Salty John : The Blog

Rig tuning

2012-03-06T16:37:00.000Z

There is a link to the North Sails tuning guide archive on the Salty John website. These guides are incredibly useful if you’re lucky enough to own one of the many types of boats covered. If your boat isn’t in the North Sail archive, try the website of other sailmakers and see if you strike it lucky there.

If there is no tuning guide for your specific boat model, don’t despair, each Loos & Co. tension gauge comes with full instructions including suggested preliminary settings for different wire sizes and rig types.

Loos makes two different classes of gauge for wire rigging – Standard and Pro. They also make two sizes of gauge for rod rigging. We carry the metric version of all sizes in stock.

The standard range comprises two models, type A(91M) covering wire sizes 2.5mm, 3mm and 4mm and type B(90M) for wire sizes 5mm, 6mm and 7mm. These gauges are simple to use and accurate to 5% at mid range.

For more accuracy and convenience choose the Pro models: PT1M for 2.5mm, 3mm and 4mm, the PT2M for 5mm, 6mm and the lower tension end of 7mm and the PT3m for 7mm, 8mm, 9mm and 10mm wire. These gauges are a little more accurate, 3% at mid-range.

The Pro range is more convenient to use because the gauge is left on the wire whilst the turnbuckle adjustment is made whereas the Standard range gauges must be removed whilst the wire is adjusted.

Rod rigging can be accurately tuned with the RT10 and RT11 gauges.

Having the correct rig tension is important because a loose rig can impart shock loads to shrouds and chain plates as the mast flops from side to side; a too tight rig can cause structural damage.

A well tuned rig will have equally tensioned shrouds so that the boat will perform well on both tacks, the leeward shrouds won’t dangle flaccidly and the forestay won’t sag. She’ll feel right on all points of sail.

A tuned rig is a happy rig. Fair winds for the coming season!

New AIS antenna

2012-03-03T11:57:00.000Z

I often bang on about the use of a Metz Manta VHF antenna mounted on the pushpit rail to send and receive AIS data whilst also providing back-up for the radio antenna.

Metz also makes an AIS optimised VHF antenna – it’s available on the Salty John website.

The marine VHF band runs from 156 MHz to 163 MHz. Most, but not all, VHF antennas send and receive over this entire band – they have sufficient bandwidth to perform at both ends of the range. But the performance, the quality of the signal, drops off towards the extremities of the range. This effect is less with top quality antennas and worryingly obvious on those of lower quality.

AIS optimised antennas were introduced to provide better performance at the higher end of the marine VHF band where the AIS signals reside – 162 MHz. But, if you want to use your AIS antenna as back up for your radio antenna you’re going to want to be sure that by optimising the performance at one end of the band you’re not going to jeopardise performance at the other end, where Channel 16 resides.

Well, you can rest assured that the new AIS optimised version of our VHF antenna has the quality of bandwidth to ensure it will perform well as a back-up radio antenna.

However, I continue to recommend that if you are ever going to use your AIS antenna to replace your radio antenna, go for the Metz Manta. If your AIS antenna is never to be used to back up your radio antenna, go for the Metz AIS optimised version. Simple as that.

Seamanship

2012-02-29T12:43:00.000Z

What is seamanship? The dictionaries define it as the skill or technique or art of handling a boat or ship at sea. It surely is that, but I think it’s a bit more.

Seamanship is certainly about having the sailor’s basic skills, but it must also be about judgement. Good seamanship isn’t just being able to steer a steady course or make a tidy splice. It’s knowing how and when to apply ones skills to keep the boat and her crew safe and sound.

It’s been said that the superior boater uses his superior judgement to stay out of situations that require his superior skills. That sounds like good seamanship to me.

Antenna quality

2012-02-24T15:37:00.000Z

An aerial is an aerial is an aerial. No it isn’t. Not by a long chalk.

A marine VHF whip antenna depends for its performance on proper design and build-quality. That tin can at the bottom of the antenna contains the DC shunted coil that must be precisely tuned to the proper resonance. Getting this bit of the design and build right is the difference between an antenna that performs well and one that doesn’t.

The Metz range is based on a heavy gauge stainless steel shell which encloses the 16 AWG coil wound around a substantial form. The coil assembly is sealed in a solid epoxy compound. This build method allows prolonged transmission without danger of coil distortion as the antenna heats up.

Lower quality antennas have fibreglass bodies enclosing light gauge coils and inadequate forms all sealed in a waxy substance. This flimsy internal construction leads to distortion of the coil as the antenna heats up when transmitting, which changes the antenna characteristics, leading to poor performance and even damage to the radio.

To survive in the marine environment the antenna needs to be strongly built of appropriate materials – look for stainless steel components, including both the body and the whip. How the antenna is built internally isn’t so obvious – you’ll need to rely on reputation and a good warranty.

You don’t need to pay through the nose for top quality construction: the Metz Manta is similar in price to ordinary fibreglass bodied antennas and substantially lower in price than some other stainless bodied antennas. And it carries a lifetime coil warranty. Check it out at the Salty John on-line shop.

Boat food.

2012-02-20T13:14:00.000Z

I’ve been raiding Mrs Salty’s recipe book which she built up over six years of full time cruising. It’s a veritable goldmine of galley cuisine ideas.

Maddie bread is one of my favourites; a great treat for breakfast or as an anytime snack. We liked it in place of toast, which was a pain to make using those stupid wire racks over a cooker burner.

Maddie bread is short for Madeleine’s German Graham Bread: Our friend Madeleine introduced us to it, she claims it’s German in origin, Graham is a type of wholemeal flour and it’s a kind of bread. So, it’s an accurate if not succinct title.

By the way, don’t confuse Graham flour with gram flour; the latter is made from chickpeas, not wheat.

Anyway, on with the recipe:

1 cup of all purpose flour
2 cups of Graham flour. (Substitute wholemeal outside North America)
1 ½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
½ cup brown sugar
2 cups of buttermilk. (A substitute for buttermilk is ordinary milk with 1 tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar added per cup).
Cinnamon or raisins, optional.

Blend all dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. Add buttermilk – mix with spoon. Add cinnamon or raisins if desired. Turn into greased bread pan and bake for 1 hour at 180ºC (350ºF).

Delicious with butter and jam. Enjoy.

Oh, and here’s a tip for keeping your flour, rice, pasta and other dry staples weevil free – put a few bay leaves in the storage container. Put unopened bags or boxes of these products in large plastic bags with a few bay leaves. I don’t know why this works, but it does.

Blast from the past!

2012-02-15T09:43:00.000Z

I’ve just happened upon this painting of the S.S. Vietnam, the French liner on which I fled the family home in Hong Kong in search of fame and fortune (both of which continue to elude me, incidentally).

A bit of research tells me the Vietnam was one of three sister ships built in 1952 and she was destroyed by fire in the mid 1970’s. There was accommodation for 117 in first class, 110 in tourist class and 120 in steerage class. She could cruise at 21 knots.

I was16 years old when I boarded the ship on which I was to share an eight berth cabin in steerage class, right up front near the anchor lockers, for the 31 day journey to Marseilles.

I managed on several occasions to sneak into the tourist section to watch films in their cinema and wander through the first class accommodations, despite the formidable defences designed to keep the unwashed hippies of steerage class from doing so. The ship was luxuriously appointed in first class and tourist class; I remember gorgeous pale wood panelling and colourful tapestries, elaborate chandeliers. Not so in steerage, however. We had painted steel walls and floors and the mess hall was fitted with Formica benches and tables. Perhaps strangely for a French ship the food wasn’t memorable although we did have loads of bread and French red plonk on the table at mealtimes.

My companions were a mixed gang; a group of Japanese ‘transistor girls’ heading to Europe, various back-packers from Britain, France, Canada and Australia, a professional surfer from Hawaii on his way to a competition in Australia accompanied by his photographer friend. Excellent company.

My 8-berth cabin was never fully occupied and between Colombo and Bombay the only other resident was an insane man who took to his bunk with a bottle of Fanta and refused all food, convinced he was being poisoned. They took him away in Bombay strapped to a stretcher.

The ship had set off from Yokohama, picked me up in Hong Kong, and continued to Saigon, Singapore, Colombo, Bombay, Djibouti, Port Said and, finally, Marseilles.

The Vietnam War was in full swing so my three days in Saigon were particularly interesting – a night time curfew, firing squad in the market place, lunch at an American Forces canteen, (courtesy of the Hawaiian surfer dudes) and seeing people having their pictures taken alongside the wreckage of the floating restaurant recently bombed by Viet Cong guerrillas. Fascinating stuff.

A group of five of us left the ship at Port Suez and took a taxi (yes, a taxi!) to Cairo to see the museum and then on to Giza to see the Pyramids and the Sphinx before catching up with the ship again at Port Said, perilously close to its sailing time. It cost us £3 each – a journey of 200 miles during which the Canadian had to take over the driving because the taxi driver had become inebriated over lunch! Looking back, it was a highly hazardous journey but it seemed like fun at the time.

From Marseilles I took the boat train to London and then north to take up my engineering apprenticeship. Great memories, amazing what a chance encounter with a bit of ones past can conjure up!

The cruel sea

2012-02-10T15:28:00.000Z

Wandering the oceans on a small boat has always seemed to me to be remarkable safe, given a modicum of seafaring competence. I don’t know how it compares statistically to, say, back-packing but I don’t believe it’s in any way a dangerous pursuit. And then something comes along to shake you out of your complacency:

On New Years Day 2000, the first day of the new millennium, Don Fairweather, a Canadian single-hander, left Nassau, Bahamas. He stopped off at Normans Cay, about 30 miles southeast of Nassau, where he helped a couple of snorklers who were having trouble with their dinghy motor. He told them he couldn’t stop to chat because he wanted to get to his next anchorage before nightfall.

He hasn’t been seen since.

We spent that New Year’s Day, and the two days after it, anchored at Hawksbill Cay, a couple of miles south of Normans Cay. Then we headed slowly south to Georgetown via Staniel Cay and several other anchorages. We didn’t encounter Don and Intrigue, his 32’ sloop, anywhere along our route.

The boat has never been found, no wreckage has turned up and Don’s EPIRB was never activated.

Laura Fairweather, the younger of Don’s two daughters, flew down to the Bahamas to search for him after all the local efforts to find him failed. She’s convinced he took the cay-hopping inside passage down the Exuma Cays, intending to anchor each night, but I can’t believe that; no-one saw him and it’s a fairly well traveled road at that time of the year. My guess is that he cut through the chain of cays south of Normans Cay to Little San Salvador and then went offshore towards his ultimate destination which, I believe, was the British Virgin Islands.

The weather was pretty benign until 14 January when a strong ‘norther’ came through with winds gusting to 40 knots or so. He would have been long gone by then so it seems unlikely that he succumbed to a weather event. Piracy was unheard of in the Bahamas at that time so that leaves a run-down or other catastrophic event leading to sinking, or he fell over the side. If he was offshore when such a tragedy occurred it wouldn’t be certain that the boat would be found, if left to drift on its own, or that any debris would wash up on an inhabited shore. That’s why I think he went offshore – you couldn’t hide a boat wreck on the inside passage even if he had managed to travel it unnoticed. He was a highly experienced mariner for whom the offshore option would not have been daunting, perhaps even preferred.

It was suggested that he may have wanted to drop out and start a new life but that’s a non-starter – he was by all accounts a contented, fit and healthy 70 year old, long divorced, financially well-off and devoted to his two daughters.

I guess we’ll never know what became of Don Fairweather and Intrigue. And maybe ocean cruising is just that little bit more hazardous than I like to believe.

VHF connectors for boats.

2012-02-06T15:49:00.000Z

Boats use coaxial cable for their radio and AIS systems – here’s a look at the connectors you might encounter when installing or repairing the necessary cable runs:

The PL259 and its female partner the SO239. This connector pair was developed in the late 1930’s by a designer with the fantastic name of E. Clark Quackenbush. He worked for Amphenol at the time and I wouldn’t have mentioned him at all were it not for that magnificent name. Anyway, he designed what was to become the most widely used connector in the amateur radio field.

PL stands for plug and the number, 259, is the inventory number assigned to it by the US military. The socket into which it plugs is given another inventory number, 239, and the prefix SO for socket.

The connector was originally called a UHF connector, and still is in some circles, which is odd because it was designed for use at frequencies up to 300 MHz, the VHF band, and not the UHF band which only starts at 300 MHz. Mr Quackenbush probably had nothing to do with the misnaming of his creation.

All marine VHF radios have a built-in SO239 antenna socket to accept a PL259. Top quality marine antennas use the same connector, so the antenna cable will have a PL259 at each end, whatever other connectors it has for intermediate joins.

The PL259 is simple, mechanically rugged and relatively easy to fit. That’s why it’s popular on boats. Purist radio techies will tell you all about its non-constant impedance but at marine frequencies, around 150 MHz, this doesn’t matter a jot.

You can find fitting instructions on the Salty John website, under ‘articles and links’.
The PL259 needs to fit cable diameters from 5mm up to 10.4mm. (The various cable types are discussed elsewhere on the blog). Although you can buy 5mm PL259s it’s more usual to use a standard connector with an adapter insert to suit the appropriate size cable. I like using an adapter because it grips the coaxial braid firmly and that means you don’t need to solder the braid to the connector body. You still need to solder the centre conductor to the centre pin, of course, but that’s easy.

The PL259 is not fully waterproof and the join should be protected with silicone self fusing tape when used outside.

When the cable run on a boat encounters a bulkhead or deck you have make a choice – do you drill a hole and pass the cable through it, continuing the unbroken run, or do you use a bulkhead connector of some sort? I’ll save the debate over the relative merits of deck plugs, deck glands and the various joining methods for another time, but no discussion of the PL259 would be complete without a mention of the barrel connector.

The barrel connector is a double female – you can plug a PL259 into each end and make a mechanically strong connection between two sections of cable. The barrel connector comes in a variety of lengths starting with the small, discontinuously threaded version about 1” long, up to a 12 inch long monster.

The short barrel connector is called a PL258. This shows that the bloke in the spares department in the US military wasn’t on his toes when it came to designating inventory numbers because this is clearly a double socket (SO) and not a plug (PL).

The longer versions are all called PL363 barrel connectors and you have to specify the length.

The PL363 comes with a pair of nuts to secure it through the bulkhead – be that a wall or the deck or a radar arch base. The standard nuts are a bit wimpy but you can buy more substantial ones – the thread is 5/8” 24 tpi.

The BNC connector is a bayonet connector designed for applications where frequent connecting and disconnecting occurs, such as on laboratory oscilloscopes. Despite this it has found its way into applications such as connecting the antenna to an AIS unit, or even for cable to cable connections. BNC stands for Bayonet Neill Concelman, after its two designers.

Aware that the bayonet design allowed noise to intrude when the cable was subjected to vibration the Neill Concelman partnership came up with a more secure variation, the TNC, for Threaded Neill Concelman.

Both connectors have male and female halves – typically the male bit is attached to the AIS unit and the antenna cable is fitted with the mating female connector. Barrel connectors are also available for cable to cable joins. BNC and TNC connector sets are often chosen as cable to cable connectors when the reliable but chunky PL259/barrel connector/PL259 connection is unworkable.

BNC and TNC connectors are fiddlier to fit to the cable than the good old PL259 but they are high performance connectors, used for frequencies as high as 11 GHz. That’s a gazillion times more critical than the simple 150 MHz of VHF.

You could consider fitting a PL259 to your AIS antenna lead and then use an SO239/BNC adapter to connect to the AIS unit – this makes sense because the PL259 is easier to fit than the BNC female connector and, should you lose your masthead VHF antenna, you can simply stick the AIS antenna lead, sans adapter, into the back of your VHF radio and you’re back in business radio-wise.

Another connector you might encounter on boats is the N connector – named for that serial connector designer Mr Paul Neill of Bell Labs who designed it in the 1940s. This is another connector set that has high performance, being suitable for frequencies up to 11 GHz. Commercial VHF antennas often come with an N connector and RG213 cable.

If you have satellite communications on your boat you may encounter the F connector to attach to a remote antenna system and if you want to connect your handheld VHF radio to a fixed antenna you might use an SMA connector, although some manufacturers have their own proprietary antenna connector.

I think I’ve rambled on quite enough for one day – I hope some will have found the foregoing illuminating, and I know that many will have slipped into a coma after the first paragraph or two.

Marine sealants

2012-02-02T11:15:00.000Z

There is a bewildering array of sealants available at your chandlers for jobs requiring a watertight seal or bond between surfaces.
Attaching deck hardware, repairing the inflatable dinghy, making a hull to deck seal, fitting portlights or sealing through-hulls and seacocks all require sealants with special qualities.

Here’s a brief run through of what’s available and what it’s good for:

Silicone.
These are easy-to-use and generally clean products with a variety of uses such as isolating dissimilar metals and for sealing wood, glass and most plastics. They resist most boaty chemicals. Not recommended for underwater tasks such as sealing through hulls or for really tough jobs like hull to deck joints. A bit wimpy on the adhesive front.

