Poignard
Well-known member
[deleted]
Securing for sea
- Thread starter MeirMark
- Start date
MeirMark
New member
Original article ref.: YM Sep. 2021 by Andy du Port.
The following is his list, with some items re-worded for my use, and few items added that I have considered important.
The list will be broken into three posts (Deck, Below Deck, Other)
DECK
The following is his list, with some items re-worded for my use, and few items added that I have considered important.
The list will be broken into three posts (Deck, Below Deck, Other)
DECK
| Anchor | Secured, cannot move, ready to deploy. |
| Anchor rode | Chain wedged. Locker cover shut securely. |
| Standing rig | All pins, turnbuckles, bottles checked. |
| Running rig | Lines checked for chafe. All lines ready/free for use. |
| Mainsail | Reefing lines free to take in. Lazypack reviewed. |
| Winches | Spinning freely. |
| Dinghy | Folded and stowed in lazarette, (or secured on deck) |
| Liferaft | Check ease of deployment, tether tied properly, knife in cockpit. |
| Fenders | If in marina – extra units, all with easy to open knots. At sea -removed, stowed away. |
| Mooring lines | If in marina – extra lines, all ready for slipping off. At sea – stowed away in a locker. |
| Sprayhood | Lowered or fabric part dismantled and stowed. |
| Safety lines | Install along the deck (preferably mid-ship) |
| MOB gear | Check ease of deployment. (Rings, throw line, Danbuoy). |
| NavLights | Check operation, including steaming light. Also check decklight (if installed) |
MeirMark
New member
BELOW DECK
| Bilges | Dry & clean. Check bilge pumps operation. Prepare hand pump if available. |
| Lockers, cupboards | Contents secure. Covers, doors shut securely. |
| Library | Holdbacks installed or books off shelves. |
| Tables | Empty. |
| Fire extinguishers | Dates check. Easy of deployment checked. Ensure secure in place |
| Galley | Everything stowed away. Prepare food & hot drinks. If in marina – prepare food & water for sailing out. |
| Stove/oven | Oven door shut securely. Stove free to swing. |
| Fridge | Packed for easy access. Assign single crew member for use. |
| Heads | Seacocks closed (open for use only). Bowl empty |
| Seacocks | Shut – except engine cooling. Other seacocks open for necessary use only. |
| Hatches | Shut. |
| Navigation Table | If using charts – only one at a time. Instruments in holders or inside table drawer. Otherwise – nothing laying free on the desk. |
| Navigation instruments | Plotter checked to work properly (GPS shows position) VHF on, ch. 16, radio tested to transmit). Hand bearing compass – ready, secured |
| Binoculars | Ready, secured. |
| Engine | Visual check. Fuel/water filters clean. Alternator belt |
| Floorboards | Secure against movement. |
MeirMark
New member
OTHER
| Grab bag | Content re-checked. |
| Crew | Briefed. Proper foul gear/clothing. |
| Life-jackets | Assigned and set to measure. Crotch straps, Check PLB/AIS (if fitted). |
| Sea-sick tablets | Prepared in a known place. |
| First Aid | If in marina – check contents. At sea – ensure easy access. |
| Navigational plan | Check chart for secure havens, dangerous lee shores and prepare sailing plan. |
SaltIre
Well-known member
We don't need to purchase the mag. See here:
Sea sailing: making your boat secure - Yachting Monthly
AntarcticPilot
Well-known member
Mister E
Well-known member
Thank you kind sir
Blueboatman
Well-known member
No substitute for sailing a bit with real experienced skipper in a well found, offshore boat.
Then, THEN, reread the list and have a sense of practical reference to compare it to.
Then, THEN, reread the list and have a sense of practical reference to compare it to.
NormanS
Well-known member
If you're going to be sailing on the kind of boat where "where a bottom plank broke", maybe if the floorboards are not fastened down, you might have more chance of finding the source of the leak and doing something about it, instead of letting the boat sink. ?
Boathook
Well-known member
If I had to do the lists in posts 23 and 24 each time I went sailing I wouldn't have time to go sailing! A lot of those items should be checked at the beginning of the season and sorted as necessary. A boat should always have items stowed away especially when at anchor. My boat seems to 'rock' at anchor due to wash more than bashing through St Albans Ledge with wind against tide as I had misread tides .....
jdc
Well-known member
The advice to lower the spray hood and pack it away is not good advice, in fact dangerously so in my opinion, and if it was in the original article that tells me that it's written by someone with no actual experience of gales at sea in any normal cruising boat.
Keeping the crew safe , and not hypothermic, is vital, for which a drier cabin, some shelter while coming up to the cockpit, and some shelter in the cockpit is really, really, useful. I have, once, suffered some damage to the spray hood when we were knocked down, but it didn't carry away or endanger the boat, so what would have been the safety advantage in removing it beforehand? Does anyone reading this actually do that? But I have been on a boat which didn't have a sprayhood where some crew got pretty seriously hypothermic and were consequently a liability.
The rest of it's just normal tidiness and maintenance. To pick one example, I don't go check my fire extinguishers when a gale is coming! Seriously, does anyone? I already know that they're in date or I'd have changed them last year. And if not, just how will that effect my tactics: 'Omg, one extinguisher is 7 years old - time to abandon ship...' I think not.
