the furler now, and the halyards are run. One step closer to sailing!

sail repair toolbag contents

For sail repair, you will end up needing a very small (but very important) list of items. Although they are towering in the wind, responsible for your well being, and a torn one can be life threatening (not to mention expensive), when you get right down to it, sails are really nothing more than a piece of cloth.

To care for your sails, you'll need the following items:

• Some sail tape. Duct tape works in a pinch.
• Sail needles. They need to be big and strong.
• Sail twine. Prewaxed, or carry some wax with you.
• Spare dacron. You should have a piece as long as the foot (bottom edge) or your largest sail. This might sound like overkill, but often sails rip horizontally.
• Sailor's palm. It's like an oversized thimble that sits in your palm, allowing you to use your entire arm strength to push the needle through what could be multiple layers of leather and dacron.

The primary problems you'll have with your sails can be summed up here:

• Chafe. Friction between something (lines, spreaders, other sails) and the sail cloth, over time, will wear away your sails.
• Tears. There's nothing quite as heartbreaking as watching your sail rip in half on a stormy night. Reef early.
• Ripped grommets. Anywhere that you make a hole in a sail, and re-enforce it with metal, that metal might just decide to fly out of the sail one day.

There are some great books out there on sail repair and construction; it would be impossible to write a blog entry getting close to comprehensive. But hopefully this demystifies them a bit, and shows you that to do your own sail repairs all you need is a willingness to learn, and some very basic tools that will last you a lifetime.

I love my mouse sander

Amongst my more popular tools is my Black & Decker Mouse sander. It fits into the palm of my hand, runs on 120v AC, and hums away like a champ.

In fact, I rarely use any other sander. It has tiny triangle nose, which will get into a lot of areas that are hard to reach. The gel grips make it comfortable to hold for long periods of time.

Home Depot sells off-brand sand papers that fit it, and although they're not the cheapest, they tend to have multiple "noses", so the section that wears away the quickest has the most replacements.

It seems all the rigging is done and ready

Minus our yankee, which still needs to be connected to the furler, we should be ready to take our fine ship out of the slip, hoist our sails, and let the wind move us around.

I got off the phone with Fritz at Pacific Offshore Rigging on Tuesday, and he gave us the green light for everything but ocean passages. Only cautioning us on that one that he'd like us to put on new turnbuckles before we head out into the great blue yonder.

The plan now is to hoist all the sails in the early morning (and therefore windless) hours, and make sure there are no chaffe points, and all the sail controls look good. I think I'll have a notebook with me looking for flaps and flutters once we go out under sail, so I can go back into my Annapolis Book of Seamanship later in the evening and do some homework on how to solve those problems.

A look inside Eric's toolbag

I actually have six tool bags/boxes, and over the last few years I've figured out the tools that I simply can't live without. I haven't done a lot of engine work yet (routine maintenance has been enough), but tons of deck and rigging.

I took some pictures of a lot of my tools, to show what you might want to get yourself if you're doing a lot of your own work.

My five tool sets are as follows:

• My "primary" CLC tool bag (pictured on right). It can handle nearly anything.
• My "electrical tools" bag. Sanders, heat gun, and drill hang out in there, as well as any adapters for them.
• My "mechanical" bag. Wrenches, tap & dye set, packing gland wrench, and anything else that you would use for fixing metal things that move.
• My "teak" bag. Chisel, bung plugs, scrapers, and reefing tools.
• My "sanding" box. All my sandpaper, for my mouse, round orbital, and planes.
• My "special tools" box. Electrical, wire snake, hole saw, hacksaw.