Responsibility

When I was studying for my Captain’s license, the first sentence of rule 2 of the Navigation Rules of the Road always gave me pause:

“Nothing in these Rules shall exonerate any vessel, or the owner, master, or crew thereof, from the consequences of any neglect to comply with these Rules or of the neglect of any precaution which may be required by the ordinary practice of seamen, …”

Those words always make me think about the stupid things I’ve done on a sailboat and the times that I may have had better fortune than judgment. These mistakes on my part almost always involved going out in conditions that were not appropriate.

By “not appropriate” I mean that both the wind and waves were either too much for the boat, too much for the crew, or too much for my skill level. All too often I managed to nail two out of three of these and once I managed to get all three: the trifecta of dumb moves.

I don’t believe that mastery of a skill can be gained without occasionally testing the limits of your skill level. However, as I have proven, mastery of a skill doesn’t necessarily mean having the judgment of when (and when not) to use that skill.

I like to think that I’m a cautious boat handler now. However, early in my sailing endeavors, I made a series of mistakes that led to a dismasting on a previous boat. Unfortunately, I had three passengers on board, none of whom had the slightest idea of what to do on a sailboat.

I’d promised to take a group of friends sailing on a specific day. On the appointed day, the weather offered sun, but higher winds than initially expected. I gave them the option of trying another day, but they all wanted to go out.

Fail #1: I knew the wind was too high, but decided to go out because the “crew” wanted to.

I tucked in a reef on the mainsail, hanked on the small jib and sailed out into Tampa Bay with the wind on the starboard quarter. The winds filled in as expected, but the boat seemed a little sluggish, so I shook out the reef and we picked up a bit of speed.

Fail #2: I’d never sailed with four people aboard before and the added human ballast changed the way the small keelboat handled.

I’d looked down at the GPS for a minute, then suddenly there was a metallic popping sound and the boat stopped. I looked up at my stunned crew and noticed that I didn’t have any sails up – or mast for that matter. They were laying perfectly set in the water on the port side.

I actually did most things right after that: checked for hull damage; put crew in life jackets; cut away running and standing rigging; pulled sails and lines aboard to stow below; secured the mast; and started the engine. What I didn’t do was call “PON-PON-PON” …

Fail #3: I was too embarrassed to call for help and as a result, no one knew we were in trouble but me. I put my friends in danger because of my pride … not really my finest hour.

We motored the four miles back to the dock in rising wind and seas, gusting to 25 knots with 2 to 3 foot waves. Clearly not too critical, but in a damaged 20’ former sailboat, not a great time either. At least I didn’t panic and I kept smiling, so the crew didn’t really know how bad it was.

Once back at the dock, my friends went their way and I was left to ponder how badly I’d screwed up. It took me six months before I had the guts to go sailing again and two years before I’d take people sailing.

I know I learn from my mistakes and I know I learned from this one. When I take people out now, I recognize that I – and only I – am responsible for their safety. Using that as my starting point for decision-making keeps things easier.

Going Galt … sort of …

“I’ve heard bad things about electric engines for sailboats, you might want to re-consider that …”, said the old codger from the foot of the ladder.

Our two sailboats were sitting on the hard at Deltaville Boatyard, his 40 footer dwarfing Tula. With both boats blocked on stands, he needed a twenty foot ladder to get up into his boat, while I only needed a ten foot ladder to climb into mine. I estimated his age around 70 and was about as interested in hearing his un-asked for advice as I was in wasting time talking. After giving me advice about how to sail my boat and how I should have re-powered with diesel, he eventually wandered away and I got back to work.

After several months of drama with a 40 year old Volvo Penta MD7A, I’d decided to pull the trigger and get rid of it. I’d always thought about electric power for a small sailboat and it didn’t take long to figure out that I wanted to give it a try. I didn’t like using my diesel motor because I didn’t trust it to keep running, so I sailed more than I motored. I liked sailing and if the wind wasn’t blowing I would usually be just fine at anchor waiting for the wind to fill in. For that the type of sailing that I do – more sailing, less motoring – an electric motor makes sense. If I was more interested in getting places than in actually sailing the boat, then it probably wouldn’t be a good choice.

