Wind and Rain…

Sorry gang, there’s no picture of us whooping it up at the end of training, as per usual. Saturday was a kick in the pants–we began the day with the winds at Robbins Reef gusting to 32 knots–and by Sunday it had laid down to 4 or 5 knots and drizzled on us. Sometimes you get what you want, sometimes you don’t.

But a word about patience. This is probably the most underrated skill of any sailor. After all, we live in a city of go-getters and “patience” isn’t exactly a sexy quality for the NOW NOW NOW crowd.  But it’s an undeniable habit or skill to have cultivated. What do you do, for example, when you are trying to get across the channel and the winds are variable in both speed and direction? The current is setting you down and there’s traffic all around. What do you do?

We teach that you should always “trim for maximum efficiency” and spend most of your time with the helm amidships, but what we don’t always communicate is that sometimes you’ll be doing both while going nowhere. It’s at this point that your boat will be rocked mercilessly by passing speedboat wakes (I was asked this weekend if hunting them should be a legal sport) and you’ll yaw about wildly, whilst pitching and heaving. The answer, I believe, is: do nothing. Trim your sails, relax, and strike up a conversation about something other than sailing. You have to be patient, or you’ll be forever fighting with the sheets in a vain attempt to make a boatlength’s worth of progress. Or, worse yet, you’ll fire up the outboard and putter around noisily.

Don’t get me wrong–there’s nothing wrong with using the engine to “go find some wind”. On the other hand, you also don’t want to be one of those perpetual motorsailors either. So take it easy out there. Some days you just have to make a commitment to having a morning of crappy wind. Trying to “fight through it” is probably just going to give you a headache.

See you on the water,

Julian

Heel More!

Friends of the Manhattan Sailing School will recognize the bulkhead behind us. I originally was planning to adopt an echte Shaolin sailing pose, but as you can see I came out looking slightly drunk and crazed.

This week’s novitiates included Giancarlo, Dorothy (“let’s go faster!”) and Konstanze.

Saturday’s sail training was actually rather challenging at times, with wind holding steady at 20 knots (measured at Robbins Reef) and gusting up to 30 occasionally. Which brings me to my point, one well worth repeating:

The time to shorten sail is when you first think of it.

This is especially true in a sail training environment, where the comfort levels of your crew might range wildly. For example, we had one sailor who was as new as morning dew to the sport. On the other hand, we had a former dinghy racer. (Guess whom was more conservative!)

As usual, Man Overboard recoveries dominated Sunday’s morning sail. We executed 11 recoveries from start to finish and shot no fewer than 16 approaches.

Along the way, we also discovered that Giancarlo is a man of great modesty and a tireless defender of our waterways. We picked up all sorts of extraneous garbage from the water, including a balloon. If you don’t know this already, balloons are actually a great threat to marine life, particularly to sea turtles. They resemble jellyfish, and the unwary sea turtle that swallows one will wind up with a fatal intestinal obstruction, unable to dive or eat. It’s a horrible way to die, and my great thanks to Giancarlo for helping to keep our waters safe.

Cheers to a great group, and a great weekend!

Julian

A superhero team for the 21st century

Freshly baptized by the spirit of Henry Hudson, the victorious crew of the Swordfish pauses for reflection. From left to right: Julian, Matt (“Heel more!”), Cousin Mike (don’t cross, because he can make your server cry Uncle), Jennifer (the most dangerous among us, she has her own intern), and Rob (who has the coolest check blazer). With a description like this, you’d think we were ready for burning highrises and cosmic monsters. Even better, these are the newly-certified keelboat sailors from the Manhattan Sailing School…

The weekend turned out to be pretty blustery. Saturday afternoon the wind, which had been piping along at a breezy 15 knots, gusted up to 25 and beyond. As we’ve no reef in our main, we elected to dump the jib and sail under main alone. That gave a pretty stark example of what weather helm looks like on a J-24. Like a schooner, she constantly wanted to rear up and point every time a gust came along. It took a pretty stiff counter pull on the tiller to keep her humming along on course, and hum she did. I’d say we spent a good deal of that afternoon heeled at 20 degrees.

