Saturday, March 26, 2016

The day in pictures

An island day.  Opened up the cabins and Jill and co came out to the house for a day on the beach.  

Porter lands a rock in the water followed by his trademark move


Pete enjoys the view


Pete's good side

3/4ths of team Cross.

Porter playing the horn

wobbly now but first steps were taken a few hours later 


Porter doing some heavy lifting


Clingfish


Sunday, March 20, 2016

A NICE LITTLE SAIL (er, drift...)

When Devin mentioned he'd like to go for a sail, we planned one for Saturday.  Adam was up for it and invited Beth and Rick.  Very little wind was in the forecast, but one can always hope....

Friday night's Sunset.  Great way to close out the week

Delta Marine's 'ALBATROSS' was tied up at Shilshole

Adam coaches Beth on raising the main

Just enough air to fill the spinnaker


 A nice few hours on the water.....

Sunday, March 13, 2016

WINDY SCATCHET HEAD RACE

Alex, the spray magnet
Windy, blustery day on the sound.  Not the results we all wanted, but classic tale of risk and reward.  The only casualty on our boat was a snapped jib sheet.  Saw plenty of round ups, shredded spinnakers and one boat reportedly lost her mast.

A few pictures:












Our course

Pretty sure the jib sheet let loose right here....


Tuesday, March 8, 2016

SAFETY AT SEA SEMINAR


Even in a pool, it's a bit of a challenge

The ’Safety at Sea’ seminar was held on Bainbridge Island the weekend of March 5th and 6th. Sanctioned by US sailing, it was put on by The Sailing Foundation.   The certification resulting from successful completion of the seminar is a requirement for many offshore sailing races.
Before I lose you, if there’s one single takeaway from the seminar, it’s ‘read the instructions and practice with the safety equipment’.  It’s more than that, as it was an entire weekend ( 9 to 5 Saturday, 9 to 5 Sunday), but the essence of the seminar was promoting solid seamanship skills to avoid using the safety equipment, but if you have to use it, know it before you use it.

While there are risks with being on the water, sailing is a fairly safe sport.  Accidents are few and far between.  One of the sessions involved a critical review of accidents between 2011 and 2013.  Fatal accidents are tragic and understanding the events and what could have been done to avoid them is a sobering exercise.  That said, there simply aren’t that many fatal accidents.   Of the fatal sailing accidents many involved high tech boats pushing the envelope in both design and usage.

The seminar brought together regional — and in many cases they are also national — experts on safety equipment, medical issues, weather and weather routing, sail design, and heavy weather sailing.

It’s difficult to create a seminar that addresses all aspects of safety, more difficult when the audience is comprised of a wide scope of sailors.  There were elite sailors in attendance.  Transpac, Vic-Maui, and Sydney-Hobart were mentioned in a casual, understated way.  Quiet competency in a “been-there-done-that” type of crowd.

Others in attendance were cruisers and some were newer to sailing looking to learn more.  Many of the presentations and techniques assumed a fully crewed racing sailboat.  There are adaptations to shorthanded sailing, but no single technique will work for all boats in all conditions.

That was probably the core strength of the seminar — attendance did not result in a transference of knowledge to solve all problems.  The seminar was more a catalyst to get back to your boat, assess what equipment you do or don’t have, then prepare the boat, yourself and the crew to actually use the equipment.

For myself, I’ve had a life sling on the boat for years.  Probably 20 years.  It’s become an accepted accessory on the aft rail.  Last year I thought, I should probably take a look at that, so I took it out of its bag.  Or at least tried to — the plastic sling and more or less welded itself to the bag.  It took several minutes of coaxing to pull the thing out of the bag.  Talk about a teachable moment.  The thought of doing that at night or in ugly conditions just after a worst case scenario leaves me shaking my head.

I also don’t have a block and tackle so my first mate could haul me aboard.  And in truth I’d need mechanical assistance hauling someone else aboard.

And we both need practice at actually doing it.

I’ve also cannabilized my throw bag so carefully prepared for the circumnavigation of Vancouver Island 5 years ago.

And I don't have a field medical guide on board.

The list goes on and on.  While the vessel passed the power squadron safety check, that check, after watching it done a couple of times by two different reviewers, is more regulatory in nature and ensures the vessel meets coast guard requirements.  The thrust of the seminar was to engender a culture of safety that often exceeded CG requirements.