I’m not sure if I’m anti-diesel or just that I want to force myself to sail the boat. When I owned my small, engine-less 20 foot sloop, I became a bit of a sailing snob and likely still am. I liked being able to do things on the sailboat that other would have thought fool-hardy (like tack in front of a draw bridge against wind and current waiting for the opening). The problem is that my new home in Reedville is on Cockrell Creek and the anchorage that I would use occasionally would be difficult if not impossible to get into without some sort of engine. Though I like the idea of not being on the short leash of a marina, I knew that I needed a practical solution that didn’t involve oars.

I had the yard pull the engine two weeks ago, then ordered the electric motor that I wanted (more on that later). In the meantime, I had an engine compartment to clean up, a diesel fuel tank to get rid of and a variety of electrical wires that now led nowhere. My first job was to clean up the engine compartment and start taking out the primary fuel filter, sea strainer, hoses and anything else that didn’t look like it needed to be there.

As I was doing this I kept tracing electrical wires that went throughout the boat only to terminate at cut ends. If I removed anything less than a thousand feet of electrical wire from the boat, I would be surprised. Then I had to clean up the electrical panel so that only the wires that were still connected to something were actually in the panel. The diesel tank turned out to be the easiest to remove and rather than the 15 gallon tank I had expected it was more like a 10 gallon tank … maybe …

Next on the hit parade is modifying the wooden engine bed to form a case to hold the batteries.

The Northern Neck’s Tall Ship

I recently wrote an article about the Claud W. Somers calling her “The Northern Neck’s Tall Ship”. I hesitated before sending in the article to SpinSheet (Briggs, 2016) because I didn’t want to deal with tall ship sailors harassing me about the definition of a “tall ship”. I get that when the layman thinks of tall ships, they’re thinking of a 200 ton full rigged ship, not a 6 GRT, 56 foot skipjack. However, I would argue that a member of the last working fleet of sail in North America needs some leeway. Furthermore, by modern definitions, most skipjacks meet the requirement to be called a “tall ship”.

By the definition of the International Sail Training Association and Tall Ships America, “tall ships” are broken down into four classes:

Class A
All square – rigged vessels (barque, barquentine, brig, brigantine or ship rigged) and all other vessel more than 40 metres Length Overall (LOA), regardless of rig.

Class B
Traditionally rigged vessels (ie gaff rigged sloops, ketches, yawls and schooners) with an LOA of less than 40 metres and with a waterline length (LWL) of at least 9.14 metres.

Class C
Modern rigged vessels (i.e Bermudan rigged sloops, ketches, yawls and schooners) with an LOA of less than 40 metres and with a waterline length (LWL) of at least 9.14 metres not carrying spinnaker-like sails.

Class D
Modern rigged vessels (i.e Bermudan rigged sloops, ketches, yawls and schooners) with an LOA of less than 40 metres and with a waterline length (LWL) of at least 9.14 metres carrying spinnaker-like sails.

Therefore, skipjacks in general – and the Claud W. Somers specifically – is a Class B tall ship as defined by the international and US regulatory bodies of such vessels. Her rig, hull form and some small portion of her construction date to the late 19th century, which is more than the crews of many other traditional vessels can say.  Granted, she’s not a square rigger, but there are few of those beauties sailing today.

The Somers is built to the plan of thirds that all skipjacks follow:

• The beam is 1/3 of the length on deck.
• The jib boom is the length of the beam.
• The main boom is the length on deck.
• The mast is the height of the overall length of the vessel.

Every skipjack is the same ratio. The perfect expression of design complementing use… traditional … a tall ship, regardless of what other crews may say ..

 

Sailing Tula: Goodbye to Paradise

Sailing Tula

By Thomas Briggs

 

Lazy Jacks

I love working on Tula almost as much as I love sailing Tula. Suffice it to say that I love my boat. She finally has her mast back on and I’ve spent the last two weekends sorting out the running rigging, putting the jib on and fixing the topping lift. I also managed to repair some of the worst of my docking misadventures in the gel-coat, though I still need to install the mainsail. Either way, she’s starting to look like a proper sailboat again.