Polysulphide (polysulfide).
Fantastically versatile and strong, stay flexible, bond well to most surfaces and can be used above or below the waterline. Not suitable for bonding plastics - melt acrylics and some plastics such as ABS and polycarbonates such as Lexan. Yikes. Take ages to cure.

Polyurethane.
The Incredible Hulk of the sealant world! Powerfully adhesive, they cure to form a flexible seal that’s all but impossible to break. There are several brands available with different cure rates, elongation characteristics, and tensile strength. Sika offers a large range of polyurethane hybrids for different specific purposes, Sikaflex 291 being the all-rounder. The universe could be held together with 3M 5200. I sealed a large gash in my Zodiac with this product and it was still going strong years later. Hull to deck joints, sealing through hulls and any other permanent bonding job cry out for polyurethane but don’t use it on acrylics. And don’t use it on anything you might contemplate taking apart again. Ever.

Polyether.
Polyurethane’s better looking, smarter but slightly wimpier brother. Looks good for a long time, cures very quickly, UV resistant, ultra flexible, shrugs off teak oils so can be used as a deck caulk, doesn’t stink and doesn’t shrink. What’s not to like? Oh, and you can use it on plastics, even ABS and polycarbonates. 3M 4000UV is an example.

Then we have a bunch of specialised sealants: Butyls, acrylics and bedding compounds. I’ve never found a use for these, given the availability of the above, but there may be special, obscure applications for which they are more suitable than the mainstream sealant types.

I have a cunning plan...

2012-01-30T11:03:00.000Z

What about those banker’s bonuses, eh! All that filthy lucre got me thinking and a plan has formed: I’m opening my own bank – Salty John’s Bank and Boat Shop. It has a certain ring to it.

I’ll lend huge sums in boat mortgages to anyone who wants them, the only criteria being that the lendees could never in their wildest dreams make the repayments. Then I’ll go spectacularly broke and, amid fears that I could bring the British economy to it's knees, sell the whole sorry mess to the British taxpayer. Shortly after the dust has settled I’ll collect my huge performance bonus and bugger off to the Caribbean in my super yacht.

I think I’ve grasped the business model.

VHF radio interference from LEDs

2012-01-25T09:55:00.000Z

With more and more boaters switching from incandescent to LED navigation lights there is an emerging problem with VHF radio interference from these lighting sources.

LED lights need a constant voltage to perform properly and on most good quality LEDs this is provided by a tiny built-in controller. Some of these controllers, if not properly suppressed, can interfere with radio signals in the 30-300 MHz frequency range – just where VHF and AIS frequencies reside.

In some reported cases the interference is so bad that switching on LED lights within 10 feet of the antenna renders voice communication unintelligible and all AIS data disappears.

The LED revolution is a good thing for boats, providing reliable, long lasting, low power consumption lighting. But manufacturers need to ensure that their products do not interfere with the boats communication systems. They need to say this on the tin.

If you intend to change your masthead navigation lights to LEDs and you have a masthead mounted VHF antenna you should seek assurances that these lights will not cause interference.

The same interference problem applies to FM radio reception, but not being able to listen to the radio with the cabin lights on is an inconvenience, albeit a significant one, rather than a danger.

Check out those LEDs!

A lovely bunch of coconuts!

2012-01-20T09:34:00.002Z

Coconuts are lovely things. The very thought of them conjures up memories of palm fronds swaying over sandy beaches on sun drenched tropical islands.

The fine pair in the picture were bobbing alongside Adriana as we waited out a cold front anchored off Puerto Patillas on the south coast of Puerto Rico. We’d been stuck there for a couple of days and the appearance of the coconuts was a very welcome diversion.

I set about cracking these two open with hammer and chisel. I’m sure the south sea islanders have a more efficient technique than the one I adopted but eventually I’d hacked off the outer coir, punched out the eyes, drained the milk into a jar and smashed the nuts into manageable pieces.

The tasty, pleasantly sweet, meat of the coconut is lower in sugar and higher in protein than other popular fruit, although it’s high in saturated fat. The coconut milk is a pleasant and refreshing drink and, more importantly, forms the basis for that excellent rum cocktail, the Piña Colada.

In Boquerón you can enjoy this pleasant concoction whilst you browse the small supermercado situated a short stroll from the beach. The owner of the shop declares in large letters on his wall that he is the King of the Piña Colada! Well, senor, I can tell you that yours weren’t a patch on the jug-full we had in that rolly anchorage off Puerto Patillas.

I’m definitely a coconut man!

The Beaufort Scale

2012-01-16T15:25:00.000Z

The Beaufort Scale of Wind Force has been around for over 200 years; it’s still used in the BBC shipping forecast, issued by the Met Office on behalf of the MCA. You don’t hear much of it across the pond, though, or Down Under.

When Sir Francis Beaufort first devised the scale in 1805 it was simply his assessment of wind strength, based on the observed sea conditions, so that a mariner could decide how much sail to carry - If the sea looks like this you’re in a gale and you can carry this much sail.

More specifically, it was intended to describe the conditions under which various amounts of sail could be carried by a man-o-war, the principle warship of the time.

The scale ran from a Force 0, dead calm in which all sail would be flown, to a Force 12 in which the winds were “….such that no canvas could withstand”.

In 1831, when anemometers had been around a bit, wind speeds were applied to each of Sir Francis’ 13 levels of wind force. A Force 6 was described as a fresh breeze of 22 to 27 knots “or that in which a well conditioned man-o-war could carry, in chase, full and by, single reefed topsails and top gallant sails”.

Very evocative if you know your top gallants from your tam o’shanters.

Over time the scale was further modified and modernised. Wind speeds were added, as I’ve said, and a ‘state of sea card’ was produced bearing photographs of the sea state to be expected for each Beaufort force. Further Forces were added to cover the conditions that might prevail in tropical cyclonic storms. Wave heights are now seen on many versions of the scale.

The wind speeds which were applied to each of the Forces were, presumably, those that most closely related to the conditions that Sir Francis described. For instance F0, dead calm, is given a wind speed of less than 1 knot, something of a no-brainer, but F5 is 17 to 21 knots – it must have taken some serious debate to arrive at that range of figures. And, inevitably, the progression of wind speeds up the scale is not linear, reflecting the exponentially increasing force on the sails as the wind speed climbs. F5 is 17 to 21 knots, whilst F10 is 48 to 55 knots – an F10 is not merely twice an F5.

The Beaufort scale is seen as an anachronism by many sailing newbies. There is a temptation to assume the Beaufort scale is simply an illogical grouping of wind speeds with no obvious conversion rate to anything else. Why not, they might think, devise some logical groupings: 0-9 knots, 10 -19 knots and so on, if it’s necessary to group wind speeds at all. Such logic is all very well if you think of Beaufort Force as simply another form of wind speed measurement such as knots, miles per hour or meters per second, for which there is a mathematical conversion.

But that isn’t where it came from; it might have been diverted to that use, but what Sir Francis Beaufort devised was a means of establishing the force of the wind by looking at the sea, a reference source to tell mariners how much sail to risk in any given condition.

Funnily enough, merchant ships at sea still determine true wind speed from sea conditions – and they supply this information to the MET office. The reason they do it this way is because anemometers mounted on large fast moving ships don’t tell the true wind speed, they measure apparent wind speed – the wind speed modified by the ships own, often very high, speed and by the effect of the ships superstructure. To get the true wind speed they rely on their deck officers who are skilled at estimating it from the sea state. Sir Francis Beaufort would be proud of them.

Good start to 2012

2012-01-10T15:25:00.000Z

A big ‘thank you’ to all Salty John customers for providing such an excellent start to the 2012 campaign. This in spite of the fact that the London International Boat Show is currently in full swing.

The first week of the year brought a number of Loos tension gauge sales, mainly from Europe, Metz antennas have been flying off the shelves and sales are buoyant across a broad selection of our products including the Motor Lift, davit slings, the Hot Knife, mooring hooks and our new 100% wool watch cap.

It used to be that the London Boat Show sucked away spending in the period up to the opening of the show, presumably in anticipation of Boat Show Specials. This year we haven’t seen this effect – it seems people no longer believe they are going to get those bargains and go ahead and buy on the internet as usual.

I’m also pleased to see that trade sales of the Metz antenna have started brightly with good orders from UK and Spain.

Keep up the good work!

Hurricanes, not.

2012-01-05T17:07:00.000Z

Once again we are seeing major storms through the UK. Winds gusting to 80 knots and more are hammering the country. Roof tiles are flying off, trees are falling, the coastline is being assaulted by massive waves and, tragically, a couple of people have died as a result.

This means, of course, that the media can report we are being hit by HURRICANES!
Well, we might have wind speeds of more than 64 knots, one of the criteria used to define a hurricane, but we aren’t having hurricanes. A hurricane is, by definition, a tropical revolving storm and we aren’t in the tropics.

I don't think we need to sex up these large extra-tropical cyclones by calling them hurricanes. Our storm systems are powerful enough in their own right, as we’re seeing.

Hurricanes (or typhoons or tropical cyclones depending on where you are in the tropics) are quite different to extra-tropical storms. For a start they don't have associated fronts. They have a warm core; they develop over warm water. Our storms have a cold core; they form over cold water. Hurricanes are very symmetrical and have a calm, well defined, eye. They break up quickly when encountering cold water or land.

Hurricanes are more powerful, generally, but smaller in size than extra-tropical storms.

It isn't just wind speed that defines a hurricane.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-02T13:21:00.002Z

As Salty John starts its seventh year as a supplier of uncommon boating kit I’d like to thank all our customers for their support - and wish everyone all the very best for a Happy and Healthy 2012.

Sailing and propellers.

2011-12-30T15:29:00.000Z

If you think anchor selection is a controversial subject you should try talking about propellers.
I don’t know why these subjects should cause such angst, but they do. So I’ll just dive right in.

The first issue is drag: Under sail with the engine stopped does the propeller create more drag when it’s locked or when it’s allowed to freewheel? You would think the answer would be unequivocal – and it shouldn’t need rocket scientists to work it out. But just to be sure, some rocket scientists, or their marine equivalents, did work it out recently and their answer is unequivocal: There is less drag when the propeller is allowed to rotate.

Scientists at MIT and at Strathclyde University agree on this. It is fact.

So, we know we get less drag with the propeller rotating but what are the other arguments for and against allowing the prop to turn?

Noise: The rumble from a rotating propeller can be quite intrusive, particularly if you’re off watch in a stern berth. Some people can’t stand the noise whilst others find it interesting; they like to judge the speed of the boat by the level of noise.

Energy recovery: If you want to run a generator off the shaft it has to turn – simple.

Wear: Where there’s motion there’s wear and tear, if not damage, to drive train bearings and seals.

Gearbox damage: Clearly you shouldn’t be risking damage to your gearbox or losing your warranty protection just to get a half a knot of boat speed under sail or to get a good nights sleep in the quarter berth.

It seems that Yanmar became so concerned at the number of requests they received for clarification on the best practice for their engine/gearbox combinations that they issued a directive: The gearbox must be in neutral when sailing or your warranty will be invalidated. If you want to stop the shaft use a shaft brake, they say, not our gearbox.

I have to admit that I sailed for many thousands of miles with my Yanmar 3GM30F in reverse gear to stop the shaft rotating and I never had a moment’s trouble. Just lucky?

If you have a Hurth/ZF gearbox you must not select forward gear when sailing forwards. Or reverse when sailing backwards, obviously. Apart from that, use the gearbox in reverse to lock the shaft or let it run free, it’s up to you.

With a Borg Warner Velvet Drive transmission you can do what you like, it will rotate anyway.

On some gearboxes damage can occur because the engine needs to be running to provide lubrication, with splash lubrication there isn’t usually a problem, so check the manual.

It boils down to this: If you are obsessed with squeezing out the last fraction of a knot under sail you need to let the prop freewheel. You’ll be happy to accept any wear and tear on your cutlass bearing and you’ll issue ear plugs to those that find the noise is keeping them awake.

If you’re worried about wear or can’t stand the noise you’ll want the shaft stopped and whether you do that by using the gearbox or a shaft brake will depend on your gearbox manufacturer’s advice, and whether or not you’re going to obey it.

Simple, really.

But don’t worry, there are plenty more propeller issues to fight over when you want a break from anchor arguments: Folding props, feathering props, duo-props, two blade, three blade, using vicegrips as a shaft brake………

No! The other starboard!

2011-12-23T15:45:00.000Z

Well, the festive weekend is upon us. May joy be unconfined and much food and drink be taken. Merry Christmas to you all.

The fashion for surrounding the helm with electronic gadgetry got me thinking about the voice-prompting, turn-by-turn, GPS sets you get in cars and I wondered how they would work on boats.

The prompt menu couldn’t just be transferred from the car sets to marine GPS units and chartplotters – a tinny electronic voice saying, politely, “You have gone too far, make a U-turn when it is safe to do so” probably wouldn’t work.

Still, it shouldn’t be difficult to devise a new set of suitably aggressive voice prompts. Amongst them might be:

“Turn onto 217 degrees now, Mr Christian, or I’ll have you flogged!”
“Ramming speed!”
“Proceed across the shipping lane on 180 degre...OH MY GOD!”
“No, you twonk, the other starboard”
“Were you thinking of making that tack I ordered anytime this week?”

I’ve just had another great idea! Why not have the boat steered by an autopilot which is controlled by voice recognition software. Brilliant. The GPS shouts the course, the autopilot obeys. Now we just need the autopilot to get peed off and sulk, ignoring further commands until an apology is forthcoming and we'll have electronically simulated the family cruise. The humans could stay home where they won't get hurt.

Garmin! Raymarine! Are you listening!

Nicknames

2011-12-19T18:43:00.000Z

My office window at Salty John Towers looks out over a country lane. Off to the left the lane leads past houses, campsites and caravan parks to a pleasant inn and the river. To the right is the village with its houses, cottages, three pubs and two restaurants. And the small Post Office from which many Salty John parcels are dispatched.

Over the years I’ve given nicknames to the people that regularly walk past my window. The names are mostly of an affectionate nature and once I come to know the person involved the nickname is dispensed with.

Fifties woman is one of my longest serving perambulators. She has a blonde beehive of impressive proportions and wears straight skirts and four inch heels. I can hear the click-clack of those heels well before she heaves into view. Another one who could be heard long before he appeared was The Whistler. Two years ago I realised he’d gone AWOL. I hope he’s all right and that he’s simply taken his perpetual warble elsewhere, but sometimes I fear the worst.

Then there’s Man-woman, a bit cruel that one and I will probably feel quite guilty should I ever meet her. But her masculine countenance begged the sobriquet.

The Twins Mother is, I was recently informed, not the mother of twins. Well, they look like twins. I know who she is but as we’ve not actually met she remains in the cast. Along with The Major and Mrs Major - he of the military bearing and magnificent moustache who tips his hat at the ladies. She of the Queenly wardrobe topped by a turquoise beret which adds a certain jauntiness.

Mystery woman has been around for several years and is still a mystery. Attractively interesting, I’d call her. She probably leads a perfectly ordinary life but her role as Mystery woman allows for more rewarding flights of imagination.

Some of the walkers know each other and on several occasions have stopped to chat together at the end of my drive. I often wave and they wave back.

I once had the part of one of the characters, the Boy, in “Six Characters in Search of an Author”, the Luigi Pirandello tragic comedy in which six characters persuade a director to let them act out their story – the Boy shoots himself in the end.

Anyway, it got me wondering if my cast of characters isn’t crying out to be in a story – scandal and intrigue in a small Lancashire village, perhaps. I’ll work on it this winter.

I know this has nothing to do with sailing or boats but it’s that time of year. I’ll try to get back on track next week. Unless you’d like to hear more about Mystery woman and that bloke that runs the boating website?

I’ll take this opportunity to wish all my readers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Waves, the wind's assassin.

2011-12-14T13:22:00.000Z

It’s been pretty windy around here for the past couple of weeks. We’ve had Force 10 and 11 a couple of times in northwest England and in Scotland.

Off Donegal they measured a wave at 67’ (20.4m), the highest wave recorded in Ireland. The Irish Met Office says the buoy that measured it is 11km off the coast, so it was generated in deep water by the persistently high winds.

I was once in very large waves, around 45 feet, off the east coast of the USA and there was a point at which I didn’t think the boat was going to make it up the face of a particularly steep wave. An illusion, of course, but pretty scary nonetheless.

The probable maximum height of wind waves is around 80% of the wind speed. So, a 50 knot wind blowing over an area of ocean with unlimited fetch would produce a maximum wave height of about 40 feet. This height is achieved after it has been blowing for a day, having doubled in height since the first four or five hours of the storm. Further maximum wave height increase is more subdued, it takes two days to get that wave up to 50 feet in height.

The average wave height in a storm is about half the height of the top ten percent of waves and one third of the highest wave. So, if the maximum wave height in our 50 knot blow is 40 feet, the top ten percent of waves will be about 20 feet and the overall average will be about 14 feet. It doesn’t sound so bad when you put it like that, does it? Except that you still have to survive those pesky maximums and top ten-percenters!

