Daft thing you've done ---- while sailing / on boat !

[fisherman]

Seems innocuous, but most embarassing, scrapping on deck. My fellow scrappee made the mistake of thinking, due to my slight build, that I weighed very little, as he held me by the collar out over the rail, looking up. I instinctively stuck my foot under his crutch and up he went over my head and we both went overboard. There was a moment, a frisson of worry: our exalted skipper was courting heavily at the time and inclined to fall asleep at the wheel....had he seen us go?
Fortunately he had, and brought the boat round fairly smartly.
"Why didn't you chuck a lifering as soon as we went?"
" The tide would have taken it away from you"............Since he had the moral advantage there was no point in arguing.

Like all french built boats we had a 3 inch deckwash that shifted colossal amounts of water. Next time we were having a fight on deck, well away from the side, he joined in with the hose. We wore Vinco 27 oilers, rather like oilskin clown's trousers, narrow at the ankle, but huge at the waist. While he tussled with my oppo I stuck the hose down his trousers: almost instantly he swelled up and looked like one of those wobble-man toys that always stay upright...except he didn't. For a brief moment he swayed as free surface water sloshed about his nethers and down he went looking like you had dropped a prize goldfish in a bag on the way home from the fair.

 

[fisherman]

One day, along came the RY Britannia. We cruised alongside admiring the paintwork (we could do 15kts), there was a shout from the upper deck "Got any fish?" Pretty sure it was the Duke of York.
With the natural instinct of all fishermen towards secrecy I instantly made scissoring motions with my hands and yelled, "no, nothing" although we had plenty lobsters aboard. Later we heard they bought lobsters at sea from a boat off Wales, so I'd missed a good cash sale.
What would the tax situation have been? If I deducted tax at source, it is Her Madge's revenue, after all.

 

[ProDave]

Set out to do a club cruiser race in windier conditions that I would normal sail in, but my much more experienced sailing partner for the day said it would be fine.

Now our little boat, when tied up in the harbour, we tie this little bit of string that ties the end of the boom to the back stay. The time to discover that is still tied to the backstay, is not when you have just hoisted the main sail (reefed) in what turned out to be F6 gusting F7. Of course it's too tight to untie. Took us a while to find the knife that was in a tool box. the knife now lives in a pocket next to the hatch.

After abandoning the race, and motoring back, neither of us took account of the OB working somewhat harder than normal and hence drinking fuel quicker. 100 metres from the harbour entrance the OB stops. First time we have deployed the anchor in emergency, but it held us while I re fueled the OB.

That day 2 of the boats that carried on in the race got torn sails, and one had a cabin window stoved in by a wave.

 

[fisherman]

Leaving Hayle, ebb tide, ground sea, in one of these:
Cyclone FC 26
See that big flat foredeck and the sloped windows? That means that the breaker, bit bigger than that one, when you're going the other way, has nowhere to go except in through the window. Mate was on the wheel, he got a faceful of glass, I cleverly stood in the aft doorway so I got all the water full on. We replaced the, rectangular, glass with laminated rather than toughened. The next time it happened, yes, the daft bit, we did it again, I stood to one side behind the bulkhead. The laminated glass simply folded. Filled the forepeak and wiped out the electrics. Then we had laminated glass with a T bar across the middle, that held.

 

[Refueler]

Leaving Hayle, ebb tide, ground sea, in one of these:
Cyclone FC 26
See that big flat foredeck and the sloped windows? That means that the breaker, bit bigger than that one, when you're going the other way, has nowhere to go except in through the window. Mate was on the wheel, he got a faceful of glass, I cleverly stood in the aft doorway so I got all the water full on. We replaced the, rectangular, glass with laminated rather than toughened. The next time it happened, yes, the daft bit, we did it again, I stood to one side behind the bulkhead. The laminated glass simply folded. Filled the forepeak and wiped out the electrics. Then we had laminated glass with a T bar across the middle, that held.

You mention waves ... there are two areas in the world that are famous for 'rogue' waves .... of the SE corner of South Africa where two currents meet ... and other is Bay of Biscay.

I was on the bridge of a 70,000 ton Tanker full laden ... she was a 35,000 tonner that had been lengthened and increased to the 70KT. Chinese crew, British Officers.
Vessel ST ZAPHON :

Original size :

After 'jumboisation' ... as I sailed on

We had loaded in Nigeria and were proceeding north to enter English Channel and through to Eurpoort.