My goal this weekend was to sew the sail slugs back on the main and make a new set of lazy jacks for the stack pack. The webbing for the sail slugs looked and felt off to me, so I cut them away when I prepped the boat for transport. Of course I didn’t get any of that done. I was working on the Somers Saturday morning and was exhausted by the time I got back down to Tula. However, I did manage to sew three of the slugs back on and make new fender lines. I got the idea for the fender lines from “The Rigger’s Apprentice”. They have a cool nautical vibe to them and certainly look better than just tying off whatever line I happen to have. The lazy jacks were another story …

I have a Doyle Stack Pack with Lazy Jacks for the mainsail of Tula. Essentially, this is a traditional way to lower and furl the mainsail, but using modern materials. The lazy jacks on either side of the main sail guide the sail into the Stack Pack, which is then zipped up to contain and protect the sail. My lazy jacks appear to have been 1/4″ Sta-Set braided line, but had deteriorated to a poor substitute. The angled main line (pictured as “X”) was little more than the inner fibers, with the core having worn away. While the vertical lines were lengths of Sta-Set tied together.

Clearly the Lazy Jacks needed replacement, though the sail and Stack Pack were in good condition. However, when I took the lines off, the whole thing fell apart and taking measurements from the lines was virtually impossible. Therefore, I decided to use what measurements I could get, then use math to determine the appropriate lengths. I should add that I hate math when it comes to something other than navigation. The thought of turning lines on a piece of paper into lengths of line that will actually fit what they’re supposed to makes me anxious. However, my options were limited due to other work that I wanted done on the boat (i.e. I couldn’t afford to hire a professional to do what I wanted).

So I went to Brian Toss’ book, “The Rigger’s Apprentice” and found out how to determine the lengths needed. First, I had to assume a 90 degree angle between boom and mast, even though the rake of the mast argued against it. Ultimately, though the narrower angle would mean slightly more line than my math allowed for, in the long run that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Next, I measured the various points along the mast and Stack Pack that the lines would attach to. While the mast was still off the boat, I measured the height from the attachment point aloft, to the attachment point of the boom.

Since I couldn’t assume a right triangle, I had to use the formulas identified in the diagram above. Long math where arctangent and sine are used is beyond me, so I used my iPhone to calculate that the angle of “b” was 25.99 degrees and that as a result, the length of “C” should be 22.25 feet. I also assumed that the angle would remain the same along the length of “C”, so this would allow me to determine the attachment points of the vertical pieces along C (see dotted circles in diagram). In short, since I knew the different measurements along the base, I used the second formula to get the distance along “C”.  Therefore, the four vertical lazy jacks would be attached at approximately 20 feet, 14 feet, 9 feet and 2 feet along “C”. The in order to get the vertical lengths at those attachment points, I had to use comparable formulas: height = “C” x the sine of angle “a”. This gives vertical lengths of approximately 18 feet, 12 feet, 8 feet  and 2 feet.

We’ll see this coming weekend if all this math works out right, but I can say that my brain hurts now …

 

 

 

 

 

 

Preserving Standing Rigging

The standing rigging of a skipjack, as documented by Howard Chapelle and maintained by the existing fleet, consists of the following:

1. Two shrouds on each beam of the vessel that run from the hounds (approximately ¾ of the way up the mast) to the chain plates. Either turnbuckles or, more appropriately on earlier vessels, deadeyes and lanyards were used to tension the system.
2. A load bearing jib stay runs from the hounds to the cranze iron at the end of the bow sprit. The self-tending jib flies from this stay.
3. An additional stay, called the forestay, is a non-load bearing stay that runs from the cranze iron to the mast head. This carries the spectacle iron which can be raised or lowered to adjust the jib lazy jacks.
4. An inner and outer bobstay, usually of chain, run from the stem to the cranze iron at the end of the bow sprit. This counters the upward pull on the bow sprit from the jib stay.
5. Whisker shrouds (also known as whisker stays) are usually made of chain and run from the cranze iron to iron fittings on the bow of the vessel, providing lateral stability for the bow sprit.

The initial re-build of the Somers was completed in 2000, when the Reedville Fishermen’s Museum first acquired the vessel. She was actively sailed by volunteers until around 2011, but when the health of the captain suffered, there was an attrition among the volunteers. As a result, the Somers was allowed to become a dockside attraction, her US Coast Guard (USCG) Certificate of Inspection (COI) was allowed to lapse and her insurance was changed accordingly.