Gybing in that kind of wind is no joke. One of the things I discovered is that you really must start the sheets in order to fall off. In lighter wind, a J is content to fall off into a gybe no matter what her point of sail. In fresh winds, however, she really does need to have  her main eased to get that gybe going. Then you have to pull, uh, like, quick! to get everything in nice and tight.

I’m a big proponent of gybing. It’s faster than tacking and many times it might be your only option if denial led you to get a lot closer to that other boat than you’d like to be.

So: cheap insurance is teaching your crew to gybe in all the kinds of wind that you sail in. There’s no substitute for being prepared. Teach your crew and your crew will learn and respond. The alternative is getting your crew used to “lazy” sailing habits and when push comes to shove and you need to manoeuvre, you’ll wind up as someone else’s headline.

See you on the water,

Julian

This is why you always check the transmission before you leave the dock

Does this screw look like it can produce much thrust? I took this picture after I spent about three minutes chipping away at the marine growth which had accumulated in about two months. (It looked like a Christmas wreath before. I’m sorry I didn’t take a picture of that.)

The vessel in question, the Green Lantern, had spent about two months in Long Island Sound, just sitting at her mooring. Her engine was run weekly. However, that engine was never engaged in gear and run up against the mooring. As a result, all aboard–experienced professionals, the four of us, with more than 60 man-years worth of experience–were under the impression that we were going to be able to control the boat under power. We had boarded with the aim of taking her to Port Jefferson to lay her up for the winter. It was a beautiful October day. We came stocked with food, snacks and a case of readytogoitis.

We set up the boat and got under weigh. Just after we left the mooring, we caught a gust on our port side which sent us skidding leeward toward a string of small boats, one of which was particularly expensive looking.

Close quarters manoeuvring is always something to take extra care on, so our skipper altered course to port and increased speed to increase the clearance room. The engine took on a distinctly higher thrash note and our course and speed did not change appreciably. We continued skidding to leeward and that particularly expensive yacht turned out to be a Tartan on closer examination. Three boat lengths.

Denial is a funny thing. If you’ve altered course by half a wheel and given the engine 50% throttle and nothing’s changing, it’s a good bet that nothing’s going to change if you add even more power and turn the wheel even more.

We continued to threaten the leeward boats with a solid carom, and distance was down to 2 boat lengths. It was time to get some auxiliary sail up–or, in our roller furler’s case, out.

What a mess. So much of a mess that I do not remember the exact sequence of events. Distance off that other boat decayed to less than one boat length, totally out of control, before we were able to get some way on and sail out of there. That day I also learned never to pick up a fiberglass mooring buoy pole with bare hands, because the gel coat is broken down and you’ll get rewarded with a handful of splinters.

What contributed to this event? The NTSB investigators who look at major accidents often refer to an “accident chain” in their reports. The idea is that it’s usually not one big thing that causes an accident—say, inadvertently triggering the “Keel Fall Off” button—but a series of things. And some of these “things” can be attitudes rather than actions or omissions.

Here’s my own brief–the other parties involved can weigh in in the Comments section:

1. Failure of the crew to establish and participate in an adequate culture of command. This is probably the hardest thing for recreational sailors, which that day we were. We stepped aboard as friends and forgot that someone has to be in charge. We set up the boat properly and did our checks, but we did them willy-nilly, without deliberation or instruction. Failure to operate in a culture of command means other things can get forgotten and the crew isn’t prepared for eventualities.

2. Failure of the crew to adequately inspect the vessel. We did bilge checks. We checked fuel filters, sea cocks, ran up the engine, attached halliards and exercised the steering gear. We did not, however, run the engine in reverse to ensure that (a) the propeller was still attached, (b) the transmission was in working order and (c) that the propeller was providing adequate thrust.

In fact, the crew deliberated at length after the event as to whether the prop had fallen off.

3. (Contributing) The crew succumbed to getthereitis. We were excited to be there and that contributed to proximal causes (1) and (2).

We still talk about this today. Get out there enough and you’ll have your own sea stories. I’ve spent 15 years on the water, making mistakes during every one of them. Just make sure that yours are original, okay? So, always run up your engine against the mooring or dock to make sure everything’s in working order prior to departure.

See you on the water,

Julian

Tonight’s class, MYC # 31…and some homework, too.