Outboard motor & cargo hoist.

2011-12-09T11:24:00.000Z

On sailing boats, particularly ketches and yawls, you can use the mizzen boom to hoist the outboard motor or other heavy cargo aboard. If the layout of your boat doesn’t lend itself to this you can fit a dedicated cargo boom or outboard motor hoist. These are incredibly useful pieces of equipment – you’ll wonder how you managed without one.

There are various types available, some quite reasonable in price others eye-wateringly expensive. Or you can make your own from 1½” (38mm) stainless tube bent to shape, or cut and welded. The vertical section can rotate inside a slightly larger diameter tube secured to a pushpit upright with bolted clamps or hose clamps. A rubber tip or softwood plug will protect the deck from the cut end of the tube.

A three part purchase using a double block on the davit arm will give you a three to one mechanical advantage. The hoisting line can be secured to a cleat on the davit upright. A more sophisticated version might use a trailer winch and crank handle to do the hoisting.

Whether you use the mizzen boom, a dedicated cargo hoist or simply a halyard to hoist your outboard motor you’ll need a Salty John Motor Lift™ to provide the top lifting point.

Metz Manta VHF/AIS antenna

2011-12-05T14:12:00.000Z

Here’s the flyer we send out to retailers to support the Metz Manta VHF antenna, when we're wearing our Metz Europe hat.

VHF antennas are also used by AIS engines. You may see antennas described as AIS aerials (or antennas) and what this means is the VHF antenna is tuned to centre on the AIS frequencies, 161.9 and 162.0 MHz, rather than on the broader range of radio frequencies including the emergency channel, 156.8 MHz.
The Metz Manta covers 156 MHz to 163 MHz, so includes all radio and AIS channels.
Metz makes a dedicated AIS antenna but rarely is it chosen over the Metz Manta because the difference in reception is not very significant. Better to have the option to use either antenna for either purpose, I feel.

Do your's droop?

2011-12-01T12:12:00.000Z

Drooping is not usually a good thing. You don’t want drooping bits. You especially don’t want drooping spreaders. Drooping spreaders are a symptom of a rig in distress, a rig on the road to catastrophic failure.

Perky upward pointing spreaders are what you want. Perky spreaders have tips that bisect the angle of the shrouds that pass over them. In this way the load on the spreader is even and the spreader is disinclined to be pushed up or down, slackening the shroud and threatening the integrity of the whole rig.

Spreaders come in lots of shapes and configurations: The racier boats have spreaders with aerofoil sections, like little aircraft wings, to reduce wind resistance. Cruising boats tend to have longer spreaders to give a broader based rig, sacrificing sheeting angle for better mast support. Old fashioned cruising boats under about 45’ tend to have single spreader rigs, for the sake of simplicity, whilst more modern boats with relatively taller masts adopt multiple spreaders at shorter boat lengths. Spreaders can be fixed at the mast or fully articulating and they come with a variety of methods of attaching the shroud to the spreader tip so it doesn’t jump out. But whatever the spreaders design, droopiness must be avoided at all costs – check your spreaders now!

A word of caution: Once you become an aficionado of the perky spreader your marina dock strolls will take on new meaning, your eye will be inexorably drawn aloft in search of droopers with the attendant risk of an early bath or a broken toe.

The eagle has landed! Back to work.

2011-11-24T10:53:00.000Z

Just back from the USA and the Salty John elves are very busy shipping the goods ordered whilst we were away and generally getting things up and running again.

Here’s a picture of an eagle constructed entirely from car bumpers. I don’t know why anyone would do such a thing but it looks pretty cool. It’s located at the entrance to the Watergate marina complex on Clear Lake, Texas, where we kept a boat for a time.

Not many people know this but Galveston Bay is the third biggest yachting centre in the USA, after Annapolis and San Diego. Clear Lake, in the northwest corner of Galveston Bay, has a huge number of marinas catering to weekend sailors and a thriving live aboard community.

It was a sunny 30ºC when we left Florida and a numbing 5ºC when we landed at Manchester. Oh well.

Vacation! Yee ha!

2011-11-04T10:12:00.000Z

Next week we’re off to the USA for a two week break. The first stop will be Texas to spend time with family and then it’s on to south Florida for fun in the sun.

Y’all check out the notice on the Salty John website alerting you to the fact that nothing will be shipped out until we get back on 23 November. Feel free to place your orders, though.

I’m unlikely to blog until we get back but then I hope to have lots of interesting stuff to get you through the winter months. Ciao for now!

Ampophobia anyone?

2011-10-29T11:45:00.000+01:00

A bout of bursitis in my knee this week got me thinking about the physical and mental effects of long term cruising.

Bursitis is caused by repetitive movement and pressure on the joint. As a result, carpet layers, footballers and housewives are more likely to suffer bursitis in their knees than is the general population. I’m convinced that trying to maintain balance on a constantly moving deck for six years of my life has left me susceptible to bursitis in my leg joints.

What about ampophobia? This is an obsession with hoarding battery capacity. The sufferer becomes frantic to measure accurately the amps flowing into and out of his battery banks. He becomes convinced that his alternator, solar panels and wind generator are faulty. He tests them exhaustively and joins boating forums to compare his results with other ampophobics who think that they, too, are being cheated by their amp gathering resources. As the condition takes hold the sufferer will accumulate different types of batteries and charging devices, more sophisticated monitoring systems, several types of hydrometer. A battery terminal cleaning brush.

Ampophobia is often caused initially by another condition – meltaphobia, the fear of the boat fridge failing to keep its contents cold. Obsessively monitoring the fridge temperature with a range of increasingly sophisticated thermocouples is a dead give away. Help should be sought immediately before the condition can develop into full blown ampophobia.

Another electricity related hang up is toastitis, the compulsion to design and build a 12v DC toaster. This condition afflicts many long term cruisers once the novelty of burning toast on a wire rack placed over a cooker burner has worn thin. I’ve never seen a successful 12volt toaster, but with all the cruisers out there franticly doing the R&D it’s only a matter of time.

I’m sure you get the picture. You may have your own particular physical or mental condition as a result of long term cruising but, rest assured, once ashore for a short period the symptoms disappear. To be replaced by an overwhelming desire to sell up, quit your job and run away to sea in a small boat.

Autumn morning on the canal

2011-10-22T16:11:00.000+01:00

Wrapped up warmly against the chilly breeze we idled north along the Lancaster Canal on this perfect autumn morning, sun sparkling off the rippled surface.

A convoy of swans escorted us for a while as we pottered past farmers’ fields and beneath stone bridges.

We didn’t meet another boat, nor towpath walker, angler or blackberry picker during our couple of hours on the water.

And then it was back to Salty John Towers for fried egg butties and footie on the box. Bliss.

Taking the ground

2011-10-17T10:39:00.000+01:00

I wrote an article for the Salty John website about selecting a cruising boat and in it I suggested that an important consideration was whether or not the boat could take the ground safely. Somebody took me to task on this, saying that boats weren’t supposed to take the ground and if I hit the bottom and damaged my boat it would be entirely my own fault. Hmm.

I beg to differ, but I can see how such a view could take hold and how it would be of some relief to boat builders that it be allowed to.

I’m certainly not a yacht designer so I can only speculate that bolt on appendages are favoured because it’s cheap to build that way and it allows more varied keel configurations to be used, designs that would be impossible to accommodate with an encapsulated ballast keel. And it allows the contact area between hull and keel to be minimised and streamlined – this is apparently a good thing when trying to design a faster boat. I suppose that’s why we see keels dropping off, and not just from high tech racing boats; even if the design is technically correct there must surely be less room for error in manufacturing to the required tolerances.

I once bounced a fin keeled Jeanneau Symphonie off the hard packed bottom of Galveston Bay. Not deliberately; I was caught by the tsunami-like bow wave of the tanker I’d just crossed the Houston ship channel in front of. A day or so later I found that water was trickling in from a crack alongside the keel – when I waggled the saloon table pedestal I could increase the flow! The repair was time consuming and costly.

So, whereas I don’t suggest that bolted on keels are unsuitable for cruising, far from it, I do think a cruising boat should be able to take the ground, deliberately or accidentally, without major structural damage.

Let's talk coax.

2011-10-11T15:30:00.000+01:00

A bad antenna system will make even the most exquisite radio perform badly. To get the best out of your VHF radio you need a top quality antenna system. As radio buffs are always telling us: “A penny in the antenna is worth a pound in the radio”.

VHF antenna systems comprise an antenna (aerial), a feeder cable and a few connectors. If you have a really good quality antenna such as the Metz Manta and use good quality connectors, you’ll want the correct coaxial cable to complete the system.

Coaxial cable for VHF radio is 50 ohm – your TV cable is 75 ohm so you can’t just use some coax left over from that satellite dish installation.

Furthermore, marine cable needs to work in a hostile and constantly moving environment. That’s why it needs to be tinned copper to resist corrosion and the centre core needs to be stranded so it can bend without breaking. A good PVC jacket will keep sunlight degradation at bay.

But what size cable should you choose?

I reckon you need to aim at a transmission loss of no more than 40% in the run from radio to antenna. This is also the opinion of the offshore yacht racing authorities so I’m in good company.

You’ll want to restrict the line loss (known as attenuation) to about 2.5 decibels (dB).

The picture shows, on the left, RG213 coax and on the right, RG8X.

RG213 (or its slightly lower spec but similarly stiff cousin, RG8U) is a whopping 10.3mm diameter, nearly half an inch in old money. So it’s heavy and doesn’t like to go around tight corners, but it only loses 2.2 dB per 30m length. On the right is its less uptight little brother – RG8X. This flexible fellow is only 6.5mm diameter, much lighter and easier to work with – it loses about 3.5 dB per 30m.

(RG58, which sometimes comes with cheap aerials is 5.5mm diameter and is very lossy - about 5 dB per 30m. OK for short runs, perhaps, but not for masthead installations).

So, if you have a cable run of up to about 25m or so you can go with RG8X, for much longer runs you’ll need to wrestle with RG213/ RG8U.

There you have it.

Plug that leak!

2011-10-06T11:36:00.000+01:00

The October edition of Yachting Monthly carries the latest article in the excellent Crash Test Boat series. YM have all but destroyed a 40’ Jeanneau Sun Fizz in the interests of finding out what really happens when disaster strikes in a variety of ways.

So far they’ve dismasted it, rolled it over, bashed holes in the hull and now we see what happens when you lose a seacock or through-hull transducer.

Seacocks can fail disastrously with no warning if they have been allowed to corrode or have been badly installed. A shocking number of boats are fitted with brass seacocks, apparently, and these can corrode and fail in short order – I saw a report where a boat nearly sank when a 16 month old brass seacock failed through corrosion!

Make sure your seacocks are Bronze, DZR or, my own preference, Marelon.

Anyway, the intrepid Crash Test Boat team deliberately broke off seacocks and smashed transducer fittings to test ways of stopping the influx. They tested the old soft wood bungs we’ve all carried for years and found them to be effective but with some reservation – they rely on the hole being symmetrical for maximum sealing.

Another solution was the Forespar TruPlug, a composite rubber bung that looks like something that might be on offer in a sex toy emporium catering to the more extreme tastes. The Tru Plug was given high marks for efficacy because it conforms to the shape of distorted openings; against it was its price – about £20. You’d probably want to keep one in an obvious location and take it to the site of the failure rather than have one tied to each through hull as you might do with wooden bungs.

The team also tried the old traditional solutions – a carrot and a potato – and both performed admirably with the spud just pipping the carrot on effectiveness.

I love this YM series – it’s both entertaining and of true benefit to boat owners and operators.

Indian summer

2011-10-01T17:47:00.000+01:00

We’ve had something of an Indian summer this past week so Minnie, the yacht that thinks it’s a narrow boat, was out and about on the Lancaster Canal.

The term Indian summer was coined in America, by the way, and has nothing to do with the Indian sub-continent. The Indians on the US east coast, aware of the debilitating effect of working and harvesting in the summer heat and humidity, would wait for warm snaps in the autumn to get out into the fields. Hence, an Indian summer is a warm spell in the fall.

On Friday we took an extra couple of hours at lunchtime and tootled down the canal to the Hand & Dagger for a pint and a sandwich. The pub overlooks the canal and there are convenient mooring bollards close by. The ham sandwich on brown bread with a little salad garnish and homemade mustard was delicious, as was my pint of Boddingtons bitter.

All in all a pleasant interlude from the backbreaking work and overpowering stress that constitute daily life at the coal face of Salty John Boat Products and Metz Europe.

Anon, a great little thinker.

2011-09-28T11:27:00.000+01:00

My favourite philosopher has to be Anonymous, or Anon as he’s known to his friends. He’s the guy who said: The final test of fame is to have a crazy person imagine he is you.

But it was another of Anon’s pearls of wisdom that sprang to mind as I was pondering how the cruising boat has changed over the past thirty odd years:
Don’t limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time.

When I dreamt of setting off into the wide blue yonder I followed the teachings of the Hiscocks, the Pardeys and Bob Griffith. My boat would be simple, rugged and seaworthy. It would carry stout ground tackle, fly hanked-on sails and be worked from the deck not the cockpit.

And that’s pretty much how it was. Adriana was 33’ overall, heavy displacement, a simple sloop rig, boom gallows, a massive bronze windlass to handle the all-chain rode and CQR anchors. She was classically pretty, (being from the board of Phil Rhodes she could hardly be anything else), with long overhangs, sweeping sheerline, wide decks and cramped accommodation.

We planned to navigate by dead reckoning with a compass and a set of charts. We carried a plastic sextant for when we were out of sight of land. Fortunately, GPS became available and affordable at about the time we cast off so my astronavigation was never seriously tested.

We had a shiny new Yanmar diesel engine and this begat a battery bank and a big alternator and this in turn begat a fridge to keep the beer cold and the veggies crisp.
This could have been the thin end of the wedge, or as my mate Anon would have it: If the camel once gets his nose in the tent, his body will soon follow.

But no, for this long term cruise we managed to stave off any further adulteration of the hair shirt cruising ethos and had the adventure of our lives. After all, as Anon is fond of saying: Footprints on the sands of time are not made by sitting down.

Anon’s camel did shuffle a bit further into the tent when we set off again a few years later - the boat was bigger and the KISS principle somewhat further eroded by watermaker, forward-looking sonar, radar and wind generator.

The bigger boat served us well but the watermaker, radar and sonar didn’t make it. They failed to live up to their billing: The watermaker didn’t make water, the forward -looking sonar didn’t look forward and the power-hungry radar didn’t earn its keep. I’ve always seen this as justification for my continuing view that avoiding unnecessary complications on a cruising boat is the way to go despite the current obsession with all things electronic, high tech and led aft.

Of course, my failure to keep what would now be considered essential equipment fully functional is addressed by Anon in one of his more profound thoughts: The man who can’t dance thinks the band is no good.

A great little thinker is old Anonymous.

Lightning strike.

2011-09-22T11:32:00.000+01:00

We had a thunderstorm the other night – flashing lightning and thunderboomers all around. I was concerned we might have a power cut and I’d miss the second half of the football match I was watching on TV. That was the extent of my concern.

A few years ago we were on our boat in a thunderstorm. I was a bit more concerned on that occasion, and with good reason as it turned out – a bolt of lightning hit the mast.

All the electronics were fried and the alternator controller burst into flames, starting an engine room fire. Putting out the fire covered the boat’s interior in extinguisher powder.

In the morning we found a few small bits of the masthead instruments on deck. Everything atop the mast had been blown off.

Taking stock of the damage we were pleased to find nothing of a structural nature; through-hulls intact, wooden masts still in one piece, rigging and chainplates OK. It was just the electronics that we’d lost and I managed to jury rig things so we could run the engine.

We were on the Alligator River heading north to Chesapeake Bay via the US east coast Intracoastal Waterway and there wasn’t much around in the way of boat repair facilities. I managed to buy a fishfinder at a small tackle store and with the transducer strapped to a broom handle we were able to make it the hundred or so miles to our destination without running aground.

I don’t like being aboard in thunderstorms, even if lightning really doesn’t strike twice.

Chandlers and chandlers

2011-09-17T10:27:00.001+01:00

I’ve been marketing this month. It was nearly seven years ago we introduced the Metz antenna to the UK and now we’ve been rewarded with the sole distributorship for the whole of Europe.

I’ve been sending out flyers and price lists to potential stockists so I’m hoping that you’ll soon be able to walk into a chandler near you and pick up your Metz Manta antenna, cable and connectors. Your VHF equipment installer can supply it also; just make sure you specify the Metz Manta.

Of course you can buy the Metz from Salty John and a few other on-line chandlers.

Speaking of chandlers, get down to the Southampton boat show and get yourself a signed copy of Hostage by Rachel and Paul Chandler. Neat segue, if I do say so myself! It’s their account of over 12 months in captivity at the hands of Somali pirates. We received our copy in the post yesterday and can’t wait to get stuck into it.

