ALCOHOL IS THE MOST DANGEROUS LIQUID AT SEA Fred Dyson – Dyson's Starboard View – Messing About in Boats   Liquids are a problem for boating people.  Water inside your boat can weigh it down, destroy its stability, cause shorts in electrical systems, flood engines and shut them down, and make the people on board very miserable.  Gasoline, and to a lesser extent diesel fuel, can cause fires and explosions.   Coffee is a great villain for mariners.  Every galley has a big pot brewing around the clock and seafarers notoriously drink too much "Norwegian gasoline."  The result of coffee overdose is stressed-out, crabby people making frequent trips to the "head" (toilet).   A friend, who fishes in the Bering Sea, says many sailors are washed overboard when they walk out onto the bridge wings to "pump the coffee out of their bilges."  I recently surveyed a 180-foot fish tender that had partially burned, apparently because a welder left his work station to get coffee.  Neglected sparks started a roaring class-A fire in his absence.   Statistically, the most dangerous liquid in Alaskan boating isn't water, gasoline, or coffee; it is alcohol.  Fifty percent of the boating fatalities in Alaskan waters involve drunks.  It causes people to overload boats and set off into marginal weather.  Alcohol consumption results in boating people not having life jackets or knowing where they are stowed when an emergency develops.  Alcohol-impaired judgment causes people to not pay attention and keep up on the scores of little things that always need attention at sea.   Last summer I met a fisherman who illustrated this quantum lapse of judgment while under the influence.  The boat had started from the Pacific side of the Alaska Peninsula with eighteen cases of beer on board.  In False Pass the befuddled skipper had pumped the drinking water tank full of diesel and one fuel tank full of water.  On the way to Port Moller, the skipper passed out at the wheel and ran aground on the mud flats south of Nelson Lagoon.  As soon as they made it to Port Moller, he flew somewhere to get more booze.   I encountered this traveling disaster in a forty-knot wind in the middle of the night.  Their anchor cable had broken and they were drifting toward the rocks at Entrance Point.  Their batteries were down, their generator had died a year before, and they could not get their main engine going.   I responded to the radio distress call and located them on my radar.  After I got underway, I asked them to get the anchor line spooled up so it wouldn't foul my prop.  I was alone, so I also asked them to rig some lines so they could tie up when I swung alongside.  They had nothing but rags and tied-together scraps for lines.  I had to use my own deck lines.   With difficulty, we were able to secure their boat to mine and get their cable on board.  We made it back to the sheltered anchorage and I used my generator to get their batteries up.  While we worked on getting their engine going and rigging my spare anchor for them, I heard about all of their previous problems.  It is surprising to me that drunks will go to sea, but even more astonishing that a crew would stay on board after such events.  Fortunately, such fools are not much of a menace to any but themselves.   Maritime law requires all mariners to go to the rescue of sailors in distress.  I take that responsibility seriously, but I must say, I have diminished enthusiasm for risking my boat and crew to rescue someone who is drunk.   If you must take alcohol to sea, pour it in the fuel tank.                               TOP          MESSING ABOUT IN BOATS          HOME