The additional difference is that the power squadron, while welcoming sailboats, is primarily for power boats and ’coastal’ in nature.  This seminar was solely for sailboats and offshore in nature.

Some highlights of the Seminar

Hands on fire extinguisher use with instruction from the assistant chief of the Bainbridge Fire Department.

SOLAS approved smoke device

The flare on the left is GG approved the one on the right is from SOLAS

A couple of examples of SOLAS (Safety Of Life At Sea) products that, to our eye, performed better than the standard issue Coast Guard approved equipment.

Doug Fryer
Ryan Helling gave the LifeSling presentation, backed by Doug Fryer.   Doug is well known on the sound and was part of the team that developed the Lifesling.  It doesn't get much better to have his informed observations heard on how to use the Lifesling.
Brad Baker
Brad Baker held court on weather and weather routing.  With 9 Vic-Maui's under his belt (in 5 of them he won the Navigators award) everyone paid attention.



Carol Hasse

Carol Hasse gave an excellent summary on sail selection and repair.  She also triggered new thoughts on when and how to use a Trys'l.  They may not be all about heavy weather sailing....

There's no elegant way to enter a life raft.  It takes communication and the 'ol "one-two-threeeeeeeee"
Margaret Pommert assists a fellow sailor

Up

And over

And in

The last sequence involves the newly boarded to face plant.  It certainly can be done, we all got in, but you get a full appreciation of the effort involved.....in a calm, heated pool, under controlled circumstances with only peer pressure at play.   In breaking seas at night, (or at any time) this would be the absolute last resort.

When they say "6 Man" they really mean it.  There isn't room for much else.

Was the seminar useful?  For me, unquestionably yes.  Less than 24 hours after the seminar, the block and tackle to support the life sling is now stowed in the cockpit locker.  But that's not enough.  Plans have been made to test the life sling.  Better put, test ourselves using the lifesling.  Are we able to deploy it under sail and get it to a target?  Are we able to retrieve a person out of the water?  Do we have the leads right so that we can get the line effectively to a winch?  

While not centered on cruising, this seminar had plenty for the cruising sailor.  Takeaway tidbits through out the weekend to not only add to the knowledge base, but serve as catalyst for action.

Read the instructions, practice with the gear.  Working out the kinks before something happens.  

It would be silly to think you can anticipate all unforeseen events, but having practice sessions on the most likely events serves as a base from which you can adapt.  While a required course for many offshore races, any sailor -- or for that matter power boater, could take the presented concepts and adapt them for their own style of boating.

For more information, go to www.ussailing.org/safety  and www.thesailingfoundation.org





Saturday, March 5, 2016

IT'S RAINING, IT'S POURING, GREAT TIME FOR A SAIL!



The NOAA forecast for Friday was 15 to 20, building to 20 to 25 in the afternoon.  Windyty’s charts showed a peak of perhaps 15 knots at noon, dwindling to about 5 knots in the afternoon.  As I rounded the Shilshole breakwater it was blowing 15 with some slightly stronger gusts.  I’m single handling a Mapleleaf 42 and decided on two reefs, just to be safe (don’t want to break the glassware) and tacked across the sound, headed for Eagle Harbor.



For about an hour it was a lovely sail.  Just under 6 knots over ground and as the rain hit, the wonder of sailing in an enclosed cockpit with a full windshield hit me again for the umpteenth time.  Laugh at the windshield all you want.  Call it a ‘trawler with a stick’.  I was having fun.  Dry and comfortable in a driving rainstorm.

Last year in February I had been in Port Ludlow and on a Sunday headed back to Seattle.  Small craft warnings and just been posted by NOAA about an hour before I left, but didn’t cause too much concern.  Two hours later I was in a near gale burying the bow on multiple occasions.  Two local meteorologists who later reviewed the available information leading up to the event suggested that someone at NOAA was effectively (or ineffectively) asleep at the wheel.  They blew a forecastable event.

Which is why, on this current day, I had chosen to put 2 reefs in the main.  But as the afternoon wore on, and the wind dropped exactly as Windyty predicted, I finally lowered my sails.  And my faith in NOAA.

The purpose of the trip was a ‘safety at sea’ seminar, but the club dock had been reserved for a ‘mini cruise’ event.  I had signed up for the event, but acknowledged I would miss many of the activities owing to the seminar.

Docking took place without incident and I was very fortunate to join 3 different groups of folks throughout the night.  Great evening and looking forward to the seminar tomorrow.