HOW TO RUIN A BOAT TRIP
Fred Dyson – Dyson's Starboard View – Messing About in Boat
Captains must contend with loud mouths and bad toilet training.
Many readers responded enthusiastically to a previous article about ruined voyages and especially about dealing with insufferable loud mouths on small boats.
A woman fan said she cured one by making his coffee from bilge water and the residue at the bottom of the fuel filters. I was part of a crew that once cured a big mouth by christening him "Eagle Beak" as in "Eagle Beak with a Hummingbird Fanny." Whenever he showed up, the crew would start humming. He quit after one hitch. Twice I have christened a loud mouth "sweet mouth," and had the name was picked by the rest of the crew. One "sweet mouth" quit the boat and the other shut up.
The best reader-suggested bad-mouth stopper to date is as follows:
THE SQUEAKY MOUTH GETS THE OIL
A faithful reader from Kodiak sailed several times with a grumpy old ship's engineer who, although half deaf, greatly prized silence, or at least an absence of asinine comments from idiots with fog-horn voices. If a loud mouth was irritating the old engineer, he would fix the offender with a grim stare and mutter that it was time to pipe down.
This time-honored maritime expression refers to the call on the boatswain's pipe that signals for silence on the mess deck and for the hands to turn in. If the suggestion to pipe down didn't work, the old engineer had a more direct solution.
He had started his life aboard ship on the black gang during the age of steam and he always had a pump-type, oil squirt can in his overalls to lubricate the machinery in his charge.
If a loud mouth persisted, the old engineer would unlimber his oil can and shoot a stream into the open maw of the offender. As I understand it, he had a deadly aim and never failed to silence the offender.
Keep these suggestions coming. There is apparently a great need for viable solutions to this loud-mouth problem.
MORE LAUNCH RAMP FOULUPS
A Big Lake reader reports that failing to take the boat trailer hold-down straps off the boat before launching can be very interesting. First, you get an immediate chance to see if your boat has enough reserve buoyancy to float the trailer. Second, even if the boat can pack the weight of the trailer hanging under it, the reader reports it is very difficult to get the boat to plane, and that "it steers like a pig."
HEADS ON BOATS CAN RUIN FRIENDSHIPS AND VOYAGES
No, I don't mean dopers. I mean marine toilets. Privacy and space are hard to come by on small boats. Often the head will be under one of the seats in the cabin or the fo'c'sle (the crews' quarters forward). The problem usually comes on a dark and stormy night when it is raining seals and sticklebacks.
In the worst case, your little boat is anchored out somewhere and you two and your guests are bedded down for the night. Unavoidably, one of the people has to go. This means that everybody else has to get up, put on their rain gear, and go out and stand impatiently on the back deck in the rain. I have known of four divorces, two partnerships dissolved, a murder, and a dismembering that followed one of these occurrences.
On boats that are too small to have a head, you have a limited number of choices. You can go ashore. You can hang over the side of the boat. Or you can use a can or bucket.
Going ashore is not often an easy option. If you choose this alternative on the Kenai River now, you may have to follow detailed printed government procedures and face the distinct possibility of your embarrassed or interested guide being forced to supervise the operation.
I know of at least one experienced Kenai guide who has quit the profession in disgust. He has been willing to put up with weather, combat fishing, government regulation and paperwork, snotty clients, fish guts, and slime, but he is unwilling to be an outdoor toilet supervisor and pooper scooper.
The hanging-over-the-side business, on the other hand, requires some athletic ability, a favorable wind, a strong grip, and is dangerous. Wear a life jacket.
The can or bucket solution is also problematic and can require the skill of a contortionist under some sea conditions.
In Bristol Bay, it often requires great concentration and coordination to keep yourself securely perched on a bucket that is sitting on an oily deck that is pitching wildly in a beam sea in a rainstorm. And then you have to worry about how to keep the contents of the bucket in the bucket while keeping the toilet paper dry. A capacity for parallel processing and coolness under pressure is essential.
A vivacious lady I know with a killer instinct for king salmon had an embarrassing encounter with the "pee can" on the Kenai River a couple years ago. She had anchored her boat in an excellent and coveted spot on the river and was ardently involved in the orthodox business of slaying large fish. As luck would have it, she soon received an urgent call of nature that could not be postponed.
Her husband offered to pull the anchor and run her to shore, but she did not want to lose the prize anchorage. Given the crowds of anglers on the banks and the amount of boat traffic, the "hang it over the side" option was out.
Her thoughtful husband deburred the top of a coffee can and handed it to her. This talented lady is very game, and all went well in spite of the rocking from the boat wakes until a large king struck her line. She hastily pulled up her rain pants and grabbed her pole from its holder. On the end of the line was a trophy-sized fish and she fought it expertly.
The giant king surged powerfully, trying to dislodge the hook. Our heroine used all of her strength and determination. The crowds roared and clapped enthusiastically. Soon, though, two interesting thoughts began to compete for the lady's attention. The cheering throngs seemed too enthusiastic and her bottom seemed uncharacteristically cool for such hard work on a hot day.
The rest, as they say, is history. Scores of fishermen line the banks of the Kenai at the spot now, hoping for a reenactment.
Our valiant lady friend chose the fish over dignity and landed it. A less-committed angler would have given up the battle, repainted her boat, changed the boat name, gotten different colored rain gear, and moved to Afghanistan.
THINGS THAT GO BUMP ON THE BOTTOM
Hitting things that are sharp like rocks and shipwrecks can ruin your day by making your boat sink or bending your prop. Conventional maritime wisdom says that you should stay out of shallow water, rely on a good chart, use your fathometer, and go slow if you don't know bottom conditions.
Hitting things that are soft, like sand bars, can get you tuck for long periods of time, plug your cooling system, or bring your vessel to an immediate halt – complete with illustrations of the laws of conservation of momentum. We have commented on this last spectacular phenomenon before. I believe the existing distance record was set on the Naknek River.
A fast boat was roaring upstream with several drunks on board. The boat hit a sand bar hard and stopped suddenly. Slavishly following the laws of momentum, the drunks kept going. The first drunk set up the world record by clearing off the windshield and foredeck hardware. The second drunk then traveled eighty feet through the air before he skipped the first time. I have this on the good report of nearby anglers who are, of course, very reliable witnesses.
POWERBOATS AND WILDLIFE
In Alaska we have unparalleled opportunities to use our watercraft to visit wild and beautiful country. We must be very careful that our transit of the waterways does not disturb the bird nesting areas during the nesting season.
Jet and airboat skippers have recently been devastating nesting areas on Jim Creek, probably not knowing the damage they are doing.
If you are ignorant of bird nesting areas and habits, get informed and be responsible. If you see damage being done to nesting areas with boat wakes or noise and proximity, warn the boat operators. If the operators don't respond, report them or suggest that they donate their carcasses to some scavengers that are higher up the food chain.
On Crooked Lake, we lost a mated pair of loons to two scum-sucking, bottom-feeders on jet-skis. The bilge rats killed the loons for pleasure. They ought to be marooned, keelhauled, or worse yet, locked up with telephone solicitors or pyramid-sales-scheme freaks.
My father said it is a sick animal that fouls its own nest. If we boating people don't police our own sport and treat the navigable water environment with respect, the beauty and charm will be diminished, and draconian regulation will follow.
If our sports are restricted by regulation, we will have only ourselves to blame.
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