LITTLE THINGS ARE IMPORTANT
WHEN TAKING YOUR BOAT OUT
Fred Dyson – Dyson's Starboard View – Messing About in Boats
Do you remember the poem about the lost horseshoe nail that ended up killing a cavalry officer and ultimately causing a battle to be lost? At sea, losing little things also can spell disaster.
Last week I towed in a new fishing boat with two feet of water in the engine room. The Volvo diesel engine kept running but the starter was submerged. The skipper shut the engine down in response to an overzealous engine alarm, but then couldn't restart it.
A helicopter brought a new starter, but we couldn't replace the old one because none of us had a fifteen-millimeter box wrench. Both the skipper and I had grown accustomed to Caterpillar engines and had left our metric tools ashore. We were in the midst of grinding a socket down and welding a handle on it when we finally found a boat that had metric tools. After a long night, the new starter was installed, and we all got some sleep.
On this vessel, as on too many small boats, access was difficult. Do boat builders think we have three arms - each six feet long, two inches in diameter and made of asbestos?
And what about that starter location? Good marine engine designs always place the starter as high as possible to keep it out of flooded bilges and away from the spray of partially submerged equipment.
This unfortunate skipper had the further misfortune of having stored his portable generator in the engine room to keep it "out of the rain." Needless to say, it now "worketh not, neither doth it generate."
This skipper's first week on his new vessel ended with the setscrew falling out his engine control lever, which caused him to ram a barge.
Yes, the little things, or the lack thereof, can sink you.
A famous vessel forever connected to Alaska was almost lost because of nails. When Captain Bligh's ship, the Bounty, was in Tahiti, the locals were so desperate for metal that young women would prostitute themselves in exchange for a single nail. The libido of sailors is legendary, and there was a brisk exchange of commodities and services.
The laws of supply and demand started causing the vessel to disintegrate. Bligh tried everything to keep his ship together, but to no avail. In desperation he weighed anchor and sailed off to safer waters. This is the same Captain Bligh who gave his name to Bligh Reef - where the Exxon Valdez came to rest.
 NEW SEA CREATURE
There is a new vessel in Bristol Bay that has the fleet, and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, excited. The thirty-two-foot boat, appropriately named "Moby Duck," has wheels and tires driven by hydraulic motors. When it is time to go fishing, this marvel comes rolling down the beach and drives into the water. When fishing is over, it trundles up the beach and disappears. Rumor has it that Moby Duck has a nest ashore and takes salmon to its chicks.
Bristol Bay fishermen, who seldom get to shore, think that a boat like Moby Duck would be very handy if they wanted to get a pizza or some refreshments.
State Fish and Game biologists are trying to figure out when Moby Duck stops being a drift gillnetter and starts being a set-netter. All of us touch bottom once in a while, but Moby Duck would apparently be in violation of the regulations if it used its wheels to propel itself or to hold a position. I, for one, am delighted with innovation at sea and this one is a charmer.
BIG STORM IN BRISTOL BAY
I had a delightful seventy-five-year-old fisherman/tow boatman named Pete on board the other day. He started fishing in Bristol Bay in 1938, when sailboats filled these waters each summer. He lived through the big storms of 1950 and '51, which cost seventeen lives. The wind velocities exceeded one hundred mph and many of the men who died were in boats unable to claw their way offshore.
I have one of the old Bristol Bay sailboats. They are good sea boats and fast on a reach. They have a spritsail that resembles the rig on a gaff-headed catboat. (For you landlubbers, this means there is one sail with four corners.)
To shorten sail on a spritsail rig you can "scandalize the main" by dropping the sprit and thus quickly cut the sail area in half and lower the center of effort. Apparently this was still too much sail for the conditions and some boats ended up in the breakers on a lee (downwind) shore.
Other fishermen were able to use their nets as a sea anchor and ride out the storms for a couple of days. The cannery monkey boats were busy for days rounding up the widely scattered fleet. The tragic storms precipitated the conversion to powerboats.
Sea anchors make sense on any saltwater vessel. A good sea anchor will hold your bow into the waves and keep you from swamping if you break down or want to sleep.
Anyway, old Pete doesn't like aluminum fishing boats. He muttered that aluminum is only good for cheap cooking pots. He likes small boats built of fiberglass, but I reminded him plastic boats weren't much better than the containers used for kitchen leftovers.
Our relationship was strained for a while, but we finally agreed that "real boats" should be built out of wood or steel.
MORE ON MARINE HEADS
A reader from Sitka reminded me that Coast Guard regulations banning marine toilets without a holding tank are absurd. You can use a bucket and dump the contents over the side, but you can't use a hand pump to do the same thing.
Regulators have a hard time being logical, and regulations that make sense down in the populated waters of America do not always make sense here. I know of one disgusted boat builder who refuses to install a legal head (toilet) in a boat for Alaska waters. He will give you the components and instructions so that you can install a practical and presently illegal one.
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