Approx 1/2way across Biscay ... a rogue wave hit .... it travelled the whole length of the deck NEVER touching it ... hit the front of the accommodation block and buckled the plating such that we could no longer secure the watertight doors.
There were crew on deck at the time painting ! All got under the deck pipelines and not one was hurt in anyway ...

I remember the teak taffrails being ripped off and flying up in the air above the bridge wings ....

Such is the power of the sea ...

 

[fisherman]

Indeed. After a heavy ground sea off Hayle we couldn't get a string of pots up. We sent a diver down, he said the rope disappeared into the bottom which consisted of boulders some about half as big as a mini, they had all been on the move.
Going over the bar we didn't fare as badly as the 44ft Gillian Clare which overturned with the loss of two of the three crew. The bodies turned up together three months on they had been buried in the sand which moves much as the boulders do.
Hayle on the flood is fine almost all the time, but 3kts of ebb under a swell that's doing 12kts, the wave sort of jumps onto you.

 

[rotrax]

Wheels on yachts do feel wrong.

We steer them by making the stern move from one side to another. It's a bit like pushing a bicycle backwards, to go to the left, you steer to the right, turning the handlebars clockwise.

But with a wheel you turn it anticlockwise. No wonder it feels wrong at first.

Too late to make a fuss I suppose...

Surely you can turn it either way? Turn it right to go right, left to go left? Simples. Sorry, not quite sure how your backwards bicycle analogy helps.

I prefer a tiller, been steerer on a pair of converted working narrowboats, the motor 72 feet long with the butty, a similar length breasted up alongside for locking on the GU. The pair 14 foot six wide, the locks about 15 foot three wide.

I could get in without touching the sides most times. The pair did not move much once inside, except up or down, of course!

Like a motorcycle, the tiller is direct, no reduction ratio. Big rudders mean big leverage on the tiller, so not practical over a certain size.

I and FM did our last training on a 100 year old gaff cutter that had a draught of 9 foot and a big rudder. It had a permanently rigged strap to cope with weather helm. It was bloody hard work hanging on to that and keeping course in a bit of a blow!

 

[Norman_E]

Re the Zaphon. In my banking career I agreed the financing for lengthening a cargo ship, which was cut in half and an additional length added in, so doubling its cargo capacity. On the original engine it actually went marginally faster on sea trial than it had when new and the fuel and crew cost per ton of cargo had been pretty well halved.

 

[Refueler]

Re the Zaphon. In my banking career I agreed the financing for lengthening a cargo ship, which was cut in half and an additional length added in, so doubling its cargo capacity. On the original engine it actually went marginally faster on sea trial than it had when new and the fuel and crew cost per ton of cargo had been pretty well halved.

Originally Zaphon was a 15.5kts vessel .... after lengthening - she regularly hit 18kts ... in fact in Madagascar Straits we hit 21kts ... but of course had current as well.

There were two problems that had to be remembered and catered for :

Her draft increased such that steering flat was just below Summer marks and E/R had to keep eye on pumps if needed when loaded.
Second the original deck aft was about 2ft lower than the new and a section was left protruding into the aft cargo tanks. Made it a devils job to clean.

 

[James_Calvert]

Surely you can turn it either way? Turn it right to go right, left to go left? Simples. Sorry, not quite sure how your backwards bicycle analogy helps.

I prefer a tiller, been steerer on a pair of converted working narrowboats, the motor 72 feet long with the butty, a similar length breasted up alongside for locking on the GU. The pair 14 foot six wide, the locks about 15 foot three wide.

I could get in without touching the sides most times. The pair did not move much once inside, except up or down, of course!

Like a motorcycle, the tiller is direct, no reduction ratio. Big rudders mean big leverage on the tiller, so not practical over a certain size.

I and FM did our last training on a 100 year old gaff cutter that had a draught of 9 foot and a big rudder. It had a permanently rigged strap to cope with weather helm. It was bloody hard work hanging on to that and keeping course in a bit of a blow!

My point is that a rear wheel steered vehicle needs the same sort of direct input as a boat steered by its rudder.

A bike pushed backwards is rear wheel steered. Think how it steers if the handlebars are in line with their wheel. Exactly like a tiller.

With a tiller you move the bit you hold, sometimes decorated with a turk's head, in the direction you want the stern to move. If you have a wheel instead of a tiller, you move the top of it, also maybe marked with a turk's head, in the opposite direction.

So it can feel wrong.

Of course we all get used to it!