Paul and Rachel will be signing books at the Kelvin Hughes stand (J001) today and tomorrow. And if you can’t make the show get the book anyway, it promises to be a great read.

The Chandlers are refitting their Rival 38 Lynn Rival - which was recovered by a Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessel after the kidnap - at Noss Marina on the River Dart. You can follow their progress in Practical Boat Owner magazine.

I bet you can’t guess which antennas they’ll be installing for their VHF and AIS systems.

Batten down the hatches!

2011-09-13T10:50:00.000+01:00

We’ve been discussing mainsail battens on the forum. Not in a really serious way, not with Dylan Winter involved. He was telling us about his loose footed, batten-less jury rig designed for quick dowsing and redeployment as he ambled up the River Nene. It reminded me that Adriana had a batten-less, roach-less, headboard-less main for our first three-year adventure.

For tweaking the last ounce of performance out of a mainsail it needs the roach to add sail area high up, to stabilise airflow over the head of the sail and to minimise tip vortices. I didn’t think much about that when I had the sail built.

My rationale was that I could afford to lose some mainsail area because Adriana tended towards too much weather helm, I wanted to keep things simple and low maintenance, being able to drop the main off the wind without battens catching on the spreaders was a good thing. And if it was a design good enough for Lin and Larry Pardey it was good enough for me.

It was a lovely sail to handle, ten ounce soft Dacron, and it fulfilled all my expectations.

Well we needed to batten down the hatches up here in Lancashire this week. Hurricane Katia turned out to be a real boomerang of a storm – set off from this side of the Atlantic, roared through the Caribbean, soaked the US eastern seaboard and then came barrelling back across the Atlantic to knock the apples off my tree.

A nasty couple of days, weatherwise.

I’m anticipating a slow week. The Southampton Boat Show starts this weekend and many people will be keeping their wallets closed until they see what bargains they can pick up at the show. Normal service will be resumed in a week or so.

This might mean we can take time off for a boat trip later in the week, once the remnants of Katia have gone on their way. Every cloud and all that.

Patent pending

2011-09-08T11:55:00.000+01:00

Although we design and manufacture several boat products I’ve never found one that could justify a patent. I have, however, patented a product that is used in my other hobby - drinking wine.

Its working title is the Nekker but I’m leaning towards Screwtopper for when the time comes to take it to market. The patent procedure takes ages but it will finally be published this month and after that we have to wait to see if the patent is granted.

The Nekker must go down as one of the simplest devices ever conceived - a sleeve that covers the threaded neck of a screw top wine bottle. It is to the wine bottle what hubcaps are to wheels or the tie is to shirts – almost entirely decorative.

More and more quality wine is being shipped in screwcap bottles because of problems with cork – problems with consistent supply and quality. The technology of screw caps is quite advanced – it has to be to replicate the qualities that cork closures have provided for centuries.

But screw caps rely on a threaded bottle neck and that looks, frankly, industrial.

Wine drinking is a lot about atmosphere, ambiance, a sense of occasion and I think the appearance of the bottle is an important part of that. In its simplest form the Nekker can be a sleeve that is fitted by the bottler and, once the consumer has screwed off the cap, slides up to cover the unsightly bottle thread. A more sophisticated version would be a polished stainless steel or even sterling silver sleeve that your host slips over the bottle neck to enhance its appearance when the screw cap’s been removed.

This removing of the top and applying the Nekker, in whatever form, would replace the time honoured cork removal procedure. At celebrations such as weddings and retirement parties the Nekker, appropriately embossed, would replace the cork as a memento of the event. Its advertising potential is untapped.

There you have it – The Nekker, or Screwtopper, or whatever - coming soon to a wine bottle near you.

Fit for purpose.

2011-09-03T17:36:00.001+01:00

The marine environment is a brutal judge of the suitability of materials intended for use in it.

Here’s a picture showing the current Metz antenna coil alongside an 18 year old version of the same antenna which was, until very recently, at the masthead of an ocean going boat. Both have stainless steel bodies and the coil is packed in epoxy – indestructible, which is why Metz can give it a lifetime warrantee.

Alongside the Metz antennas is a picture sent to me by a reader – a non-stainless antenna that has succumbed to the marine environment. It clearly failed the test.

Intra-boat communications

2011-08-31T12:50:00.000+01:00

Accurate communications between skipper and crew are vital but, at times, difficult - no more so than when the skipper and crew are operating at opposite ends of the boat. Like when docking or anchoring.

The really slick teams have sorted out a series of hand signals that allow them to carry out these functions noiselessly, as if communicating by ESP. The helmsman and foredeck crew work in silent harmony to arrive precisely at the mooring buoy, the crew triumphantly grasping the ring with the boathook and getting a line attached effortlessly.

Perhaps, if they’re really smart, they’re using a Salty John Mooringmate to ensure that the securing of the buoy is slickly and simply achieved. But I digress….

I have seen teams using headset walkie-talkies - a great idea as long as you stay calm and enunciate properly. If the crew switches off the headset and can still hear the captain screaming at her, little has been achieved.

Strangely, in 90% of man and wife crews the foredeck work is undertaken by the wife whilst hubby stands behind the wheel spitting out commands. We do it ourselves. It seems illogical but it appears to work for most people. One of life’s little mysteries.

Shouting is one form of communication that simply doesn’t work – it leads to a terrible atmosphere when the anchor is finally secured and drink is being taken in the cockpit.

The other method I would strongly recommend you avoid is one we witnessed in the Allan’s Cay anchorage in the Bahamas one dark and windy night. A large modern boat with him-and-her crew crept into the anchorage and began an anchoring saga of epic proportions. They were communicating intra-boat by vhf radio – she with the handheld on the foredeck, he on the fixed set back at the helm. They chose to use channel 16. In an anchorage full of boats monitoring channel 16. I have to say it was very entertaining but if it were a movie it would have had an 18 plus rating!

How many football fields is that?

2011-08-24T13:39:00.000+01:00

The media likes to provide us with comparisons in order to help us to get our heads round the magnitude of that which they are trying to describe. Aircraft carriers, for instance, are always measured in football fields. Tall things are made to stack up against Nelson’s Column. Wild animals are compared in size to cars and in speed to Olympic athletes. The population of China is made to lie down head to toe and be wrapped round the world a few times so we can see just how many of them there are.

The other day I was watching a TV programme on food waste in Britain and we were told that the amount of waste was equal to three double-decker buses. What? Three people threw out their double-decker buses without even tasting them. Scandalous!

Moving on…

In this month’s Yachting Monthly there is a review on a 1977 Antlantic 40 Power Ketch. It looks to be exactly the sort of boat I’d want if I were to do the USA to BVI upwind run again. Heavy displacement, full keel, 80HP Mercedes engine, voluminous interior and a wheelhouse. Bliss! I’d motor sail the whole way.

Of course, when the time came to make the return, downwind, journey I’d want a different boat all together. Maybe a Freedom 40 ketch. Easy sail handling and good off-wind performance. I’d probably sail the whole way back.

‘Horses for courses’ springs to mind. It certainly illustrates what a compromise cruising boats must be if they’re to be successful. Maybe it’s time someone designed a ‘transformer’ boat. Just dial in the characteristics of the journey and it adjusts its specification to suit. Probably have to be the size of an aircraft carrier or a double-decker football field to fit all the mechanicals in, though.

Cardinal marks and cock ups.

2011-08-18T14:00:00.001+01:00

I’ve been watching Timothy Spall’s nautical adventures (Back at Sea, BBC4, Wednesday) – he and his wife and, I presume, a camera crew are circumnavigating UK in a steel barge. Excellent entertainment.

He’s in our part of the world now, the northwest of England, so particularly interesting. He made a right cock up of identifying the River Lune No.1 west cardinal buoy which meant he missed the tide to get into Glasson Dock and had to anchor out for the night.

Cardinal buoys are, as many of you will know, yellow and black and have two cones on the top which help to identify them as North, South, East or West marks. The two cones point up on the North marker and down on the South marker – very logical.

On the West marker the top cone points down and the bottom cone points up. On the East marker the top cone points up and the bottom cone points down. There’s no apparent logic to this so they are more difficult to remember and various mnemonics have been suggested: Because the West top mark looks like a bobbin you’re supposed to think ‘wind wool’, west. Eh?

I prefer to think of the West top mark as the shape of a woman as outlined by the hands of wolf-whistling admirers - waist equals west, simple. You may use that with my compliments, Timothy.

By the way, the term ‘cock up’ comes from the brewing industry. If a vat of beer is declared substandard in some way and has to be disposed of, the discharge stop cock is put in the ‘up’ position and the beer runs off down the drain. A cock up in anyone’s language, I’d say.

You are your desk.

2011-08-12T12:40:00.000+01:00

What do you have on your desk? I have a slightly cluttered desk: My computer, of course, two calculators (one has a converter function, so I keep it just for that, the other has a big clear screen so I use that for most other purposes). I have a stapler, two multitools, a pair of pliers, two mugs full of pens, pencils, highlighters and so on.

One of the mugs is interesting: At one of the early Macau Grand Prix, 1959 I think, my father was the Clerk of the Course and also acted as a marshal. A car overturned in front of his marshalling point and the driver was trapped underneath it – it was an open, home-built hot rod. Fuel was dripping from the car and the engine had remained running – a potentially disastrous combination. My Dad got to the car first and was able to reach in and switch off the ignition and then his team rolled the car onto its side and freed the driver. The driver, an American, was so grateful that he bought the family a set of five tankards – two big ones with the names of my parents on them and three small ones for me and my two brothers.

But, I digress; a tape measure, two rulers, a digital camera, in and out trays (both full), two PL259 connectors and an almost completely used roll of gaffer tape.

Oh, and my paperweight is an 18 year old Metz antenna coil – still in perfect working order but now retired after 17 years before the mast.

I wonder what my desk says about me.

Ancient wisdom

2011-08-06T15:25:00.000+01:00

‘Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm’

This quotation intrigued me, not because of its simple wisdom, but because it was written in the first century BC. That seemed an awfully long time ago to be using metaphors involving the helming of boats. How many people in those days would have been familiar with the way boats were steered? This was before leisure boating was widespread, I’m guessing, and before movies – even silent ones.

Anyway, a little research reveals that there was a vast trading network of liburnias, corbitas, gaulus and cladivatas plying the waters around Italy at that time, so the concept of helming was probably as familiar as it is today.

The words were penned by a clever bloke called Publilius Syrus who was popular in first century BC Italy as a writer of maxims – sort of early one-liners. Old Publilius was a Syrian who had been taken to Italy as a slave and had then been freed by his master who was impressed by his witty repartee. A valuable thing is a ready wit, I’ve always thought.

Glow little glow worm, glimmer, glimmer....

2011-08-04T19:24:00.000+01:00

This rather strange picture is of our LED anchor light undergoing a full immersion test. You stick it in a container of cold water and switch it on. Leave it for seven days. It should remain lit and have no water inside it. We do this from time to time to confirm all is well.

We added a third O-ring and modified the cable gland on the basic model of this light before adopting it as the basis of our own LED anchor light. The O-ring sealing system is such that the lens is virtually inseparable from the body, basically a sealed unit. But that's OK because the LED cluster lasts at least 35,000 hours, more likely 50,000 hours, and that's 17 years of continuous anchoring!

We had to have it tested against the appropriate European Standard for anchor lights – it has to satisfy the Colregs as well as EMC standards – and it has its Certificate of Compliance.

Who's a clever little anchor light?

Sunny Saturday

2011-08-01T08:48:00.000+01:00

We took advantage of the warm, sunny Saturday to give Minnie, the yacht that thinks it’s a narrow boat, a run down the Lancaster Canal. We tied up to the bank for lunch and then strolled down the tow path for an ice cream at Pendle Marine. Sublime.

A common sight along the banks of the Intracoastal Waterway on the east coast of the USA is the snapping turtle sunning itself on a tree root. So it wasn’t initially a surprise to see a similar sight on the Lancaster Canal - until I realised we don’t have snapping turtles and, in fact, we don’t have any fresh water turtle-types at all. What I saw was probably a terrapin set free when the novelty of ownership had worn off and now ‘gone native’ in wildest Lancashire. These terrapins were imported in large numbers, mainly from the USA, to satisfy the demand created by the Ninja Turtle craze, and subsequently released into the rivers and canals.

The boats you meet on the canal are many and varied. Narrowboats, of course, with their traditional floral livery, Dutch barges, Broads cruisers, motor boats of various shapes and sizes, canoes and kayaks. We’ve even encountered a family in an inflatable dinghy. Minnie still turns heads, however, and gets the odd comment from other boaters – ‘ahoy sailor’ and ‘get those sails up’.

Cowes Week

2011-07-26T14:53:00.000+01:00

It's ten days to the start of Cowes Week, so here's a picture of a cow. We're nothing if not topical here at Salty John.

Good luck to all the participants - have a great time!

Thoughts on storm jibs

2011-07-21T15:19:00.000+01:00

A storm jib that sets well in a blow is a good thing to have, obviously, so you design and install an inner forestay to carry one.

The problem is that when you want to use the storm jib it’s also the time you don't want to be going on the foredeck. Just when you really, really don't want to go up to the foredeck you have to, to set up your inner forestay and hank on your storm jib. Life, like the sea, can be cruel.

I suspect these inner forestay arrangements (particularly the more Heath Robinson versions) are rarely used. I bet most people just try to use a fully or almost fully rolled headsail rather than risk a trip forward.

Boats with small mains and big jibs are particularly disadvantaged because these large jibs are useless when rolled radically. A boat that relies less on a big foresail will already have a smaller jib on the roller furling gear so the furled set will be better.

I cruised for three years with hanked-on sails and then another three years with roller furling. If I were doing it again I'd seriously consider going back to hanked-on sails.

But that's a different discussion. If I did have roller furling I'd have a small, fairly heavy sail, the equivalent of a No.3 jib, perhaps, that would keep the boat sailing as the weather built and would set well even when rolled right down, and I’d change to this sail well ahead of the rough stuff arriving.

Big roller furling headsails are a nightmare when you get caught out.

Engine exhaust overheating

2011-07-18T13:45:00.000+01:00

Raw water failure is the most common problem with marine diesel engines. Within a short period of time expensive damage to the engine or wet exhaust system can occur. Reduction or total blockage of the raw water flow could be caused by debris in the inlet through-hull, a clogged inlet strainer or failure to open the inlet seacock.

The raw seawater cooling flow takes the heat from the engine cooling water in the heat exchanger and discharges it via the exhaust system. Failure of this flow of raw water will not only lead to overheating of the engine but also overheating of the exhaust system components. And it can occur before the normal engine block mounted temperature sensor detects it.

If the wet exhaust muffler melts, the raw water pump will continue to pump water into the boat, creating another problem to contend with.

Sentry™ provides an audio and visual alarm if your engine’s raw water cooling flow should be interrupted. Simple to install, a Sentry exhaust temperature alarm makes good sense. That’s why they’re used by fishing boats in Alaska, tugs in the Panama Canal and pleasure boats everywhere.

Troubleshooting your VHF antenna system

2011-07-14T12:56:00.000+01:00

It’s that time of year – masts are back up, boats are out on the water and VHF radio problems are emerging.

Tracking down VHF radio receiving and transmitting problems is a fairly logical procedure and I’ve written a short article about it for the Salty John website, in the ‘articles and links’ section:
Clicky

When your VHF radio fails to communicate, defective cable and connections are the overwhelming favorites to be the culprits.

Seen on a tee shirt: Paddle faster, I hear Banjos

Passages

2011-07-11T10:20:00.001+01:00

Some ocean passages are more enjoyable than others.

Obviously, the weather has a huge bearing on the pleasure of a journey but even heavy weather passages can be hugely satisfying in the right circumstances – a well found boat, confident crew, no gear failures, spot-on landfall. I did a delivery trip from Chesapeake Bay to Newport that included being hove-to for eight hours in an un-forecast storm that falls into this category. Of course, I’ve also had heavy weather passages where my inner self has been screaming: Stop the boat I want to get off!

Calms are more challenging but can still be enjoyable – doing the Mona Passage from Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico we had virtually no wind for the first two thirds of the trip, then a lovely breeze kicked in to waft us to Mayagűez. I remember it being a passage of great contentment despite the fearsome reputation of this stretch of water. On the other hand, the oily calm that preceded our ‘ultimate storm’ passage off the Cape of Good Hope was most unpleasant.

One of the least enjoyable passages I’ve endured was along the north coast of Hispaniola en route to Samaná. Two nights and a day, not much wind and lightning building to the north which eventually caught us as we rounded Cabo Samaná. But the most unpleasant aspect came from an eerie feeling of disquiet for a large portion of the trip. I couldn’t put my finger on the problem but there was a strong feeling of melancholy aboard during the first night and day that seemed disproportionate to the concerns about the approaching bad weather. I read later that Bahía Escocesa, the Scots Woman, is thought to be haunted and that this feeling of sadness, along with hearing a woman sobbing, has been reported often. Hmm.

