PROMISED RESCUE TIDES OVER SEAMAN Fred Dyson – Dyson's Starboard View – Messing About in Boats   From Sitka comes a delightful sea story about a flatlander from Montana who was transferred to Sitka.  His previous boating experience had been on Flathead Lake and he was quite sure he would have no problem in the scenic waters around Sitka.  He bought an inboard cabin cruiser, loaded up his family and another couple, and set out into Hayward Straits seeking pleasure, romance, and adventure.  Adventure he got.   An hour out of port, the flatlander's wife spotted a lovely beach and demanded that they go ashore for some beachcombing.  Our hero carefully ran the bow up onto the beach and his passengers carefully climbed down and waded ashore.  Then someone decided that they needed dry socks.  Then everybody needed dry socks. This all took some time and when the flatlander tried to back his boat off the beach, he was stuck.   He panicked and gave the throbbing engine full throttle.  To no avail.  Lots of muddy water boiled around the stern of the boat but it didn't move. In the time-honored traditions of the sea, our hero blamed this life-threatening disaster on his wife and fired his complete supply of swear words at her.   With his vocabulary nearly exhausted, he got on channel 16 on the VHF radio and rang up the Coast Guard.  He was stunned to find out that the Coastie he talked to did not share his analysis of the disaster and was not about to launch a Coast Guard Cutter or a helicopter to effect a rescue.  Our hero fumed and jumped up and down in his diminutive wheelhouse and banged up both his head and the overhead cabin lights.   The flatlander threatened to report the Coast Guard's dereliction of duty to his congressman.  The Coastie, apparently not feeling very intimidated by the possible actions of a Montana congressman, suggested that our hero call a commercial tug.  He explained that the Montana mariner could walk ashore and that the Coast Guard was into saving lives, not providing towboat service.   Our hyper-ventilating hero frantically called a tug boat company on the radio.  They cheerfully agreed to send a tug to rescue him when they received a certified check for $8,000.  By this time the ebbing tide had run out several more feet and the boat was lying over on its chines.  The unnaturally-tilting decks further threatened the unhinged mind of the flatlander, but rescue was at hand.   An enterprising Alaskan troller, working nearby waters, came on the radio and said that he would rescue them for a mere $1,500, and he would guarantee the rescue within twelve hours.   Relief flooded in like the returning tide did in a few hours.   MARINE VOCABULARY   Through the HAWESPIPE   A hawespipe leads through a vessel's foredeck to the chain locker.  The anchor chain or cable comes out of the chain locker through the hawespipe and then through a chock or fairlead to go out as the anchor line.  The expression "through the hawespipe" means someone who became an. officer after having been an ordinary sailor.  It is often taken to mean something or someone who came in by a route other than the usual method; a sea-going backdoor route.   ESOTERIC NAVIGATION   Last week, at the propeller club, I overheard some delightful tales of navigation out on the Aleutian Chain before the days of radar, Loran, or GPS .  I heard about skippers who would wait until they could smell the sea-lion rookeries, and then make their course change.   I've known sailors who found bars and girlfriends the same way.                               TOP          MESSING ABOUT IN BOATS          HOME