 

[ProDave]

Being a small boat sailor most that I have sailed are tiller steered. But I did crew on a wheel steered boat for a race once, and messed up the start. It was light winds and when trying to turn to tack just before the start the boat would not go round.

THAT is when I found out it is possible to stall a rudder and if only I had eased off a bit it might have responded, but hard over it was doing nothing. What I learned from that, was that particular boat gave no feedback through the wheel what the rudder was doing.

 

[ryanroberts]

I prefer a tiller, been steerer on a pair of converted working narrowboats, the motor 72 feet long with the butty, a similar length breasted up alongside for locking on the GU. The pair 14 foot six wide, the locks about 15 foot three wide.

I could get in without touching the sides most times. The pair did not move much once inside, except up or down, of course!

You can pretty much sit your bum on a narrowboat tiller and stop thinking about it until there's a narrow bridge or lock

 

[fisherman]

Question: if I let go the tiller/wheel on my boat she would carry on, more or less ahead, with a slight screw one way, as every other boat i've dealt with....except, the narrowboat. With a rudder best described as not balanced, ie, most/all of the rudder behind the pivot point, why did the boat, the instant I let go the tiller, head off for central Birmingham? 68ft long, OK, flat bottomed.....

 

[James_Calvert]

Question: if I let go the tiller/wheel on my boat she would carry on, more or less ahead, with a slight screw one way, as every other boat i've dealt with....except, the narrowboat. With a rudder best described as not balanced, ie, most/all of the rudder behind the pivot point, why did the boat, the instant I let go the tiller, head off for central Birmingham? 68ft long, OK, flat bottomed.....

I know next to nothing about travelling the cut.

Maybe your rudder was bent?

 

[anoccasionalyachtsman]

Question: if I let go the tiller/wheel on my boat she would carry on, more or less ahead, with a slight screw one way, as every other boat i've dealt with....except, the narrowboat. With a rudder best described as not balanced, ie, most/all of the rudder behind the pivot point, why did the boat, the instant I let go the tiller, head off for central Birmingham? 68ft long, OK, flat bottomed.....

Normally moored the same way round so that sunlight promoted weed growth on the Birmingham side?

 

[ryanroberts]

Question: if I let go the tiller/wheel on my boat she would carry on, more or less ahead, with a slight screw one way, as every other boat i've dealt with....except, the narrowboat. With a rudder best described as not balanced, ie, most/all of the rudder behind the pivot point, why did the boat, the instant I let go the tiller, head off for central Birmingham? 68ft long, OK, flat bottomed.....

Yes this is a thing, I think due to low momentum, constant interactions between the prop draw and canal bottom that you are often ploughing through and generally having the hydrodynamics of a brick? The couple of goes I have had on wheel steered widebeams have not gone well

 

[Refueler]

Question: if I let go the tiller/wheel on my boat she would carry on, more or less ahead, with a slight screw one way, as every other boat i've dealt with....except, the narrowboat. With a rudder best described as not balanced, ie, most/all of the rudder behind the pivot point, why did the boat, the instant I let go the tiller, head off for central Birmingham? 68ft long, OK, flat bottomed.....

I thought narrowboats have an offset to the rudder / tiller based on the old days of the horse /towpath system ? The offset was so tiller stayed central and rudder slightly off so it countered the pull of the horses towline ?
I only mention because a guy I knew who had a Live-aboard Narrowboat said even though he had the small single cylinder 'donk' i her ... she still had the offset from the horse days.

 

[dava]

Looked at wrong month in tide book and ran aground bow first in a shallow harbour at amble, Northumberland, the large easterly swell soon swung us broadside and rolling heavily in a very narrow harbour. Fortunately with 2 decent powered engines I managed to pull the stern back round into the swell and with both engines full astern managed to get back out to deeper water whilst bouncing off the sand with every swell.
Flooded the aft cabin and shook up myself and crewman but luckily no real damage except pride, to make matters worse half the fishing fleet were sat at anchor (which should of been my first clue I had made an error) and numerous spectators on the pier. The vhf was alive that day with not many complimentary comments, although 1 fisherman commended the way I got out of trouble.

 

[ryanroberts]

I thought narrowboats have an offset to the rudder / tiller based on the old days of the horse /towpath system ? The offset was so tiller stayed central and rudder slightly off so it countered the pull of the horses towline ?

Possibly old working boats, but pretty sure they don't do this with modern hulls

 

[ProDave]

Every narrowboat I have been on has a "unique" rudder, some work better than others, some heavier than others, some well ballanced. But I have never found one that will steer going backwards.