And the best passage? Our first crossing of the Gulf Stream from Florida to the Bahamas because it signified the start of a truly great adventure – our modest odyssey, island hopping to the Caribbean.

Deck shoes lament

2011-07-06T15:20:00.000+01:00

I dug out my old deck shoes the other day. I bought them in 1998 and they’ve traveled a few thousand sea miles, and a fair few on land as well. I thought they were just about broken in, really.

It hasn’t been warm enough to wear them here in the frozen north for a few years, (the Salty John cool code decrees that socks must never be worn with deck shoes), but summer finally arrived and I put them on and promptly skidded across the kitchen floor like an ice skater. The soles, which at one time would have walked up walls, had acquired a glass-like finish devoid of all adhesion.

The high-tech razor cut tread had gone from large areas but I wore them to the boat anyway in the vain hope that if I could work some heat into them, the rubber soles would develop traction – like the tyres on an F1 racing car. I walked down the dock like a teenager in a strop, dragging my feet all the way, but failed to develop enough heat to provide proper grip. I’d probably spin off at the first hairpin turn; they had to go.

Deck shoes are like jeans; it takes years to break them in and then, just when they look and feel really cool, they’re worn out and ready to be tossed away. Oh well.

Happy Independence Day!

2011-07-04T17:26:00.000+01:00

To all our US readers.

Racing to cruise

2011-07-04T13:37:00.000+01:00

A very good sailor once told me that racing was the best way to hone my sailing skills. I have to agree with him. The racer’s attention to detail in setting up and trimming the boat and the tactical aspects of navigation really do help you to get from A to B faster and more efficiently.

Some will claim that, as cruisers, they really don’t care how long it takes to reach their destination but I think the majority of sailors prefer to think of themselves as skilled in harnessing the winds and currents and that’s exactly what racers are.

There are obvious differences between the priorities of the racer and those of the cruiser – racers have big crews and can handle complex sails such as spinnakers more readily and they will persist in pursuing the shortest course to the line when the cruiser may be taking a longer but less arduous route. The short-handed cruiser may reef down before the racing crew even considers it and the cruiser may choose to heave-to whilst the racing crew battles on.

The racing boat will be equipped to get there fast, as safely and comfortably as possible; the cruising boat will be equipped to get there safely and comfortably, and as fast as possible.

For the most part, though, the lessons to be learnt from the racing circuit about making the boat go faster benefit the cruising sailor. In particular, sail trim and rig tuning are as relevant to one as the other.

Knowing that your sails are set to make the most of the available breeze gives a sense of contentment and satisfaction. Racing, with its emphasis on sailing efficiency, teaches you to achieve this.

Knowing that your stays and shrouds have the right degree of tension to ensure the best performance from the boat without danger of the whole lot falling down around your ears is a comfort. Racing teaches you the importance of a well tuned rig for efficiency and for rig integrity, and how to achieve it.

The big sailmakers and the one-class boat manufacturers provide tuning guides for set up and trim. North Sails, for instance, has on its site tuning guides for over 80 types of boat.

The tool of choice for rig tuning is the Loos tension gauge – all the tuning guides provide Loos gauge settings. The Loos gauge instructions give preliminary settings for all rig types. Whether you’re a cruiser or a racer, or both, a Loos tension gauge will help to get you there faster and safer.

Solar powered outboard motor

2011-06-29T10:33:00.000+01:00

I was following a thread on a popular boating forum about using solar powered garden lights as anchor lights. It all got very silly with suggestions that one solar powered light could energise an adjacent solar powered light – a sort of perpetual motion of lights.
Eureka!
Here we see my solar powered perpetual motion outboard motor. The solar lamps are powered by their own light output being reflected back on their solar panels via the mirror.
The heat generated by the lights causes the air above the lamps to rise; this draught of air turns the turbine which, via the gearbox, turns the propeller. Simple!

And you wouldn’t need an all round white navigation light at the stern.

Clearly there are some engineering details to work out but I’m a concept man – others can figure out how much light output would be needed to move specific boats at specific speeds, how to start and stop it, and so on.

I’ve shown it bolted to the back of Dylan Winter’s famous vessel, the slug, for it was he who suggested the principal of perpetual motion by garden light. We’ll be applying for an EU grant to build a prototype – wish us luck!

Anchor lights

2011-06-25T10:08:00.000+01:00

Some thoughts on anchor lights:

Did you know that to be sold in the EEC an anchor light has to be CE compliant? It has to meet the requirements of a couple of directives, one relating to electromagnetic compatibility and one to compliance with collision regulations. Needless to say, the Salty John automatic LED anchor light complies and we have the piece of paper to prove it.

But what a load of bureaucratic bull!

When we were full time cruising we used a hurricane lamp – very salty. It did fine, it never blew out even in strong winds and we could easily recognize its warm glow amongst other boats in the anchorage. The only trouble was the need to carry lamp oil, which was a pain, but the luminous flux of that lamp was up to the job, in my opinion, whether or not the anchor light police in Brussels agree or not.

Nowadays we see garden or patio lights used as anchor lights. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one that I’d consider bright enough and they certainly wouldn’t meet the luminous flux requirements of the directive, but it’s the skippers call. Or it should be.

I like an anchor light that hangs just above head height, forward as suggested by the Colregs, or over the cockpit. I think a light lower down is more likely to be seen by boats moving into the anchorage than is a masthead light. I don’t really care if my anchor light can be seen two nautical miles away, as required by the rules; I’m more concerned with being seen by boats operating a few boat lengths away.

The development of LEDs has been hugely beneficial to boats – we get the light without the big power penalty or fragility of incandescent lights. There are still issues with port and starboard navigation lights relating to colour representation, but for an all round white light, LEDs are the bees knees!

Crew comfort

2011-06-21T12:33:00.000+01:00

Visitors to the Salty John web shop will shortly see the introduction of a new product section: Crew comfort.

Items in the section will include an all wool watch cap, as used by the US Navy and other professional mariners around the world, Wigwam® socks to keep your tootsies warm in your wellies, and a couple of types of sailing glove. We’ll even have neck warmers – you don’t have to be a Premier League footballer to want to keep the chilly wind from shooting down your collar.

There will be a large, highly absorbent but quick drying towel and a set of knee pads to protect your patellae when you’re crashing around on a plunging foredeck, or just re-caulking deck seams or varnishing the toe rail.

We’ve also located the world’s loudest whistle – the ‘Storm’ all weather whistle. Its prodigious blast will certainly get attention when you need it. Even underwater it can be heard 50’ away but the benefit of this particular feature eludes me!

It should all be available by the end of the month.

This and that.

2011-06-15T15:16:00.000+01:00

Moribund. Now there’s a word you don’t hear a lot. It means dying or stagnant and it was recently used by the business media to describe sales at one of the UK’s largest retailers. I bet they had to search the Thesaurus for that one. I’ve been trying all week to work it into a conversation.

Salty John sales aren’t moribund but things do slow down a little as we get into the summer – I suppose you’re all out sailing instead of googling for boat goodies. As the masts go up and the boats are launched sales of antennas and accessories slow down to be replaced by sales of sail ties, Motor Grips, mooring hooks and anchor lights. A change of seasons in a boating sense.

This week sees our Ruby wedding anniversary – I was a child bridegroom – and we pondered long and hard about ruby based gifts. We rarely make a big deal out of these so-called milestones but this one is an exception – we’ve bought ourselves a ruby coloured pee bucket for the boat. It’s got a lid. Very posh.

I won a boat race this weekend - vicariously. It was on the Black Sea and I wasn’t actually there. A few weeks ago we sold a Loos rod rigging tension gauge to a gentleman in Ukraine. Today I received an email:

Dear John
Thank you for your fast delivery and excellent service and communication.
We've just won the race. And your part is also in it I think!

Apparently we sail an X-35. Cool.

Drought? Surely you jest?

2011-06-11T12:23:00.000+01:00

I see newspaper reports of drought conditions in the SE of England. Well, up here in the northwest I can assure you this isn’t the case. This last month has been strong winds, rain and bright spells – sometimes all at the same time.

In this climate you have to be like an on-duty Lifeboat crew, ready to scramble at a moments notice. Last Friday afternoon I noticed that the sun was out, the wind had dropped and there was no black cloud on the western horizon. We were in the car and off to the boat like a shot!

We had a peaceful cruise up the canal and tied off to the bank for sundowners and nibbles. I use the term ‘sundowner’ loosely - in this country sundown comes at around 9.30 pm at this time of year. Afternoon tea probably describes it better, but we didn’t have tea and scones – we had beer, wine and cashew nuts.

Feverish blog activity.

In the past twelve hours we’ve had a spike - an additional 170 visitors to the blog. What caused this, I hear you ask? Was it pictures of scantily clad girls reclining on Minnie’s deck? Offers of free tickets to the Olympics?
No. It was a post I put on a well known boating forum asking if anyone might be interested in taking over our Tiller-Hand® production as a stand alone business. I had blogged about this a month ago and I provided the link to that blog entry – this caused the stampede. It surprised me that there are so many budding entrepreneurs wanting to get into the boating industry, or are we forumites just a nosy lot?

Over the years the list of unique products we offer has grown – the Motor Grip, Motor Lift, LED anchor light, Mooringmate, Bandit tape, the towing bridle and our range of davit slings most prominently. The Tiller-Hand was the original Salty John product but I can’t devote to it the attention it needs to expand sales into the broader boating markets – the chandlers and boat product distributors – so it’s time to let it fly the nest. Of course, we’ll be buying our stocks from the new owners so Salty John will still be the best place to buy this essential product for those that steer with a stick.

Primordial soup, anyone?

2011-06-08T16:03:00.000+01:00

Fresh bilges.

The term bilge, it's thought, is a variant of bulge first used in the early 1500’s and was itself probably a variant of the French boulge which was a sort of leather purse. Bulge was defined as ‘the lowest part of the ship’ and also ‘the foulness which collects there’. Yummy yummy.

Keeping the bilges fresh can sometimes seem an impossible task. We’re tempted to use all manner of hazardous chemicals in an attempt to absorb whatever lurks therein, creating a pool of toxic waste that we pump overboard with a huge burden of guilt weighing on our conscience. Well, that’s probably overstating it, but you know what I mean.

I’ve been hearing terrific reports about a product called Bio Clean from Bio Technics Ltd. This non-hazardous bio-degradable liquid digests the oil, fat and bacteria in bilge water. It smells neutral and is completely harmless to the environment. It sounds too good to be true but several people have reported success with the product and if I were suffering from smelly, toxic bilges I’d be giving it a try.

Metz drought over!

Metz antennas and cable: Both are, thankfully, now in abundant supply and back on the website. There had been a backlog in customs but the dam eventually burst and all is well again.

Fishing

2011-06-04T10:55:00.000+01:00

We never did catch much in the way of edible fish when we were cruising but we often deployed a trolling line, more out of hope than expectation. We most often used a green feathered lure on heavy monofilament line – about 150lbs breaking strain – and used a length of bungee cord to absorb the initial strike.

By a rather amazing coincidence this rig caught two mahi-mahi (also known as dorado or dolphin fish) at exactly the same spot in the Bahamas on the two occasions I’ve been there - nine years apart!

When you come through Cave Cay Cut and turn right to head down the Atlantic side of the Exuma cays on the 10 fathom line you’ll find your track takes you over a small area where the depth diminishes abruptly to 3 or 4 fathoms. This underwater pinnacle seems to provide an environment that attracts fish – this is precisely where I caught both my mahi-mahi all those years apart. They were delicious.

The Crash Test Boat dismasting.

2011-06-01T13:50:00.000+01:00

There has been renewed interest in my blog on emergency rigging cutters since the subject was raised again during a forum discussion on the Yachting Monthly Crash Test Boat project.

The Crash Test Boat is a brilliant exercise in which YM has acquired, through an association with Admiral Boat Insurance and a range of other sponsors, a clapped out Jeanneau Sun Fizz 40’ ketch to do with as they wish. We’ve had reports on running the boat aground and on what happens when the boat is rolled through 360º. For the capsize event they put cameras inside the boat to give a horrified-crewmember-view of things and the film is on their website. Fantastic!

Now they’re looking at losing the mast and following a sneak preview of this issue on the magazine’s forum an enthusiastic thread developed. One of the points raised was the problem of cutting away the rigging to clear the decks and secure the mast with a couple of people pointing out the same issues I raised in the blog a while back. It will be interesting to see what conclusions the Crash Test Boat team came to.

Don’t just assume your cutters or bolt croppers will handle 1 x 19 stainless wire, get a sample of your wire and try them out! If they struggle to make the cut head for the Salty John website and get yourself a set of Baudat KS10’s (pictured).

Marine salvage

2011-05-27T11:14:00.000+01:00

I once towed a disabled boat a couple of miles into a marina and received a nice bottle of wine as a reward from the grateful owner. The other day, on a sailing forum, someone stated that by simply accepting a tow you entitled the captain of the towing vessel to claim ownership of your boat. Nope. Just because you accept assistance does not mean that you are awarding your boat and contents to your savior.

But, what the rescuer could do, unless you made some other deal at the time in front of witnesses, is make a claim for salvage and let a court decide upon the merit of the claim and make an appropriate award. In order to stand a chance of receiving an award the salvager would need to show that your boat was in peril, he voluntarily provided his assistance, he risked his life or loss of his property in conducting the salvage and, of course, his efforts were successful. Based on that, plus other aspects such as the time he expended and the value of the property he salvaged, the court would make an award.

At sea, sailors are required, by law and custom, to help save lives. They are not, however, required to save property and, when they do, it seems they can seek compensation for their efforts. A nice bottle of wine seemed adequate reward to me and my crew as we settled down to drink it with dinner in a snug anchorage that night.

Welcome Oz sailors!

2011-05-24T13:42:00.000+01:00

We’ve been seeing quite a number of customers from Australia in recent months. It should be no surprise; the Oz dollar is so strong now that we must look like a bargain basement. At the beginning of 2009 you’d have had to pay 2.5 Australian dollars for a quid, today it’ll cost you less than1.6.

Rig tension gauges by Loos & Co. are particular favourites, probably because they are hugely expensive in the Oz chandlers for some reason.

If Australians buy from our website in £’s, the price includes the cost of shipping by airmail. Helluva deal.

Seafaring superstition.

2011-05-21T10:45:00.000+01:00

I was reading about seafaring superstitions recently – you know the sort of thing:

Don’t leave port on Friday.
Don’t whistle facing forward.
Step on board with your right foot first.
Don’t kill an albatross.

There are dozens of these exhortations which most of us ignore – you have to ignore them, really, how else could you maximise your boat time if you didn’t sneak off work and set sail on Friday afternoon? However, I found two superstitions that made me sit up:

A naked woman on board will calm the sea. (Hence bare breasted figureheads)
Pouring wine on deck will bring good luck.

I think I just got superstition!

Lee cloths

2011-05-17T11:59:00.000+01:00

Have you given much thought to the design of lee cloths for your bunks? I gave them scant attention until I had to spend a night hove-to off the US eastern seaboard during a boat delivery. The boat was of a marque well known for the quality of its design and construction – but the guy responsible for the lee cloths must have been an interloper from a competitor.

I was on a windward top bunk so I relied on the lee cloth to keep me from a painful drop to the deck. It did that, but didn’t actually keep me in the bunk; it was fastened along the outer edge of the bunk and the top was tied off to hand rails which were outside the line of the bunk edge, so that, instead of being kept in my bunk by it, I rolled off the bunk and hung in the lee cloth. I looked liked a sack of onions. The impression was enhanced by the fact that the lee cloth material was an alarmingly stretchy nylon mesh.

On my own boat the lee cloths worked very well, which is why I’d previously given them scant regard; the cloth was secured under the mattress, well inboard, and the top corners tied off to eyebolts directly above the outer edge of the bunk. Very snug. It could be claustrophobic if it wasn’t for the fact that the heavy canvas lee cloth ended well short at the head end giving unrestricted breathing space and good air circulation.

Lee cloths are one of those things you forget about until they’re needed and then it’s too late.

Today’s heroes are…..

Hotpoint washing machine repair men. I don’t consider myself a complete dumbo with tools, having refitted several boats and maintained a charter fleet in my time, but changing the drum bearings on a Hotpoint washing machine has comprehensively defeated me. That there are men out there who complete this task on a regular basis fills me with awe. These are men for whom assembling the space shuttle or repairing the Hadron Collider present insufficient challenge. Respect.

Canal, carburetor and cow.

2011-05-12T11:10:00.000+01:00

Well, we took a major trip on the Lancaster Canal last week – an hour or so each way with a stop for lunch and an ice cream.

The yacht that thinks it’s a barge had been having a little outboard motor trouble but that seems to be a thing of the past – she ran faultlessly. The problem with the Honda BF8 4-stroke had been a gummed up carburetor, a problem that is on the increase, apparently, as a result of the ethanol content in today’s fuel. If you leave the motor for even short periods you really need to empty the carburetor bowl via the drain screw, but who ever does that? Not me.

