STAY ON COURSE TO AVOID COSTLY ACCIDENTS
Fred Dyson – Dyson's Starboard View – Messing About in Boats
Getting lost is embarrassing. Losing a barge in tow is a significant breach of maritime manners. Combine these problems with hitting a bridge and they can spell disaster.
An Alabama train wreck that killed scores of people was apparently related to the bridge being hit by a runaway barge on the Mobile River. The skipper of the tug MV Mauvilla had reported being lost and losing one of the six barges he was pushing.
In defense of the skipper, it was reportedly a foggy night and the railroad bridge lacked lights. It might seem hard to get lost on a river, but channels and islands can make it relatively easy. A global positioning satellite ( GPS ) receiver and radar might have helped.
Maritime law, however, requires you to reduce speed so you don't hit something beyond the limits of your vision and your ability to stop. Prudence dictates the same thing.
In an ideal world, violation of rules such as this would only harm the violator. Unfortunately, many of our mistakes hurt other people, often disastrously. Know your location.
An old shipmate once shipped on a British trawler with a knack for hitting things. It took out three pilings when pulling away from a dock, T-boned a fuel dock, and tore out one hundred yards of a channel-bank stabilization unit.
The trawler even managed to wedge itself under a highway drawbridge. That was bad luck, but there was leverage on this misadventure. The bridge was to carry the British royal wedding party. Prince Charles and Di were due in minutes.
Bobbies and the Special Boat Service swarmed all over the trawler, thinking it was full of explosives to blow up the wedding party. The crew got to be special guests of the queen, and the skipper got a jumpstart on becoming a legend on the River Thames.
WINTERIZATION
Frost is okay on the pumpkin, but not on your outboard unless it is drained. Most modern water pumps are designed to drain themselves when the motor
is out of the water, but to make sure, turn the engine over a few times, being careful not to start it in the process.
Some people also drain carburetor float bowls and fog the cylinders with oil, but I haven't done this for years and my much-abused outboards keep running. As for the boat, it is a good idea to pull the bungs and let the hull drain. Water freezing in the bilges can cause structural damage.
SUNGLASSES
Good sunglasses do more than make you look cool and protect your eyes. On foggy or overcast days, good quality shooting glasses allow you to see better in the fog, and see some contours in the water surface invisible to the naked eye. Get glass lenses instead of plastic because they're better.
Always put the glasses down on something soft so the lenses don't get scratched. I also like to use something to attach the sunglasses to my head. It's embarrassing to look overboard and lose a fifty-dollar pair of glasses.
An old shipmate had his ears pierced and bolted the sunglasses to the holes, but I prefer a lanyard or surgical tubing. If I lose a little more hair, I can use duct tape.
DUMB THINGS DONE IN BOATS
• No plug
A reader from Girdwood read my advice about ensuring the drain plug is in before launching the boat. He related how he'd gone a half mile from a launch ramp before he discovered he had cold, wet feet. He and his companions got warm by bailing.
I asked him why they didn't just reinstall the drain plug or stuff the hole with a rag or stick. He shook his head. Apparently there was so much panic everyone bailed instead of thinking.
The lesson is clear. Keep a cool head when your feet get cold.
• Too much outboard
A reader from Halibut Cove had a narrow dory he used with a five-horsepower outboard. Knowing, as most Americans do, that more is better, he installed a twenty-horsepower motor. That was okay when he had his two children in the bow and was going slow. But then he dropped the kids off at the ferry dock and turned up the power. The results were predictable: Bow up, stern down.
Alarmed and thinking he had to get the boat up on plane to solve this problem, our reader gave the motor full -throttle. The results were, again predictable. The bow went straight up. The stern went under. Our reader and his new outboard went swimming.
The lesson here is clear. More is not necessarily better when putting outboards on boats with small transoms. Remember to keep some weight forward, too.
• Check the bilges
An Anchorage reader responded to the story about the Big Lake boat swamped by big waves over the stern. His boat wasn't swamped in that storm, but because he didn't check the bilges, when he got to the marina and slowed down, water rushed forward to give him cold, wet feet.
While he was arranging to have his boat hauled, he noted another boat almost went down at the gas dock, swamped by chop coming over the stern. Remember to check your bilges and always tie up with the bow into the chop.
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