Last year in 2015, the Museum sought and obtained the volunteer support of a licensed Captain who agreed to take on the challenge of reinvigorating the volunteer program and return the Somers to sailing trim. Part of this endeavor was getting basic maintenance back into the maintenance plan. After operating as an uninspected passenger vessel last year (2015), this year the Captain plans to have the USCG inspect the vessel while in yard, with the intention of getting another COI issued.

In order to facilitate this we developed an inspection and maintenance plan using guidelines and templates from Tall Ships America (Tall Ships America Rig Inspection Protocol and Template). During our annual inspection, we discovered that on the Somers the shrouds, jib stay and fore stay are made of stainless steel, rather than galvanized wire. The bobstays and whisker stays are made of chain. Why stainless steel, rather than more traditional galvanized rigging? No one from that time seems to remember, but this adds a certain complexity to the USCG inspection. The USCG may require the replacement of the standing rigging due to age. USCG NAVIGATION AND VESSEL INSPECTION CIRCULAR NO. 02-16 recommends that stainless steel rigging be replaced every 10 -15 years.

None the less, we moved forward with identifying ways to maintain and preserve the rigging. There was no obvious pitting, cracks or broken strands in the wire, but there was a fair amount of surface rust on the shrouds. We looked at several wire treatments, both modern and traditional. Clearly I favored the traditional, because I like the smell of pine tar and it seemed appropriate for a museum vessel. However, the Captain preferred finding something that would be a modern application for stainless steel wire. I did some research and found Fluid Film which comes in either a lanolin-based product or a petroleum-based product. After talking to the technical people at Fluid Film, the Captain decided that brushing off the surface rust with a wire brush, using naval jelly to clean the wire, then applying the lanolin-based Fluid Film, would be the way to go.

Accordingly, on maintenance day on the Somers, Chris, Marc and I prepped to go aloft. Chris won the toss, so he got to go up in the bosun’s chair first. We were only doing a test coat, so his job was to wire brush a portion of the shrouds, then we hauled him back up so that he could apply the naval jelly, then we hauled him back up with a bucket of fresh water to clean off the acid. At the same time, I got to teach Marc, who was not a sailor, how to safely sweat, tail and make-off the main halyard to a cleat without dropping Chris onto the deck.

Once Chris was complete, I got to go up in the bosun’s chair with a spray can of Fluid Film and a rag to coat the shrouds. The product seemed to work well, easily penetrating the crevices of the wire. We’ll check it periodically to see if there’s any change and wait for the USCG to give us their opinion. Mine is that it should be replaced eventually, but we probably have time to replace them in the next two to three years. There’s no obvious pitting, the deadeyes and lanyards haven’t been tensioned in awhile (so they haven’t stress hardened the stainless wire) and the boat just doesn’t sail that much.

That being said, I look forward to replacing it with galvanized wire that has been wormed, parceled and served. I’d like to smell pine tar on the boat …

Sailing to Yard

The Blessing of the Fleet by the Reedville Fishermen’s Museum was postponed due to foul weather, so the Captain decided that we couldn’t wait it out any longer and we needed to get the boat to yard. The Somers is a beautiful 105 year old wooden oyster dredger, now museum vessel, which needs pretty extensive maintenance. Therefore, last Saturday the Captain called for crew to assist in sailing the boat from Cockrell Creek on the Great Wicomico (pronounced wi-COM-i-CO) River north around Smith’s Point to the north. By straight line, the distance between the Reedville Fishermen’s Museum and Cockrell’s Marine Railway (our destination) is 3 miles. By sea, the distance is approximately 14 nautical miles (NM).

The crew met and prepped the boat at 10am on Saturday, with Captain Straub prepping the yawl boat, which on skipjack’s represents the sole mechanical propulsion for the vessel. We had some problem getting it started, which we never resolved, but it eventually started and we were off at a pace only exceeded by every single skiff on the Great Wicomico …. The Somers is documented with the Coast Guard (USCG) at 6 gross registered tons. However, her dead weight still exceeds 25,000 pounds, as Newton’s first law suggests a great deal of effort on the part of her yawl boat – or sails – to overcome her inertia.