You’d think a 40’ wide, 3’ deep canal wending its way through the English countryside would be pretty well hazard-free for the salty sailor but the hazards are there, they’re just different. I’ve written before about the aggressive swans that attack us to protect their nests. Well what about the kamikaze cows that jump in the water from the adjacent fields? A couple of weeks ago we were heading south when we encountered a fire engine parked on a bridge and as we passed through a man in full emergency gear – orange suit, high-viz jacket, helmet – came running along the towpath to warn us of a cow in the canal. We didn’t meet the bovine swimmer but I wondered what the implications of such an encounter might be – would it try to board us? Can a cow up to its udders in water outrun a 20’ boat with an 8HP outboard going full blast in reverse? I hope never to find out.

Salty John Boat Products:

On a business note, our excellent and unique automatic LED anchor light is back in stock for delivery from Monday, but our equally excellent Sentry exhaust alarm is out of stock due to a recent surge in demand – could be a couple of weeks before that’s back on the menu.

Stuff or flake?

2011-05-07T10:53:00.000+01:00

Your mainsail, I mean. Do you stuff it or flake it or both?

I‘ve always found the most efficient way to get the main down and under control is to stuff it. You apply the topping lift, release the halyard, form a ‘bag’ with the first yard of sail and into this stuff the remaining sail as it tumbles down the mast track. You punch the cloth into the bag to get a tight fit, and as each batten arrives you align it fore and aft. You then roll the ‘bag’ onto the top of the boom and secure it with sail ties (or gaskets as they are sometimes known). Job done.

This gives you a secured mainsail in quick time, but I have to admit that the result looks a bit like a boa constrictor that’s swallowed a family of warthogs. Not pretty, and for some boat owners, unacceptable.

Flaking the sail as you drop it really requires two people; one stands at the mast and encourages slabs of sail cloth to fall to alternate sides like a concertina’s bellows whilst the other stands at the other end of the sail and hauls the flakes aft, aligns the battens and pushes the reefing lines into the folds to stop them dropping untidily onto the deck. You then secure with sail ties. After a few years the sail learns where the flakes come and the operation becomes more efficient.

The result can be such a satisfying work of art that you delay the fitting of the sail cover so that others can admire your handiwork.

Many sailors, myself included, use a combination of the two methods; stuff it until you’re at the dock or have your anchor down, and then go back and flake it.

Business opportunity

2011-05-03T16:19:00.000+01:00

Here's a possible business opportunity for someone.

We’ve been making the Tiller-Hand® for six years and it’s been a fantastic product for us. However, it’s now reaching a crossroads because we need to invest in a new injection moulding tool.

This has got me wondering if I really want to continue to manufacture the Tiller-Hand myself or if it shouldn’t be passed on to someone who’ll supply us with the finished article and also market it more broadly, retail and wholesale.
We only sell it through the Salty John website and have no interest in knocking on the doors of the UK chandlers or finding overseas distributors.

The Tiller-Hand deserves to be appreciated by a wider audience!

Investment would be modest even with the cost of new tooling. This is not a ‘get rich quick’ scheme but it is a viable work-from-home business, or an additional product line for an existing business.

Any budding UK based entrepreneurs can contact me via the Salty John website.

The essential PBS (Personal Beverage Sleeve).

2011-04-28T16:34:00.000+01:00

One of the great inventions of the 20th Century was the Personal Beverage Sleeve. They keep your beer cold and your hand warm. They’re variously known as a huggy, koozie, coozie, cozy, cosy, beer sleeve, hugger and can cooler. And, of course, Personal Beverage Sleeve, or PBS, which I’ve just made up.

Whatever you call them, these rubber sleeves that slide over a beverage can or bottle are essential to civilized outdoor consumption of canned or bottled beverages – beer, mainly. This brilliant concept spread like wildfire through the colonies but was largely ignored here at home. With global warming we may have to contend with a more tropical climate and we need to be ready for it – here’s some essential know-how on the PBS:

The basic model huggy, not to be confused with the disposable nappy of the same name, is a fat foam sleeve with a base which has a drain hole in it. (Knowledgeable huggy users remove the base entirely so that the condensate can drain more effectively avoiding that moment when the accumulated ice-cold water finds the drain hole and pours onto your chest. Very un-funny).

You can get collapsible models, I think they’re made from recycled wetsuits, and you can get container specific versions such as the slip-on bottle koozie and the zippered bottle holder.

Koozies, or whatever you choose to call them, are great advertising media. They come with logos of the big beverage brands as well as more individual advertisements for bars, hotels, sports teams and so on. Some just bear cute one-liners, others have simple illustrations usually indicating a beach, boating or island lifestyle.

Selecting a Personal Beverage Sleeve is almost as difficult as deciding what to call them, so here are a couple of tips:

•   If you seek efficiency above image, substance over style, go for the basic foam variety. I can’t believe there is any beverage holder more thermally endowed than the foam huggy.
•   If you like to take your personal drink cooler with you, from pub to pub or boat to boat, it has to be the collapsible neoprene type that you can fold flat and stick in your back pocket.
•   If you want to put your beer down in a cockpit can holder, available on all well equipped boats, you need to select the neoprene sleeve over the foam huggy or there is a danger it won’t fit in the can hole. I’ve always been careful to select can holding furniture with a large huggy-friendly hole (at least 10cm diameter) but not all boat owners are so considerate.
•   You are what you drink from in the can cozy world so take care over what’s emblazoned on the side. Go for something distinctive so you can identify your beer when you put it down in a crowd, but you should probably avoid anything that could harm your reputation if it was photographed and put on the internet – ads for transvestite drinking establishments, for instance, unless you’re fully ‘out’.

This brings me to our own entry into the PBS scene: The cool, sophisticated Salty John collapsible Can Cozy, available at the incredible price of just £5 for a pack of three. A white seagull soars on a regal dark blue background above the web address – how cool is that?

Turnbuckles

2011-04-23T10:46:00.000+01:00

There is more to turnbuckles than meets the eye and not all turnbuckles are created equal.

Turnbuckles, or rigging screws, are used to tension the stays and shrouds on your sailboat rigging. They comprise a body into each end of which is screwed a threaded rod. One rod has a right hand thread, the other a left hand thread – when you rotate the body both rods move towards or away from the body at the same time, tightening or loosening the stay. Did you know that the right hand thread should be at the top? This means that when you turn the turnbuckle body clockwise the stay tightens.

The lower rod connects to the chainplate and the upper rod connects to the rigging wire. They do this via various fittings including T-ends, jaws, clevis pins and machine swages. These details are beyond the scope of this current blog, but I should say that articulation is the key. If your joints don’t articulate they can break.

The body of the turnbuckle can be open (left of picture) or closed. A closed turnbuckle body looks smooth and tubular but it can trap water and dirt in the lower end and this can lead to corrosion; it is also difficult to tell how much ‘bury’ there is left on the rod ends – always comforting to know your turnbuckles aren’t hanging on by a single thread. Closed body turnbuckles have a check nut on the threaded rod to lock it against the turnbuckle body – this avoids the need for cotter pins or ring pins to stop the turnbuckle unscrewing itself.

Open body turnbuckles bare all – you can see the rods and how much of their thread is engaged. You need to pin them to stop the turnbuckle unscrewing and you then need to tape over the pin to prevent it snagging on a sail. Bandit™ tape is ideal for this because it is non-adhesive and doesn’t leave a sticky mess when you remove it to adjust the rig.

To adjust an open body turnbuckle you can turn it by hand or with a screwdriver inserted through the body opening, or you can use a spanner (that's a wrench if you're reading this across the pond). With a tubular closed body turnbuckle that is too stiff to turn by hand you can use a special tool that fits into the hole in the centre of the body.

Whether you have open or closed body turnbuckles you need to think carefully about the material from which they are made. On the face of it stainless steel would appear to be most fit for purpose but you’d be wrong. Stainless threads suffer from a condition called galling, and it is pretty galling I can tell you, in which the threads jam when heavy load is applied. A much more satisfactory arrangement is a combination of a silicone bronze body and stainless threaded rods. This is a non-galling combination.

Wow. That’s probably more than you ever wanted to know about turnbuckles.

Drowning - a deadly calmness

2011-04-18T10:40:00.000+01:00

The weather is warming up and the kids will be heading for the water, so I thought I'd post this.
Drowning is not a noisy, dramatic event. Our body’s response to suffocation by water is quite different to the commonly held view that it involves waving arms and shouting for help. That comes before you are drowning. At that point you are in a state known as “aquatic distress” and can still assist in your own rescue by grabbing at floatation devices. If you aren’t saved at this point you quickly pass to drowning. Then, instinct takes over.
In an article in the US Coastguards ‘On Scene’ magazine Dr Francesco Pia, Phd, describes what he terms ‘the instinctive drowning response’ as follows:
1.   Except in rare circumstances, drowning people are physiologically unable to call out for help. The respiratory system was designed for breathing. Speech is the secondary or overlaid function. Breathing must be fulfilled, before speech occurs.
2.   Drowning people’s mouths alternately sink below and reappear above the surface of the water. The mouths of drowning people are not above the surface of the water long enough for them to exhale, inhale, and call out for help. When the drowning people’s mouths are above the surface, they exhale and inhale quickly as their mouths start to sink below the surface of the water.
3.   Drowning people cannot wave for help. Nature instinctively forces them to extend their arms laterally and press down on the water’s surface. Pressing down on the surface of the water, permits drowning people to leverage their bodies so they can lift their mouths out of the water to breathe.
4.   Throughout the Instinctive Drowning Response, drowning people cannot voluntarily control their arm movements. Physiologically, drowning people who are struggling on the surface of the water cannot stop drowning and perform voluntary movements such as waving for help, moving toward a rescuer, or reaching out for a piece of rescue equipment.
5.   From beginning to end of the Instinctive Drowning Response people’s bodies remain upright in the water, with no evidence of a supporting kick.

Drowning people can only struggle on the surface of the water for from 20 to 60 seconds before submersion occurs.

So, if someone dives, jumps or falls overboard and appears to be calm, don’t assume they are not in trouble. Sometimes the most common indication that someone is drowning is that they don’t look like they’re drowning. Talk to them. Ask them: Are you OK? If they reply immediately, they’re probably fine. If they just look blank there’s a chance that they are drowning and you must act quickly to assist them.

Keep a watch on people playing in the water, look for these other signs of drowning:

Head tilted back with mouth open.
Head low in the water, mouth at water level
Eyes closed, or glassy and empty, unfocussed.
Vertical in the water, not using legs
Hyperventilating or gasping
Attempting to swim but not making headway
Attempting to roll over on the back

So, if the kids are screaming and splashing, be thankful, they’re not drowning. If they go unnaturally quite, that’s the time to worry. One day this knowledge may save someone’s life.

Tension gauge season starts

2011-04-13T09:31:00.000+01:00

This time of year in the more temperate sailing areas, such as here in the UK, boats are being launched and the first trips of the year have been undertaken. For us here at Salty John it means the start of the Loos & Company tension gauge season.

Having the correct rig tension is important because a loose rig can impart shock loads to shrouds and chainplates as the mast flops from side to side; a too tight rig can cause structural damage.

A well tuned rig will have equally tensioned shrouds so that the boat will perform well on both tacks, the leeward shrouds won’t dangle flaccidly and the forestay won’t sag. She’ll feel right on all points of sail.

You don’t need a tension gauge to set up the rig – there are methods whereby you can measure the change in length of the shrouds and stays as the turnbuckles are tightened, and there’s always the tune your rig like a guitar technique. But the Loos tension gauge gives you a quick, accurate, check and that will encourage you to test often, making sure all is well. For racers who set their rigs to suit the prevailing conditions a Loos gauge is an important tool in their race-winning armoury.

There are Loos gauges for wire rigging from 2.5mm to 10mm and for rod rigging of all sizes.

So, you can’t tuna fish but you can tune a rig; get yourself a gauge.

Quack attack!

2011-04-10T15:38:00.000+01:00

Actually, it was a swan attack, but I like the title.

In the spring when swans are nesting they are particularly protective. As we pottered down the canal yesterday we were approached by a swan displaying very aggressive behaviour. We knew that a female was nesting in a field off to our left and assumed straight away that this was the mate standing guard. It came rapidly towards us, swimming with a strange bobbing motion, wings tucked tightly behind, chest puffed out.

As we came alongside the swan he began lunging at the boat with his beak. We motored on past, leaving the swan in our wake. But he wasn’t finished yet. He lined up dead astern and came charging straight at us. It was quite intimidating. When he reached the boat, though, he stopped his attack and watched us carry on down the canal out of his territory. Job done, I suppose he thought.

Winch handle - in or out?

2011-04-06T14:03:00.000+01:00

When I started sailing I was taught to never leave the winch handle in the winch after tacking or trimming. The reason was to avoid injury should the pawls fail and the sheet tension spin the handle with great force.

I’ve always been a little skeptical of this advice since I’ve never met anyone who knew anyone who was injured by a whizzing winch handle released by a failing pawl. However, I continued to remove my winch handle and stow it in a winch holder when not in use because my favourite winch handle was non-locking and I didn’t want to lose it overboard, and I wanted the winch top to be unencumbered should I need to release the sheet quickly.

I’ve never had a boat where the winch handle being in the winch was a trip hazard to people stepping in and out of the cockpit but if I needed additional motivation for my ‘stow the handle after use’ policy that would be it.

Recently I was discussing winch handle habits with another sailor and he said he always moved the handle over to the lazy winch after the tack, basically using the lazy winch as a winch handle holder and at the same time having it ready for the next tack. I can’t think of an objection to this practice, if you have locking winch handles and the handle doesn’t trip you when you leave the cockpit. And it doesn’t risk injury should one of those pesky pawls give way.

So, that’s what I do now.

New products from Salty John

2011-04-02T10:38:00.000+01:00

We have a couple of new products starting this month:

Rigging cutters.

Earlier I blogged about the need to have effective rigging cutters when going offshore and warned of the need to have the right tool for the job when cutting 1x19 stainless rigging. We’ve made a deal to supply the excellent Baudat KS10 ratchet cutter which will easily handle 8mm rigging wire. Its compact size and one hand operation makes it ideal for on-board work.

Mobile device holder.

I suppose it’s a sign of the times that there is a demand for a means of securely holding your iPod, mobile phone, handheld GPS, handheld radio, or other mobile device close to the helm.

This device attaches to the binnacle frame or to any rail and fully articulates to orientate the device to suit your helm position. It grips the mobile device and also has an elastic lanyard for extra security.

Also, the Speedy Stitcher and the Hot Blade are back on sale – sorry for any inconvenience while we were out of stock.

Quit smoking, go cruising.

2011-03-30T10:39:00.000+01:00

I’m an expert on giving up smoking. I can say this because I have tried and failed and then tried and succeeded. So I know the difference.

I started smoking when I was 16, which is pretty damn early to start smoking. When I was a lad it was cool to smoke. If you didn’t smoke you were weird. How could you stand school without a fag (oops, showing my age) now and then. How would the girls look upon you if you didn’t at least try to emulate the heroes of the day – James Dean and James Bond (eighty a day according to Ian Fleming, his creator)?

I didn’t notice the point at which smoking changed from being a voluntary activity to being an addiction. I guess it was around three or four years in. I was aware of people talking about ‘giving up smoking’ around that time – early twenties. The concept of there being some difficulty in no longer smoking was only just beginning to dawn.

I was something of an athlete at school. I played soccer and I ran the 100 yard and 220 yard sprints for my school. Actually, you don’t notice the effects of smoking when you’re a sprinter as much as you do if you’re a long distance runner, but still, I have to say, I did eventually notice and my reaction was to stop sport. To concentrate, I suppose, on my smoking.

When I was in my late twenties I made a serious attempt to stop smoking. It was painful. It was also very scary because that’s when I realized that smoking was an addiction and it had me in its maw.

Over the next few years I gave up smoking several times – a week, a month and, one time, more than a year. Each time I would fail to sustain my abstinence.

Each time that I failed to quit the prospect of ever giving up became more distant. My dependency seemed to grow.

In 1988 I decided I was going to take off in a small boat, with my wife and daughter, to explore the world. In order to achieve this long held dream many sacrifices would have to be made; my career would have to be, if not abandoned, then put on hold; the luxuries of a salaried existence would be lost, the pennies would need to be counted. No problem; a dream so long and jealously held was not going to falter because of silly materialistic trappings.

Ah, but wait. Surely there was no room on a small boat for the many cartons of cigarettes that would be necessary to sustain a habit that now ran to three packs a day?

I decided to quit. This time I decided to make it stick. I had seen friends try and fail with a variety of patches, drugs and other nicotine substitutes but the overwhelming message I got was one of failure. It was going to have to be cold turkey.

That was 23 years ago. I’m still clean.

How did I do it? There is no easy way, I’m afraid, but nothing worth achieving ever is easy. What’s required is will power. You might not think you have it, but you do. Trust me.

Here are the imperatives:

Immediately assume the persona of a non-smoker. This is hugely important! Don’t tell people who offer a cigarette “No thanks, I’m trying to give up.” How negative is that! Say “No thanks, I don’t smoke.” You don’t have to become an evangelist about it and condemn others for smoking, just make it clear you don’t smoke.