Keeping the crew safe , and not hypothermic, is vital, for which a drier cabin, some shelter while coming up to the cockpit, and some shelter in the cockpit is really, really, useful. I have, once, suffered some damage to the spray hood when we were knocked down, but it didn't carry away or endanger the boat, so what would have been the safety advantage in removing it beforehand? Does anyone reading this actually do that? But I have been on a boat which didn't have a sprayhood where some crew got pretty seriously hypothermic and were consequently a liability.
The rest of it's just normal tidiness and maintenance. To pick one example, I don't go check my fire extinguishers when a gale is coming! Seriously, does anyone? I already know that they're in date or I'd have changed them last year. And if not, just how will that effect my tactics: 'Omg, one extinguisher is 7 years old - time to abandon ship...' I think not.
Neeves
Well-known member
It was hand made by a fabricator here in Oz.
its very, very simple.
If you wanted more, better pictures to show to your own local fabricator I could take some later this week.
It bolts to the bulkhead and has two arms, each arm is simple 'secured' with a threaded pin, dome nut at one end, with a little handle, bent rod, at the other end to tighten it up. The bracket for the MFD is the one supplied with the MFD and it also bolts to a little plate.
Its the sort of device that is alluded to often here when people ask how to get their MFD viewable from the helm and want to locate it 'somewhere, somehow in the companion way. I'm actually surprised you cannot buy them 'off the shelf'- they are really useful.
We ca swing our unit out into the cockpit to view from the helm, or swing so you can view it from the saloon table - and it folds flat, with screen out of the way. You do end up with some untidy cable (that I have tried to neaten up with the that twist spiral cover. You do need some extra cable to allow the MFD to swing to wherever you want it.
Ask if you would like more pics - I'll take some during the week and post them as a new thread on the PBO section.
Jonathan
Neeves
Well-known member
I have not read the article so I am not critical.
However I do agree that some advise given in some article and here on these forum appear to be given by people who have never been out in bad weather or never made long passages. or anchored in chop and swell in a gale. Much advice seems to be simply extrapolated from benign conditions - and extrapolation does not work.
The advice or comment that if the weather forecast is questionable - then go to the pub - is sound. Sailing is meant to be a pleasure not part of an SAS course. The trouble with this is - you never experience bad weather, until the forecast was optimistic and then it all comes as a surprise. I am critical of race organisers who cancel short offshore races because there is a bad forecast - how are owners and crew meant to know what to expect if they are Molly coddled in a short race and then left to learn the hard way in a long offshore race. The Fasntnet and Sydney'Hobart races come to mind.
Many of the problems of the recent Sydney Hobart was because there was a sustained wind over current(or tide) causing very short sharp seas. I can imagine crews found this very uncomfortable and many seasoned sailors suffered from seasickness. I can also imagine why there might be rigging damage if you are pounding into short sharp seas and coming of the top of waves. But most of this is actually not that unusual. The East Australia Current has been running for centuries and and our, bad' weather has opposed it for just as long. The short sharp seas are to be expected.
Putting a tri sail or a storm jib up in benign conditions is ever so slightly different to doing it when you have to. Its easy to write an article suggesting people should practice - actually doing it is different. In my ignorance, having had a forestay failure, I think forestays should be built to take such commonly occurring conditions.
The Scilly storm should not have had the damage volume that has been reported. Many heard the forecast and retreated, quite long distances. The deficiencies of old style anchors is well known. There are plenty of articles on snubbers, hooks and swivel failures.
Hind sight is marvellous.
Jonathan
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Motor_Sailor
Well-known member
[
I agree . If you're worried about the structural integrity of your spray hood, then buy a better designed one.
If you watch some of those Youtube videos of young people crossing the north Atlantic (Uma, Sam Holmes, et al), then you could add to the list such things as "complete structural work including fitting cockpit lid hinges and locks' etc.
I agree . If you're worried about the structural integrity of your spray hood, then buy a better designed one.
If you watch some of those Youtube videos of young people crossing the north Atlantic (Uma, Sam Holmes, et al), then you could add to the list such things as "complete structural work including fitting cockpit lid hinges and locks' etc.
FinesseChris
Active member
Thanks Jonathan. That is very helpful info.
I have searched for such a gadget, but most seem designed for TVs and monitors so not really boat-worthy.
Some more pix, on a new thread, would be much welcomed by me and I suspect others.
(ends thread drift....!)
Chris
Neeves
Well-known member
Maintaining the drift a small amount.
No problems, I'll take some pics and post them on PBO under a suitable heading - just look out for the thread, which will be obvious. Hopefully this week.
Take care, stay safe
Jonathan
Fr J Hackett
Well-known member
It never ceases to amaze me the stuff that publications like YM and PBO manage to put into their folders of advertisements. All the stuff in the lists is either basic: routine inspection or maintenance that anyone that sails would or should be familiar with and those starting should be learning ie they wouldn't be considering taking a boat out. Yes I know everyone has to learn but stuff like this is better learnt first hand not from the pages of advertising journals masquerading as sailing magazines. It's one of the reasons I stopped reading them years ago.
steveinnice
N/A
Its a tellyThis is embarrassing to admit but I don't know what an MFD is!
Belay that! I just looked it up: Multifunction Display. ?
Best chartplotter: 6 great options from marine MFDs to tablets
Poignard
Well-known member
Anything worth watching, or is it just the usual mixture of sex, violence and substance abuse?Its a telly
capnsensible
Well-known member
Always interesting to read these thought provoking threads. It's a good idea, I reckon, for those of us with a duty of care to others on small craft to have a nudge now and then and re think our procedures.