LINES CAN BIGHT BACK
Fred Dyson – Dyson's Starboard View – Messing About in Boats
"In the bight of a line" is a common expression that means to be a bad place, a place without a good escape. The bight of a line is a loop in the middle portion of a line (a rope, to you landlubbers). Lines are often dangerous at sea because they may come taut at any moment. If you get a portion of your anatomy in a bight (loop) of a line just before it comes taut, you can be badly injured quickly.
Last year in the Bering Sea, a man lost his leg when he stepped into the bight of a line that was paying out (running out) through a hole in the bulwarks (the solid railing around the deck). The line came taut and jerked off his leg.
The bight of a line is a common way for crab fishermen to loose their lives. It happens when they are setting out (deploying) crab pots. The pot is dropped over the side and a deck hand throws the buoy(s) over. The line is usually carefully coiled down and the man throwing the buoy must be careful not to step in or on the line that is going over the side. A Bering Sea crabber, who is bunking at our place for a while, says it is standard practice for the man throwing the buoys to never move his feet during the process. I assume the young man who lost his life crabbing last month got tangled and went down with the pot. In that particular case, the line to the buoy broke as the crew tried to pull it, and him, back on board.
Some years ago, I brought a Bristol Bay sailboat from Egegik to Kenai. A good buddy, Mike Taurianen, was with me and was standing on the how as our towline was paying out, pulled by a towboat taking up the slack. Mike managed to step into the bight of the line. I pictured him being jerked off the boat and his leg looking like the bitter end of a line in a bowline knot. Mike is a big Finn and, like all the Finns I know, smart, tough, charming, passionate and stubborn. Apparently, Mike did not want to get dunked in Iliamna Bay that blustery morning. To my astonishment, Mike did a dexterous dance as he extracted all of the significant portions of his anatomy from the zinging danger he was standing on. Never did so much Finn move so fast on such a small foredeck.
A word to wise sailors: Lines move at sea. Never stand on them.
The Sportsman's Show is-over. I was intrigued by the Naiad inflatables with an aluminum rigid floor/bottom (call Alan Shaw 235-6974, Homer). I bought a Spydeco serrated blade folding knife (call Lentz 745-3944) for $44.00. The Skoal man was there giving away hand-held spittoons. They had holes in the bottom of them so I never did figure out the point. If the gunk is going to go on your shirt or the floor anyway, why not eliminate the middleman. Maybe it was some kind of political deal.
I also couldn't resist a clear siphon hose with a copper check valve on the end that lets you jiggle it up and down a few times instead of sucking on it (call Randy Berg at 262-6064). As the salesman said, "Now you don't have to suck the nasty stuff." In addition to being nasty, sucking gas fumes rots your pipes and the lead can kill you. The siphoning of diesel fuel is only slightly less detrimental to your body. Siphoning diesel fuel always ruins my appetite. It sort of "sucks", as the kids say these days.
For those of you who think that I have gotten too many gas fumes already and this has atrophied my brain, you are wrong. My dementia comes from running my boat from the flying bridge with my brain being microwaved by the radar. Turn off the radar when you are on the fly bridge.
Don't forget to scrape and paint your bottom this spring.
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