Before I begin…it would be a good idea to bring “foulies” (slickers, rainpaints, hat) tonight. We might stay dry…and we might get wet.

The most important thing tonight will be to keep an eye on the wind and our points of sail. Being able to identify our point of sail quickly is important, and a skill that you will develop over time. Why’s that?Your point of sail relates directly to boat control: we are faster on some points and slower on other. For example, running typically is a very slow point of sail for us. Beam reaching, on the other hand, is a very fast point of sail. That’s important because our most crucial manoeuvre, the figure-8 Man Overboard Recovery, requires you to sail on a beam reach, tack, fall off to a broad reach, and approach the target (“victim”) on a close reach. If you don’t hit the correct points of sail, your boat’s energy (speed) will be out of sorts with your needs. Coming into a tack, your boat needs a lot of energy (speed) to make it through the eye of the wind. Whilst approaching the victim, your energy level needs to be a lot lower.

On a related note, snappy, quick tacks are the hallmark of a safe, able sailor. We’ll spend most of our manoeuvring time tonight developing that skill.

Who cares how fast you tack, or come about? You do! By definition, tacking means that you will scrub off boat speed. Boat speed equates to energy…which equates to opportunity and options. Getting through a tack quickly is absolutely crucial, especially in low-wind, tight-quarter situations when you and the Other Guy are closer to each other than you’d like to be.

Okay, now homework. This is for after the class tonight, not prior! I don’t want you to get saturated before you even get on the dock.

1. We’ve already given you the exam notes. Study them closely! Aside from diagrammatic representations, that’s 96% of the test, right there.
2. Please read ahead to “Federal Requirements for Boats”–it’s dull, dry stuff that you should hit now.
3. Please read “Rescuing a Man Overboard”, on page 104.

Okay…enough from here…see you on the docks! Feel free to come down at 5 to set up the boat, though.

See you on the water,

Julian

Fireworks, Schmireworks

For those of you wondering, Pioneer is possibly one of the worst venues to witness 4th of July fireworks…as crew. Our passengers loved the show, but if you’re aboard you’ll see very little. The reason is simple: during the fireworks sail you’ll spend most of your time watching out for other vessels that are crowding us.

The Coast Guard is in charge of riding herd over the motley assortment of commercial vessels in the zone, as well as the recreational craft. They did a decent job tonight, with none of the confused chatter that has dominated 13 (our harbor’s bridge-to-bridge channel) in years past.

Kudos–reluctant, albeit–to the drivers of recreational craft this year. I didn’t witness any boneheaded moves this year. Perhaps being in the zone with all the big commercial boys (Spirit of New York, Atlantic, Garden State, et al.) gave all the recreational boaters pause and time to consider their moves.

My only complaint is thus: after working our way to the head of the line, the Coast Guard collapsed the western and easter security zones waaay up the East River before they collapsed the security zone off the Battery. What this meant to us was having to avoid a veritable wall of ships on their way west while we had to stay out of the Deep Water Range.  Sucked for us…

I hope you had a great 4th, though.

See you out on the water,

Julian

Coming about!

Just in case you were wondering…a schooner’s a particular animal. Specifically, it’s a weatherly rig, which means, ceteris paribus, that it woud like nothing better than to become the world’s most expensive weather vane. Yes, dear sailors, left to her own devices (sheets left all slack), the schooner will snap up into irons with the proverbial quickness.

So, for those of you wondering…

Especially in light air, we’ll “weather”, i.e., haul in, the mainsail when we’re coming about. The particular design of Pioneer means that, all things equal, a hauled–in main will tend to snap us to weather, her mainsail’s center of effort being abaft our centre of lateral resistance.

All this is fine and dandy. If, however, you get overzealous on that foresail and try to haul it in, you’ll actually increase our lee helm and actually slow our tack.

So, today’s take home lesson is: do not trim the foresail in a tack, in any kind of wind.

See you on the water!

Julian

Bend on that Genoa!

Last night’s training sail was about as good as it can get..what began as an inauspicious 2-knots (gusting to 2, according to NOAA!) built to a comfortable 10 south of the Colgate clock. We wound up with a nice, comfortable 10-degree heel for a good portion of the sail.