The winds were supposed to be from the west at 10-15 knots, veering to the north, north west (NNW) after noon. Therefore, the Captain asked me to tie in the first reef, which I promptly screwed up. I tied in the first downhaul reefing line for the cringle at the clew without an issue, but it never occurred to me that the first line of nettles wasn’t associated with that downhaul. What I should have checked for was the nettles at the tack, but I didn’t and I tied in the first reef, which isn’t actually the first reef tied in for a non-working skipjack. The first reef gets about 10% of the sail down, but if it’s not a working boat, there’s very little reason to tie in this reef. Therefore, the second reef of the sail is actually the first reef tied into the sail, which drops about 30% of the sail.

I was at the helm powering into the wind in Ingram Bay when the Captain led the sail raising evolution and I watched in extreme embarrassment as the second line of reef points raised above the table of the mast. I realized in mild-horror as the Captain called the halt, looked back at me like I was an idiot, lowered the sail and tied in the reef himself. He was gracious when he came aft to ask me what happened, but I realized I needed to pay more attention and be less convinced of my own superior sailing ability.

One of the interesting things that I had never seen before was the fish traps at the mouths of the rivers. Apparently, there is a tradition in the Chesapeake Bay of making large fish traps made up of wooden stakes set up in a “V” and circular collection areas. Nets on either side of the “V” and in the circular collection areas are a passive way of trapping fish. They extend a substantial way into the bay in the vicinity of the rivers and we had to go further into the Bay than we had intended to. However, between the crab pot buoys and the fish traps, we were constantly forced out.

Eventually we raised the mainsail, shutoff the engine and got underway out of Ingram bay, bound for the Little Wicomico River. It was an incredible sail, during which I really remembered why I loved sailing on traditional vessels, but certainly sailing in general. Sailing for me is serenity, a period of calm that allows me to act with instinct, using my sense of the wind and current to guide the boat. The Somers may in fact be a pig to sail: slow to act in response to the helm and easy to overcompensate for a gust on the jib. However, once you get a sense of her, it’s a beautiful dance between the two of you and the wind and waves…

The Captain had timed the tide so that we would catch the flood north and around Smith Point. The wind held west or west-north-west for the majority of the sail, until we were off Smith Point.  Then the wind veered around to the north, right on the nose, so we had to drop the sails and start the engine on the yawl boat. Trust me when I say we were all happy when it started. Eventually we made it to the inlet and docked at Cockrell’s Marine Railway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Claud W. Somers

When I lived in NYC some years ago, I’d fallen in love with traditional maritime skills and seamanship while volunteering on the schooner Pioneer. When I moved to Florida, I purchased my own boat(s) and assumed that my days of traditional sailing were done. It hadn’t occurred to me when I moved to Virginia, that there would be multiple opportunities like the Pioneer again.  The one that ended up appealing to me more than many others was a vessel owned by the Reedville Fishermen’s Museum. One of the smaller maritime museums, it owns and operates a great many historic craft, including a skipjack built in 1911.

Skipjacks are the last remaining working fleet of sail in North America, if not the western hemisphere. As a class of vessel they developed in the late 19th and early 20th century due to the unsuitability of existing boats to dredge for oysters and state laws that promoted sustainable oyster harvests. At one time state laws prohibited them from working under power more than two days out of five, so their massive sails were needed to provide power for hauling the dredges.  A yawl boat pushed the vessels during the other days. Built to a specific ratio of one third as wide as they were long, these shallow draft centerboard sloops were the ubiquitous working boat of the Chesapeake Bay.

At one time they numbered in the hundreds, now only about 30 remain and only approximately six of those still actively dredge for oysters. Though skipjacks are better known as vessels of the upper Bay, about 20% of the existing skipjack fleet was built in Virginia and at least three of the existing vessels were built in Reedville, VA. The skipjack owned by the Reedville Fishermen’s Museum is the Claud W. Somers and though she was built in 1911 in Young’s Creek, VA.

A few weeks back I had the opportunity to sail on her for the first time and it was a treat. She had been brought down to the Tides Inn in Irvington, VA for a paid event and they needed crew to help bring her back to the Museum. Having missed the sail down, I was looking forward to the sail back. She didn’t disappoint, though the wind was less than cooperative. We were able to sail down the Rappahannock River, but couldn’t hold course toward the inlet to Ingram Bay and Cockrell’s Creek. Eventually we had to use the yawl boat and dropped all sail, but for a time it was pretty cool.