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.

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.

Eric's Sailing Uniform

When I was a sailor in the US Navy, I had a uniform. Several, of course. Now that I'm a civilian sailor, I also have a defacto uniform. For me, my clothing has to be able to accomplish certain goals.

1) It has to be durable. I mean insanely durable. Able to stand up to paint, acetone, sun, salt, sharp objects, heat, cold, and being thrown into a ball.

2) It has to be inexpensive, to a point. I don't mind paying for quality, but I don't want to spend money on a company's advertising or "image".

3) It has to look somewhat normal in a social setting. Usually there's a pendulum swing between fashion and function, and I certainly start in the functional realm and try to make it somewhat fashionable. I don't look like I strolled off the cover of GQ, but I'm not in blue overalls wearing a beanie.

Starting off, I now rock the Dorfman Pacfic Men's Ultra Lightweight Safari Hat. It is incredibly comfortable, light on the head, and keeps the sun at bay very well. It also looks slightly cowbow-ish, so you get a couple of points in the fashion category, although not so many that if you get it a little messed up you'll feel bad about it. It's also cheap at $20 - $30, so if you really mess it up you won't feel terrible if you have to buy a new one.

Next up are my Dickies Shorts (model 42283). These shorts form the core arsenal of my clothing line up. I ride my bike in them, work on the boat in them, sail in them, and go to dinner in them. They are an amazing product.

Coming in a little below the knee, crawling on your knees these have you covered, and sitting in a cockpit with the sun beating down on you, the tops of your knees are shielded.

For my upper body, I'll wear T-shirts when I'm working, with sunscreen on my arms. A good way to build up your T-shirt collection is to find shirts for sale from organizations you want to support (Obama 2008, ACLU, etc).

But when sailing, or spending a lot of time in the sun, I go with the lightweight nylon shirts made from Columbia or REI. Essentially they're the same thing: long sleeve, lightweight, dries quick, and keeps the sun off you. These can get a little pricey ($30 - $60), so I try to avoid wearing them if I'm going to be doing disgusting work (teak caulking, etc).

As another bonus to these, they have a collar and are more formal than a T-shirt. So they can do double duty as a collared shirt if you need to clear into customs and things of that sort.

They may be popular to hate, but my Crocs are a God send for me. They dry out instantly, provide rather secure footing (except for wet concrete in which case they become ice skates), are cheap ( $30 ), and make my feet happy and healthy.

They also cover your toes, so if you're on your knees working your toes don't get mangled like they do in flip flops. Also, they cover the primary horizontal surface of your foot from the sun, another benefit to sailing with them.

So there you go. Perhaps not the most fashionable items in the world, but for my money, they are the most durable and useful for a life at sea and in a boat yard.

A note about seasickness

I LOL @ SEASICKNESSThe reality is that everyone gets seasick, it's just a question of thresholds as far as what it will take. For some, stepping on a dock can make them want to barf. For others, they can survive in rather turbulent conditions without having any problems. But even for those hearty souls, there is a limit. Imagine a bilge full of vomit you need to clean up because it's jamming a pump in a storm, and maybe there's some nice diesel fumes down there as well. You're well below the waterline, the boat is thrashing around (and has been for days), and you just ate some food that doesn't agree with you.

No matter what, you can get motion sickness. So if you get it easier than others, don't think anyone is immune, some people are just more prone than others.

There are a lot of products on the market to help, but here's my sure fire contract on our boat. If you go sailing with us for an extended time, I will ask you to follow these rules. If you do, and there's a problem, I'll take responsibility. If you deviate from my little plan by an inch, and end up on the lee rail dry heaving for hours, that's your business.

1. Don't drink alcohol the night before. None, at all, not even a glass of wine with dinner or a beer. You need to have all of your senses and witts about you.
2. Get a good night's sleep.
3. Don't eat a bunch of crap the night before. By "crap" I essentially mean anything that is hard on your digestive system.
4. Eat a healthy breakfast. Nothing incredibly greasy for difficult to digest, but make sure you have some food in you. Eggs, potatoes, toast, coffee, orange juice, a bagel, whatever. Just don't munch on six sides of bacon while you're at it.
5. Take Bonine in the morning with your breakfast. If you get motion sickness easily, take another one a few hours later.
6. Don't go into the cabin unless you need something, and even then, ask someone to get whatever you need. The cabin (where you can't see the horizon any longer) is notorious for getting people sick.
7. Stay busy. Work the helm, clean stuff up, make lunch (in the cockpit, not the cabin), polish some brightwork, whatever.
8. Keep your eyes on the horizon whenever possible, but try not to fixate on that alone.
9. If you get sick, go into the cabin, close your eyes, and try to go to sleep. Closing your eyes and laying on your back causes near instant relief, and if you do manage to go to sleep (Dramaine can help take care of that), when you wake up, you'll be that much more resistant to motion sickness for the rest of your journey.

The more time you spend on the boat, the more resistant you are to motion sickness. Spending the night onboard before you leave the following day is a good trick that works well for me. It seems like the night that my body gets to adjust a bit while I sleep makes a difference. I got the idea from acclimatization, which is important when you're backpacking at altitude. I always like to get somewhere the night before I need to do something and sleep there, so my body gets 7-9 hours to adjust while I'm crashed out.

It's also important to remember that when you develop your sea legs, they will stay with you for a while after you leave the boat. This normally happens when you first get off the boat and go to a bathroom or shower on land, in which you are in a tight space. You can feel the room moving up and down, and it's kind of freaky.