When the first craving occurs, tell yourself that in about ten minutes the craving will diminish. It does. Each time the craving arrives tell yourself that it will go away in a few minutes. It will. Cling to that.

Under no circumstances ‘reward’ yourself for giving up for a day, a week, a month, a year, by having a cigarette. Remember how you laughed at this concept when you face the situation, as you surely will. Resist!

Remember, you are a non-smoker! Keep telling yourself that.

There will come a time when you will wake up in panic from a dream in which you started smoking again. When you realize it’s just a dream the relief will be immense. And you will know you’re well on your way to being a non-smoker.

So, you don’t have to go blue water cruising to quit smoking, but it helps.

Spring is in the air!

2011-03-26T13:10:00.000Z

Spring has sprung!

The grass has had its first cut of the year, the daffodils are in bloom and the lesser spotted boat washer is to be seen.

Minnie has scrubbed up really well, she has a new acrylic hatch board and her tiller has had six coats of varnish. She’s looking good and ready for her first full season disguised as a motor boat on the Lancaster Canal.

This year we’ll be reporting on our meanderings on the canal system but we’ll also be hoping to get our salt water sailing fixes on other people’s boats later in the year.

Bring it on, Skipper! (A versatile expression I learnt from a bridge operator on the ICW in Florida many years ago).

Emergency rigging cutters

2011-03-21T17:27:00.001Z

If you lose your mast at sea you will need to control the resulting tangle of spars and rigging wire as efficiently as possible. To do this you need a set of wire rope cutters.

Under the heading of ‘cable cutters’ there is a bewildering array from hand-held pliers to bench mounted hydraulic presses. There is also, somewhat alarmingly, a great deal of misleading information which makes choosing the right tool difficult.

To make sure you select a tool that will do the job on your rigging, start with the specification of your rigging wire. Rigging wire is, typically, 1 x 19 stainless steel wire rope and most cruising boats would have shrouds and stays in the 6mm to 10mm range. It’s important to understand this because the capacity quoted for wire cutters is based on much softer material, such as electrical cable or fence wire.

Here’s an example: Felco of Switzerland make extremely high quality cutters; their C16 cutter will handle wire up to 16mm (⅝”). Unfortunately it only does this on mild steel, copper or aluminium cable, not wire rope. On 7 x 19 flexible stainless wire rope, as used for running rigging, it will handle up to 12mm (½”). However, on 1 x 19 stainless standing rigging wire it will only handle up to 6mm (¼”)! You’ll see vendors offering the Felco C16 as ‘suitable for 16mm wire”. Technically correct, I suppose, but very misleading if it’s being offered for use on a boat.

The problem is that the reduction in cutter capacity for 1 x 19 stainless wire rope is much larger than you would think.

For leverage type cutters, the type that look like a pair of long handled pliers, you need to be looking at those, like the Felco or Baudat, with a shearing action – where the blades pass over each other, not stop edge to edge. To get the force into the cut you’ll need long handles – typically 70cm (28”) or more.

For 8mm (5/16”) and larger wire you might want to consider a ratchet or hydraulic cutter. The good thing about ratchet cutters (see picture) is that they are more compact for a given capacity and therefore wieldier than large leverage types. The downside is that they take a little longer to make the cut because you have to pump the handles to build up the mechanical pressure. Hand operated hydraulic cutters are the choice for cable of 10mm (⅜”) or more. They look a little heavy but they certainly do the job effectively.

So, if you bought a cheap set of cable cutters from a hardware store to manage the aftermath of a dismasting you should give them a try on some scrap cable of the same type and diameter as your rig. I sincerely hope you won’t be shocked, but I suspect many of you will be.

Heaving - to

2011-03-16T18:43:00.000Z

When the wind pipes up and the going gets tough heaving-to is a great tactic that lets you stop the world and get off for a while. Or, as Bernard Moitessier says in his classic The Long Way: “….when you no longer know what to do: come about without touching the sheets, put the helm alee, stretch out in the cockpit, eyes closed, and then see things as they are….”.

You can heave-to to have lunch or to weather a storm or, of course, to lie in the cockpit and contemplate. How you do it depends to a large extent on your boat and you should practice the manoeuvre so that you can do it when you need to. For most it’s a matter of tightening up to close hauled and then tacking without releasing the jib sheet. Once the jib is aback, let out the main a little and lash the helm alee. Each boat will behave somewhat differently but the principle of setting the helm and main to drive the boat against the backed jib remains - it’s a matter of finding the right balance for your boat and the prevailing conditions.

In storm conditions you’d be down to storm jib and fully reefed main or trysail but you can heave-to with a fuller sail plan if you just want to stop for lunch or to carry out some task which is best done with the boat still.

Hove-to, the boat should lie about 40º or 50º off the wind and forereach slowly. You are underway so need to act accordingly regarding collision avoidance.

A good skill to acquire is heaving-to.

Don't kill the messenger.

2011-03-11T10:28:00.000Z

The ancient Greeks didn’t have VHF radio or telephones so they used messengers a lot. Messengers were used to carry news of progress on the battlefield back to management at Head Office. The news wasn’t always encouraging so the messenger was often killed in a fit of pique. Sophocles, in 442BC, opined that there was altogether too much smiting of messengers going on and an edict was issued forbidding the practice.

Now, here in rural Lancashire we have a lot of power outages. In fact, we have more electricity cuts in a month than many impoverished sub-Saharan African states have in a year. When the most recent outage occurred I called the power supplier to ask how long we’d be without juice this time. After enunciating my post code and pressing lots of numbers a human being, The Messenger, told me:
“Our engineers are working on it. It could be an hour or it might be all day”.
Respectful as I am of ancient Greek edicts I refrained from metaphorically killing The Messenger.

A couple of days later I received a phone call from a representative of the power company wanting to know how, on a scale of 1 to 5, The Messenger had handled the call regarding the power outage. She wasn’t calling to apologise for the outage, or to explain what they would be doing to improve the situation, she just wanted to assess the performance of The Messenger.

This is the modern day equivalent of the Ancient Greeks sending a second messenger to enquire about the performance of the first messenger:
“Can you tell me, Emperor, how did young Hermes do? Was his toga clean? Had he polished his sandals? Did he enunciate clearly? Did he stand still whilst you smote him?

Aaargh!! Don't kill the messenger, kill the messenger whose checking up on the messenger!

Force 12

2011-03-05T18:36:00.000Z

When you sail small boats over the horizon it’s almost inevitable that you’ll meet with heavy weather at some point. But not everyone can expect to make newspaper headlines as a result.

On April 11, 1993 I found myself, together with my wife and daughter, on board a friends 42’ sloop bound for Hout Bay near Cape Town, South Africa. The owner and his son made up the crew of five. We’d had a pleasant couple of days sailing up the west coast to Saldahna Bay spotting whales on the way. We were now heading home, after spending the night anchored off desolate Dassen Island, trying to beat a forecast gale.

All day we motor-sailed down the coast towards Cape Town; an eerie, oily calm prevailed. And then, with 20 miles to go, the wind began to build. Soon it was a howling gale from the south east – right on the nose. We were down to fully reefed main with the engine providing progress towards Hout Bay. The wind continued to rise, up through 40, then 50 knots. The winds assassin, the sea, built rapidly.

Then the engine stopped.

We’d run out of fuel. We hove-to and assessed the situation. The seas were now huge; trawlers running for cover into Cape Town harbour were disappearing from view in the swells and we were close to being overwhelmed by the seas driven by a wind now gusting over 60 knots. We managed to get the mainsail off her and point her downwind, back the way we had come.

We put in a call to the Coastguard at Cape Town to advise of our predicament, and to ask for information on any viable port of refuge downwind. The Coastguard said they would launch the lifeboat and tow us in. We said there was little possibility of our being able to accept a tow in these conditions but they assured us it was their duty to come and rescue us. Not five minutes later the Coastguard was back on the radio telling us that it was too rough to launch the lifeboat and that we should attempt to run off downwind and gain as much sea room as we could. He sounded genuinely concerned. So was I.

Night was falling, it was getting very cold and we were barreling off downwind under bare poles. The wind speed indicator was pegged at 64 knots, the limit of its dial, and the seas were as big as houses. It was becoming too cold, wet and dangerous to be at the helm so we lashed the wheel and left the boat to her own devices. She behaved remarkably well, holding a steady course for long periods, developing a bit of a wobble as she surfed down particularly big waves, but she never actually broached fully broadside. On a couple of occasions the lashing holding the wheel gave way and one of us would have to go out and re-secure it.

The motion took its toll and by evening everyone but me was in their bunk. Mercifully, I don’t get seasick so I stood watch through the night. Around midnight I popped my head out of the hatch to find that we were approaching what appeared to be a floating city, brilliantly floodlit. It turned out be a Russian bulk carrier. I spoke to the radio officer by vhf and he told me they had been thrown out of Cape Town harbour, along with several other large vessels, because it was feared they would wreak havoc if their anchors dragged. He suggested I sit in their lee until the storm abated but I had to decline because we had no engine and no means to manoeuvre.

By morning the wind had dropped somewhat and we hoisted a storm jib. The following seas were still pretty impressive but the motion was better and the crew gradually emerged from their bunks to enjoy (I use the term loosely) the sleigh ride in brilliant sunshine.

We eventually arrived back at Saldahna Bay, from whence we had set off two days earlier!

The Cape Times reported the storm under the headline ‘Battered Cape’ and mentioned that three yachts had been involved in rescue dramas in winds measuring up to 200km/hour (100 knots): Amongst them “the yacht Nexus, which called for assistance after the engine failed in turbulent waters on Sunday, limped into Saldahna Bay early yesterday”. That was us. Fame at last.

Customs and Immigration - Island style.

2011-02-28T11:36:00.000Z

One morning we heard on vhf radio the captain of the Italian cruise liner Asiatic Renaissance hailing the Georgetown (Bahamas) harbour master. A lady eventually responded, informing the caller that there was no harbour master in Georgetown but could she help? She was, she informed him, on a sail boat anchored in the harbour.

The captain said his vessel was 275 feet long, he had dropped anchor off Lily Cay and he wanted clearance to bring 95 tourists ashore.
The lady told him he needed to hail ‘Taxi 4’ or ‘Taxi 16’, that would be Joel or Clifford, and they could help him. Have a nice day.

The captain of the cruise liner responded in a somewhat bewildered tone ‘You think I should hail ‘Taxi 4’ on the radio to get permission?’
‘Roger that, or ‘Taxi 16’, she replied.

So, the captain duly called ‘Taxi 4’ who responded immediately. When the captain explained what he wanted, ‘Taxi 4’ assured him this was no problem, he would round up the two customs officers, currently out at the airfield, and take them to the Government Dock where the cruise liner’s launch could meet them to complete formalities.

Simple really. Island style.

Of course, that was twenty years ago. Since then Georgetown has acquired a Harbour master and I suppose the clearing-in procedure is a little more conventional.

Of mice and main!

2011-02-23T13:45:00.001Z

My one season old mainsail was neatly folded and placed in its bag and then left on the shelf in the garage where all the other boating stuff is stored for the winter. In the spring I laid out the sail on the lawn to check it for the new season and discovered large parts of it had been eaten.

I’ve subsequently discovered that field mice don’t eat Dacron, but they do use it for bedding. I found the nest and, sure enough, it was luxuriously appointed with shredded mainsail.

So, if you don’t want to be a supplier of material to the interior decorating trade for rodents, stow your sails where the little devils can’t get at them.

Kilometres, speedometers.

2011-02-20T15:55:00.000Z

I wonder why we in the English speaking world pronounce kilometre as if it rhymed with speedometer? A kilometre is a metric unit of length, not a meter for measuring something. We don’t treat millimetres and centimetres this way. Try saying millimetre with the same emphasis on the second syllable. Sounds ridiculous doesn’t it?

Why should the kilometre be different?

It’s as though the kilometre got put away in the wrong box; it ended up with the thermometers, pedometers and tachometers instead of in the box with its metric unit relatives. A kilometre is a thousand metres not some instrument with a dial that measures kilos.

I think we should start a campaign to get the kilometre back. People in UK, North America and Australasia need to be made aware of the plight of the kilometre.

Say after me: millimetre, centimetre, kilometre.

And another thought for the day:

Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a ride!

Hunter S. Thompson (1937 – 2005)

Careening

2011-02-15T19:35:00.001Z

I watched a crew careen this boat over two tides on the beach at Staniel Cay, Bahamas. It was no lightweight this boat, a 40’ Morgan OI, but it was so expertly and effortlessly done it might well have been a dinghy they were manhandling.

It seems strange that the word careening also means to sway dangerously and uncontrollably; that’s the antithesis of how you careen a boat.

The joy of cruising

2011-02-11T10:07:00.000Z

I was attracted to the cruising life because it’s simple. I’ve always strived to simplify; I solve problems this way – I reduce the problem to its simplest form, cutting out all the extraneous issues that complicate the matter. The solution becomes so much clearer.

So, going to sea in a small boat appeals – it’s the simplest form of life available to modern man. I can’t think of any other way of living that gives you such control over your life. On land your decisions are influenced by regulations, customs and social inhibitions. Out cruising your decisions are usually made on the basis of necessity and in the expectation that they will achieve your safety or improve your comfort.

You derive huge satisfaction from the simple successes and you learn quickly from the mistakes. The feedback loop is short.

I heartily recommend small boat cruising as a way of life.

Displacement hull speed

2011-02-08T12:45:00.000Z

I was on a forum a little while ago where a poster stated that his production monohull yacht had a water line length of less than 24’ but could achieve a speed of 7.5 knots. This is, of course, impossible without defying the laws of physics. Such a boat would have a hull speed of no more than 6.5 knots. He probably needs to check the accuracy of his speed log.

Let’s recap the displacement hull speed law: As a boat moves through the water it creates a wave. As the boat moves faster the wave increases in length until it eventually reaches the waterline length of the boat. At this point the boat can go no faster without climbing up the face of its own bow wave. Considerable power is required to do this – well beyond that available to the typical sail boat.

The formula for theoretical displacement hull speed is:

Speed (knots) = 1.34 x √LWL in feet

Example: LWL is 25’. Hull speed is 1.34 x 5 = 6.7 knots.

Some lightweight flyers, even if they do have displacement hulls, can slightly exceed this theoretical figure; a constant of 1.4 instead of 1.34 brings these boats into the catchment area, so to speak.

The waterline length on some boats, particularly those with long overhangs, increases as the boat heels, so they go faster heeled that upright.

Most monohull sail boats have displacement hulls. The long narrow hulls on some multihulls are not limited by the displacement hull speed law because they can climb up onto their own bow wave and plane along the surface.

Engine exhaust alarm

2011-02-04T13:34:00.000Z

Diesel engines on the size of boat most of us sail are almost always indirectly cooled by pumping sea water through a heat exchanger, or directly cooled by pumping seawater through the engine block. In both cases the water leaving the engine is pumped into the exhaust pipe from where it exits overboard with the exhaust gases.

The flow of this water through what is known as the wet exhaust system cools the exhaust components (hose, silencer etc.), and prevents them overheating.

The raw water flow to the engine could be interrupted by debris blocking the inlet, a clogged inlet strainer or by someone (not me!) failing to open the inlet seacock.

Raw water failure is the most common problem with marine engines. Within a short period of time expensive damage to engine or wet exhaust system can occur.

Here’s the problem: marine engines don’t come with an exhaust temperature alarm; it’s considered part of the exhaust system, not the engine. The engine will have an alarm to tell you when the engine is overheating but it is very often the case that the exhaust components have already melted by the time the engine alarm goes off.

Tug boats on the Panama Canal and fishing boats in Alaska use the Borel system and that’s the one we chose to offer on the website. We call it the Sentry Exhaust Alarm because it guards you’re engine.

Chinese New Year

2011-02-03T11:57:00.000Z

Kung Hei Fat Choy!

It's Chinese New Year. The year of the rabbit starts today.

(I realise this has nothing to do with boating - we'll get back to that any day now!)

Magazine advertising

2011-01-31T14:42:00.000Z

For several years we’ve advertised our small business in boating magazines: Practical Boat Owner, Yachting Monthly, Motor Boat Monthly (these are all IPC titles), Sailing Today and two American magazines, Good Old Boat and Small Craft Advisor.

A couple of months ago we installed some more sophisticated analytical software which gives us a much better handle on where our customers come from. We now know that the £350 or so we spend on magazine advertising each month is rather dubious value for money.

The nub of the problem lies in the reluctance of magazine readers to make the step from seeing an ad to putting the address in their browser and going to the site. It’s a crucial step for a web based company such as ours. Potential customers seem to want instant gratification. Web based ads place us just a click away from the customer. Print ads require extra effort on the part of the buyer.

