{"id":213,"date":"2012-09-28T09:50:47","date_gmt":"2012-09-28T13:50:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tomdove.com\/blog\/?p=213"},"modified":"2015-07-12T14:13:50","modified_gmt":"2015-07-12T18:13:50","slug":"at-sea-or-at-bay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomdove.com\/blog\/2012\/09\/at-sea-or-at-bay\/","title":{"rendered":"At Sea or at Bay"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally published in several Maryland newspapers, 3\/23\/90 \u0004\u000e \u0004\u000e \u0004\u000e \u0004\u000e \u0004\u000e<\/span><\/p>\n

\u0004\u000e<\/span>
\n At Sea or at Bay<\/strong> \u0004\u000e\u0003<\/span>
\n by \u0004\u000e\bTom Dove\u0001 \u0004\u000e<\/span>
\n Several hundred sailors will flock to the annual Safety at Sea \u0004\u001cSeminar at the Naval Academy on the weekend of March 31 to \u0004\u001chear about preparation for offshore voyaging. They will get a \u0004\u001cchance to compare coastal cruising with blue water sailing by \u0004\u001clistening to people who have spent a lot of time “out there.”\u0004\u001c<\/span><\/p>\n

They may come away with some misconceptions. These \u0004\u001cexcellent programs are aimed at safety “at sea,” not necessarily “at \u0004\u001c\u0005bay.”\u0004\u001c There is a lot of difference between a two-week cruise on the \u0004\u001cChesapeake or a short passage up the coast to New York and an \u0004\u001copen ocean passage to Bermuda or the Caribbean.<\/span><\/p>\n

Crossing an \u0004\u001cocean requires a different attitude and different equipment than \u0004\u001cdoes coastal cruising in semiprotected waters. \u0004\u001c Sailors who prepare for an ocean voyage when they are going \u0004\u001conly to Norfolk or Nantucket may never make the trip. They will \u0005\u001cbecome bogged down in the details, will buy too much equipment \u0004\u001cand probably will choose the wrong boat.\u0004\u001c<\/span><\/p>\n

There are plenty of people who have spent years preparing \u0004\u001cfor every eventuality they might meet on a trip down the \u0004\u001cIntracoastal Waterway and then died before getting underway. \u0004\u001cThus, overpreparation for simple events may be the most \u0004\u001c\u0017hazardous thing of all.\u0004\u001c<\/span><\/p>\n

Mass-produced, lightly constructed boats are perfectly \u0004\u001csatisfactory for years of coastal sailing. These vessels are designed \u0004\u001cto have lots of interior space, to move well in light airs, and to be \u0004\u001c\u001faffordable by average families.\u0004\u001c<\/span><\/p>\n

Ocean sailors have different requirements. They need \u0004\u001cstronger boats and equipment that will sustain them when no \u0004\u001cassistance is at hand.\u00a0An ideal ocean-crossing yacht will spend the \u0004\u001csummer stationary in the Chesapeake’s light summer breezes and \u0004\u001cits deep keel will find every shoal in the Bay.\u0004\u001c<\/span><\/p>\n

Many multihulls offer a good compromise between coastal and \u0004\u001cocean sailing demands, but you will not hear about them at the \u0004\u001cSafety at Sea Seminars. The seminars are run by traditionalists \u0004\u001cwho sneer at catamarans and trimarans, ignoring the fact that all \u0004\u001cthe major ocean racing records are now held by fast, seaworthy \u0004\u001c\u0010multihull boats.\u0004\u001c<\/span><\/p>\n

Let’s compare equipment for coastal sailing and offshore \u0005\u001c voyaging.\u0004\u001c You do not need a ballasted liferaft lashed to the deck for a \u0004\u001ctrip down the Chesapeake. Your dinghy with its built-in flotation \u0004\u001cwill do just fine and it can take you ashore at the next anchorage, \u0004\u001c\bas well.\u0004\u001c<\/span><\/p>\n

The widely advertised Lifesling device for retrieving a \u0004\u001ccrewmember overboard is not as simple to operate as the ads \u0004\u001cwould have you believe. At a Safety at Sea Seminar a few years \u0004\u001cago, the experienced sailor who was demonstrating that device was \u0004\u001cunable to deploy it until she had sailed far beyond her “victim”, \u0004\u001cthen she was unable to get him back aboard. \u0004\u001cIn Bay waters, I did not see how using a Lifesling was any \u0004\u001csimpler than stopping the boat and handing the man overboard a \u0004\u001cline to help him climb onto a stern platform. Offshore, in ten-foot \u0004\u001c\u001bseas, it might work better.\u0004\u001c<\/span><\/p>\n

Emergency maneuvering requirements are different in \u0004\u001csemiprotected waters, too. The Naval Academy now uses the \u0004\u001c”Quick Stop” method for returning to the location of a crewmember \u0004\u001coverboard, and it is an improvement over their former practice of \u0004\u001creaching away from the victim for a known time, coming about \u0004\u001cand reaching back for the same time.\u0004\u001c<\/span><\/p>\n

Seminar presenters will pooh-pooh an equally efficient method \u0004\u001cthat is perfectly suitable for Bay use – gybing around immediately \u0005\u001cafter the person falls overboard. This simple maneuver puts the \u0004\u001cboat downwind of the victim, heading into the wind and, if \u0004\u001cpracticed a few times, provides excellent control.\u0004\u001c Gybing to pick up a person overboard works beautifully in \u0004\u001cseas less than about five feet and has the advantage of being a \u0004\u001cfamiliar maneuver. It is related to the procedure you would use to \u0004\u001c\u0013approach a mooring.\u0004\u001c<\/span><\/p>\n

A Seminar presenter rejected the technique out of hand, \u0004\u001csaying, “Don’t ever gybe. Gybing is a dangerous maneuver.” \u0004\u001cThat’s true enough in rough conditions offshore but patently \u0004\u001cabsurd in normal conditions on the Bay.\u0004\u001c<\/span><\/p>\n

By all means, attend one of the offshore seminars if you plan \u0004\u001cto sail on the open ocean. Take the advice of these salty experts \u0004\u001cwhen you will be far at sea, but temper it with reason when you \u0004\u001c\u001fare cruising on the Chesapeake.\u0004\u001c<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps some group could start a related series of programs \u0004\u001cgeared to the needs of coastal and Bay sailors. There is an \u0004\u001c-audience that is hungry for the information. \u0004\u001c\u0001 \u0004\u000e<\/span><\/p>\n

— The End — \u0006\u000e \u0004\u000e<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

This lovely Presto 30 will go into shallow waters and sail in light winds faster and more safely than any ocean voyager will do — but choose another design to cross the Atlantic.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally published in several Maryland newspapers, 3\/23\/90 \u0004\u000e \u0004\u000e \u0004\u000e \u0004\u000e \u0004\u000e \u0004\u000e At Sea or at Bay \u0004\u000e\u0003 by \u0004\u000e\bTom Dove\u0001 \u0004\u000e Several hundred sailors will flock to the annual Safety at Sea \u0004\u001cSeminar at the Naval Academy on the weekend of March 31 to \u0004\u001chear about preparation for offshore voyaging. They will get Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomdove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomdove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomdove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomdove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomdove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/tomdove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":645,"href":"https:\/\/tomdove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions\/645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomdove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomdove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomdove.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}