Four hardy newbies managed tiller, mainsheet and jib trimming with aplomb. It turns out that we have an up-and-coming grinder in our midst! She’s really fast: look for a blonde blur working the sheets of Great Republic next Monday, same bat channel, same bat time.

Normally we won’t bend on the Genoa for trainees. However, in yesterday’s strong ebb and low winds it wasn’t really an option to use the jib. Of course, the usual caveats with using the Genoa apply: visibility is severely restricted, so a sharp leeward bow watch must be kept at all times. The traffic picture in the Upper Bay can be very dynamic. Though we’re no where near as crowded as a busy sailing harbor like Newport, the combination of rubberneckers, joyriders, daysailors, professionals, fast ferries and big tugs can get noxious if you’re not managing things. What started as a friendly convergence of vessels can turn ugly fast when you’re bottlenecked off the Statue, unable to tack in light winds and getting tractor-beamed into the Green “29″ buoy.

Which brings me to a point that I’ll likely return to: rules of the road and “rights of way”. We learn how to determine our stand on privileges and our give-way burdens, but is it ever wise to “stand on” your “stand on” rights when you aren’t sure of the other woman’s intentions?

The guiding principle of all rules of the road is this: an orderly, predictable environment is a safe environment. All rules go toward affecting this principle. However, this rule principle can’t take effect when you have as many un- and under- trained individuals on the water.

My general take on the rules is this: when in doubt, get out of the way. Waiting until you’re two boat lengths away for the other woman to realize that she’s the port tack boat (and overtaking you, and upwind of you!) is a sure recipe for trouble.

“Getting out of the way” can mean significantly altering course. It can also mean “significantly altering speed while maintaining course”. I often accomplish the latter by simply undertrimming severely–easing my close-hauled sails to a position more appropriate for a run, for example.

It can also mean–hold your breath here–turning on the engine! How much does that cost you? Pennies. And if it keeps you from nuzzling up to another boat, you’ve made money as far as I’m concerned.

So let’s be careful out there. And never feel bad about using your engine to get out of a bad position–save the boat and motor away.
See you on the water!

Second Monday!

Hi all,

I’m looking forward to getting out there today! It’s going to be very nice out today. Be sure to bring your Croakies (to protect those cool shades) and sunblock.

Tonight’s agenda is to concentrate on the following:

1. Basic Manoeuvres: heading up and falling off;

2. Determining our vessels’ point of sail and tack;

3. Tacking (“Coming about”)

4. Getting into, and escaping from, Irons, i.e., the “No Go Zone”

I believe in the graduated introduction of complexity. Therefore, we’ll start first by manoeuvring under power, then sailing under mainsail alone, and finally, sailing with main and jib.

We will not gybe tonight.

See you all on the docks!

Julian

Incoming students

Hello all,

Thanks for tuning in for my inaugural post. Sailing’s been on my mind as I just spent four days away from it in lovely Cape Cod, home of my fiance’s family. Oddly enough, when I’m up there we never get out on the water, except for that one time, which we’d rather not talk about with certain family members.

Anyway, the latest class of inductees (that’s you, class #B5) will be up this weekend starting Friday. Here are a couple of pointers:

1. Bring a rested body with lots of sleep. We are going to overload, overload, overload you and we only have two and a half days to do it.

2. You’re going to mess up. Our program pretty much teaches you what a 14 year old would learn over the course of a summer’s sailing. Relax and don’t worry; our job as instructors is to make sure that no matter how you mess up everyone aboard will be safe.

3. Study the quiz. Study the quiz. Do you really think we’d send you into a 130-question theoretical examination of your abilities without adequate preparation? Study the quiz!

4. Bring a set of “foulies” to keep your top and bottoms dry. Lightweight, rain-proof “camping” pants are ok, as long as they stay up and don’t restrict your mobility.

5. Sunscreen, and gobs of it. Even an overcast day can have a high UV rating and we don’t want y’all being crispy critters out there.

6. Don’t plan any blow-out benders with friends Saturday evening. You’ll be exhausted, and still have some book study to do in order to prepare for Sunday’s practical exam.

This page will grow over time, but for now, I’m glad you’re aboard!

See you on the water,

Julian