What magazines can do is provide comparative tests and new product reviews which, I’m sure, provide extra incentive for potential buyers to make the effort to go to the vendor’s site. The problem with that, for a small company such as Salty John, is getting these magazines to provide any editorial support. Sailing Today is an excellent magazine and they have been very supportive with their willingness to test our products from time to time: Bandit tape, the Motor Grip and the Tiller-Hand have received good reviews and the response is quite significant, if short lived. I mean by that that we get a spike in sales for a week or so and then the effect is gone and sales settle back to normal. The IPC guys, on the other hand, seem only to favour the big advertisers when it comes to editorial support. We’ve had the Sentry exhaust alarm ignored in a recent comparison test and before that our Mooringmate. I guess you need to spend substantial sums to grab their attention.

So, we’ve taken the bold step of cancelling all our print advertising and stepping up our web advertising. We’ll see how it goes.

Technology marches on.

2011-01-26T19:02:00.000Z

On my first boat the only instruments I had in the cockpit were a compass and a depth sounder. More fully equipped boats upon which I was invited to sail had wind speed and direction indicator read outs. Luxury. I didn’t get a crick in my neck from watching the masthead Windex.

Then GPS and chart plotters worked their way from the chart table into the cockpit, along with the AIS display. The VHF radio migrated to the helm.

The helm station on some boats looks like the flight deck of a multi-role combat aircraft. You have to wear shades at night or the backlighting will blind you. I once took over the night watch on a boat that had a forward looking sonar unit strapped to the binnacle and it was like having a small TV set a couple of feet from my face – I knew what the depth was but damned if I could see anything else.

I’m not, however, a Luddite; I have a technical background and I applaud innovation. I don’t yearn for the good old days of trailing log, lead line and sextant.

An upcoming product (due in February) at www.saltyjohn.co.uk is a cockpit holder for your mobile device. It will take iPhones, iPods, Blackberries (and every other kind of communicable fruit, I assume), hand held radio and GPS. It permits mounting on the binnacle frame or pushpit rail, or a suction pad option sticks it to a bulkhead.

It can incorporate a remote speaker so you can share your music with others in the cockpit.

Technology marches on, indeed.

Roll on spring!

2011-01-22T11:24:00.000Z

Cabin fever sets in this time of year. I can’t get out on the water because it’s still frozen in the marina. We’ve had some bright, sunny but very cold days recently and I’ve had to resort to taking walks to get my fresh air. Roll on spring.

Last year we brought Minnie down from the Lakes and put her on the Lancaster Canal near home. I stripped off the rig, the bowsprit, the winches and deck organisers and even the guard rails. I added a bigger outboard motor.

I made a new companionway hatch out of black 8mm acrylic to replace the shabby plywood original. The acrylic, which I bought on-line, was easy to cut and finish and I’m pleased with the result.

I also added a brolly. Yep, when we stop by the canal side for lunch we put up our big Carling beer umbrella, deploy the cockpit table and dine in style.

We intend to explore the English inland waterway system, the canals, a bit further this year. She’s ready to go. Roll on spring.

Keeping the water on the outside of the boat.

2011-01-18T13:51:00.000Z

Bilge pump systems on boats.

The task
You’re bilge pump system has to handle two situations – pumping out the normal accumulations of water from stern gland, condensation and minor leakage, and pumping out a large influx of water in an emergency.

The most likely causes of a catastrophic leak in a displacement boat are:
1. The loss of a seacock – either the hose becomes detached or the seacock itself breaks off the through hull.
2. Loss of a through hull transducer.
3. A disintegrating drive shaft stuffing box or stern gland.
4. An overheating engine which melts the exhaust system components and pumps water into the bilge.

Holes in the hull caused by grounding or collision, and flooding by waves could be any size; it’s unrealistic to design for such freak occurrences.

Simple fact: A 1½” hole (such as an open seacock) located 2’ below the waterline will let in around 60 US gallons (230 litres) per minute. That’s 3,600 gallons per hour. That water weighs nearly 30,000 lbs. If you were so inclined you could calculate the amount of water your boat could accommodate before she sank. It isn’t many hours for the size of boat most of us sail.

So, ideally, you need an emergency bilge pump system to handle around 4,000 gallons (15,000 litres) per hour. You also need a supplementary system to keep the bilge dry.

Types of pump and how to drive them.
We can power our bilge pumps in three ways:
Mechanically, off the engine.
Electrically, from the batteries.
Manually, by a crewmember.

Think about these options a little: To drive the pump mechanically the engine must be running; to drive the pump electrically there must be juice in the batteries; to drive the pump manually a crewmember must be available.

To cover all contingencies the bilge pump system will need to be a combination of pump types.

Capacity ratings
Now, before we select the appropriate pumps, let’s consider the pump capacity rating. I’m going to try and make this as simple as possible because not everyone wants to plough through charts and graphs and extrapolations to calculate the precise capability of a bilge pump.

An electric pump with a rated capacity of 2,000 gallons per hour will only do this if there is no hose connected and the batteries are bulging with volts. But in real life the pump has to lift the water out of the bilge and push it uphill to a discharge point. Furthermore, it has to push this water through a pipe, and various bends and probably a seacock. This combination of the uphill battle and the resistance in the system is known as the pressure head and it must be applied to the pump’s rated capacity to get the real world capacity.

My rule of thumb for calculating pressure head in a typical 25’ to 45’boat installation is to measure the height from the pump to the highest point of the pipe run and double this figure to give total pressure head. So, if you want a pump to move 2000 gph vertically 5’ your total pressure head is 10’ Now look at, for instance, a Rule 2000 electric pump which has an open flow rating of 2000gph and apply the 10’ pressure head on the manufacturers chart; you will find that this pump does a little under half of the open flow rating at this pressure head.

So, my second, and simpler, rule of thumb is – down rate electric pump capacity to 40% of rated capacity. And be aware that this requires the batteries to be fully charged; depleted batteries and dodgy wiring will further degrade performance.

Your 2000 gph pump will actually handle around 800 gph.

Mechanical and manual pumps usually give the capacity at a particular pressure head so their selection is less confusing, but the rule about total pressure head stands.

The biggest manual pumps, such as the Edson 30, will pump one gallon per stroke and the Whale Henderson Mark 5 about half that rate. Although some manufacturers give pump capacity at hugely optimistic pumping rates, 70 strokes per minute, for instance, 30 strokes per minute is hard work; if you can manage that you’ll get 1800 gallons per hour from the Edson. These are physically large pumps and can be challenging to house on a small boat. Lower capacity pumps take up less room.

Types of pump
Every boat should have at least one manual bilge pump. Manual pumps are diaphragm pumps and the best type are double acting – they pump on both forward and backward strokes of the handle. Think about its location and how easy it will be to operate in an emergency. A long handle that can be operated in a standing position is best; kneeling in the cockpit is less good. Do what you can.

Electric pumps are, most often, of the submersible, centrifugal type. Such a pump would form the basis of your non-emergency maintenance system – to keep your bilge dry under normal conditions. Equipped with a level switch it will cycle on and off as needed to keep nuisance water from building up. Float switches are notoriously unreliable so check them frequently; electronic switches with no moving parts, such as the Bilge Mate, are usually a better choice.

You may wish to add a second, higher capacity pump as an emergency pump and it should be designed to come on if the smaller pump isn’t coping. It should have a level switch located higher in the bilge than the maintenance pump. This switch should operate an audio/visual alarm to tell the crew it has operated. You must be able to override the automatic function and force the pump to run if the switch fails.

If your boat can accommodate it the best of all pumps is a mechanical clutch pump, belt driven off the engine. A Jabsco Series 51270 engine driven pump will handle 4,100 gph at 10’ total pressure head but is physically large and nearly impossible to house on smaller boats.

Your engine already has a pump on it, the cooling water pump, and some advocate that this be plumbed in such a way that by switching a valve it will draw its water from the bilge instead of outside. I’m very sceptical of this advice - the engine pump doesn’t move an awful lot of water, and I’d hate to be jeopardising my engines cooling system when I already have an emergency on my hands.

So, to sum up: A typical bilge water management system will comprise a 12v submersible pump to handle normal seepage, one or two larger electric pumps to handle larger influxes and a manual bilge pump to supplement the electric pumps or replace them when the batteries are flat. An engine driven pump would be a very desirable addition.

Oh, and a baling bucket is a vital component of any leak management system. A Salty John canvas bucket has a big capacity and folds flat.

Installation considerations.

It will be clear from the discussion of pump capacity that keeping the total pressure head as low as possible is important. The pump in the bilge should be located as close to being vertically in line with the discharge hole as is feasible so that the length of horizontal run is minimised. The maximum lift height will be determined by the distance between the pump outlet and the discharge point, or the top of any loop, vented or otherwise, in the line. Sharp bends should be avoided. The pipe should have smooth interior walls. You’re trying to make it as easy as possibly for the pump to move the water – don’t put obstacles in its way.

You’ll want the bilge pump discharge hose to be well above the heeled waterline. If you can’t achieve this you’ll need to consider a vented loop. Try hard to avoid that need.

Consider installing your electric pumps and their switches on a common base; I use a piece of Plexiglas. If your bilge is very deep you can attach a handle or lanyard to this base plate to allow you to lift the whole assembly within reach for maintenance and repair.

OK, those are my thoughts on bilge pump systems, but let me say right now that I have never had a boat in which the bilge pump system could evacuate 4,000 gph. In smaller boats it’s just impractical to achieve this capacity, as you may have gathered from the above. Top priority, therefore, is to avoid a situation that would require such a capacity:

Prevention and preparation
Minimise the number of holes in your boat. Use a manifold or seachest where appropriate to combine several functions into one seacock. Use suitable seacocks - bronze, stainless or Marelon. Use quality hose and double clamp it. Maintain your seacocks, engine stuffing box and rudder bearings scrupulously and regularly.

You have to be able to get to all your seacocks easily and quickly even when they’re underwater. At each seacock you must have a soft wood or rubber bung of the appropriate size. Tie it to the seacock with a lanyard. Have a contingency plan for stemming the flow from a hull breach, stuffing box failure, displaced rudder or other catastrophe. Keep your cockpit drains clear and, if your boat doesn’t have a bridge –deck (companionway sill) keep the lower companionway hatch board in place if there’s a chance of shipping a wave.

It’s a good idea to have an exhaust temperature monitor, such as the Sentry, on your exhaust pipe. A melted exhaust pipe will allow the engine to pump its raw cooling water into the boat. Melting of exhaust components can occur before the normal engine block temperature alarm sounds.

Note: In the forgoing discussion I’ve used US gallons and (litres) because that’s what most pumps are rated in and it saves me making conversions. If you want figures in Imperial gallons multiply the US gallon figure by 0.83 or divide the litre figure by 4.5.

Zen moment

2011-01-17T12:00:00.000Z

I had a zen thought today. A bit like: If a tree falls in the woods and there is no-one there to hear it, does it make a noise?

I was looking at some video I had shot on our millennium adventure in the Bahamas. We were at uninhabited Hawksbill Cay as the sun set on the last day of 1999 and I filmed it. The picture really is of that sunset. But, unless I had told you so, how would you tell it from any other sunset? Makes you think.

Happy Birthday, Tiller-Hand!

2011-01-11T10:49:00.000Z

We’ve been making this tiller control device since January 2005.

Since then the Tiller-Hand has had the sleeve bearing pulley changed to a Delrin pulley with a stainless steel ball bearing race for really smooth operation. And it’s had a sunhat added - actually, a UV protector that covers the pulley to protect it from potential damage due to long term sun exposure in brutally hot climes.

There are thousands of these things in operation world wide – a simple, low cost device that can add enormously to the pleasure of sailing single or short handed.

Hats

2011-01-05T15:30:00.000Z

Boating hats. You think anchor choice is controversial, just try talking about hats.

You have the Tilley Hat group, the baseball cap set, the Greek fisherman’s hat brigade, watch cap adherents and sou’wester wearers. To name but a few.

Some swear by the world famous Tilley hat. Others say it should start with one letter down the alphabet. Some claim the brim flutters annoyingly in a breeze, some say you could wear it in a hurricane. They’re pretty expensive so probably best to test drive one before buying.

I wear a woollen watch cap in the winter in UK, not because I like the look but out of survival necessity. I think it looks particularly salty with a classic polar neck fisherman’s sweater.

Greek fisherman’s cap? Nah.

Sou’wester. You’re kidding?

For summertime and tropical sailing the good old baseball cap is my usual choice, even though it’s completely useless at keeping your ears from getting burnt. There’s a version that has a clip on ear and neck protector, but if I wanted to look like that I’d have joined the French Foreign Legion.

Baseball caps need to have things written on them to have cred, and they need to be suitably battered and sun bleached.

A Mount Gay Rum cap is the ultimate status symbol but it needs to be endorsed for a particular race to really work – mine had Fort Lauderdale to Key West Race embroidered under the Mount Gay logo – and it needs to have weathered to a soft pink. When it’s stiff and bright red it says newbie. I’ve posted a couple of pictures to illustrate this.

The baseball cap can be worn backwards for greater aerodynamic efficiency. In the picture I’ve just finished an ocean race, hence the streamlined, and slightly inebriated, look.

Hat retention is always an issue in a breeze, with the possible exception of the watch cap. The Tilley has a cunningly designed neck cord, somewhat like that of the Sou’wester. To retain a baseball cap in a blow you need a cord to attach it to your shirt collar. You can get ‘bespoke’ cords with a crocodile clip at each end or you can adopt my own system of clothes peg and string. I think mine has a certain cache’.

I know, I know: What about the Kepi and the straw lifesavers hat? Well, that would let in the sombrero and the Stetson and who knows what all. I told you it was worse than discussing anchor choice.

In the end it’s your head, put what you like on it!

The wobbles

2011-01-02T19:55:00.000Z

Most people who've been on a boat know the feeling: You step off the boat onto the dock and after a short time you feel wobbly. You know you’re not drunk but you can’t seem to stop the swaying. It’s like walking across a mattress.

It’s even worse in a confined space such as a shower cubicle. If the trip was particularly rough the effect seems more pronounced and lasts longer.

We call it ‘Stillness illness’ or ‘The wobbles’. It’s usually not serious and goes away in a day or two.

A more serious form of the condition is Mal de Debarquement, or MDD. It’s thought to be a form of motion sickness and can be a problem for yachtsmen, cruise ship passengers, professional sailors and Navy personnel who step ashore after a prolonged period at sea. For most people the effect goes away quickly and they think nothing more of it. For an unfortunate few, however, the effect can last for months, even years. In fact there are cases of MDD in which the wobbly effect has lasted over ten years and is still going strong.

Imagine that!

Happy New Year!

2010-12-31T18:47:00.000Z

I wish you all a happy, healthy and prosperous 2011.

Wind

2010-12-28T17:12:00.000Z

Anyone coming to grips with the weather aspects of sailing will have realised early on that wind direction is given as the direction from which it comes. Currents, on the other hand, are named for the direction to which they flow.

It can be confusing for beginners: You can’t sail west in a west wind. A north wind blowing over a northerly current kicks up a boisterous sea. A north wind blowing over a southerly setting current gives a more benign sea state.

Most just accept this apparent anomaly and get on with it. Others never get to grips with it. Perhaps it would help if we could find some reason, if not logic, behind the naming of wind direction?

Here’s a theory: In various mythologies – Greek, Norse, Hindu - the wind was sent by a God. A God of Wind blew the wind towards us. It’s not difficult to see that this would lead to winds being named for their origin.
I don’t think currents were given much consideration in mythology so they missed this derivation and got lumped in with rivers and streams, their direction defined by where they were going.

Does that help?

Season's greetings

2010-12-24T11:07:00.000Z

Merry Christmas to all my readers!

When you get stuck into the Christmas 'spirit' this year, remember the words of William Penn:

Have a care, therefore, where there is more sail than ballast!

Don't mention the anchor!

2010-12-22T11:17:00.002Z

Anchoring is an emotive issue. It leads to some right barnies on sailing forums or in Yacht Club bars or at those wonderful sundowner dock gatherings at marinas all over the world.

I’ve always maintained that sleeping soundly at anchor is a confidence trick; if you have confidence in your ground tackle and anchoring technique you are in that happy band of sailors for whom anchoring-out holds no fear. If you’re also certain that if you should happen to drag you’ll wake up before anything disastrous happens, you are truly blessed.

With the possible exception of a couple of anchor salesmen I’ve spoken to, no one is born knowing how to anchor. You have to learn it. You have to practice it.

In the absence of the experience from which confidence builds you seek assurance elsewhere – you search for the perfect, never-drag anchor, perhaps, or an anchoring method that someone, somewhere, swears blind never fails. Or an anchor alarm that always wakes you. But it’s difficult to convince yourself from the anecdotal evidence of others that you will enjoy the same success if you replicate their system, especially when for every positive story there is an equal and opposite negative story. So you get frustrated and angry.

And when you think you’ve got your system right you tell others about it in order to bolster your own confidence, to convince yourself it’s all coming together. When the response is a sucking of teeth and shaking of the head you get angry because your fragile belief system is being undermined.

I think that’s why we get irritated and angry when anchoring is discussed. I try not to mention anchoring.