Not the rig Gilboy started with, a schooner. Mainmast swept away in capsize. Gilboy deployed emergency steering for last 1,000 miles. BTW, PACIFIC cost $400 new.
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Not the rig Gilboy started with, a schooner. Mainmast swept away in capsize. Gilboy deployed emergency steering for last 1,000 miles. BTW, PACIFIC cost $400 new.
Tchoupitoulas
Member
A Schooner? With only one mast and two booms. Tell me more.
I can't imagine a more un-handy rig on an 18 foot boat, but he probably led the sheets to a central point. I would love to see some more photographs of the boat. It's decked over...can you say "wet"?
Look at the length of the keel. That boat wants to go in a straight line. Turning is optional. I wonder how it was ballasted.
I might have to get this book!
Love his hat!
Happy Earth Day!
Back in the day, a classmate, Denis Hayes, began promoting his idea of initiating a day of celebration of the Earth, its wonders, and fragility. After graduation, Denis went to work for Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson, who bought into Denis' idea and issued a call to action. 20 million mobilized for the first Earth Day, 50 years ago, and the rest is history. Or is it? Out of that first Earth Day came bedrock environmental protection laws such as the EPA, the Clean Air Act, and the Clean Water Act, all currently being undermined by the current administration.
By 1970, I had been fortunate to have made 4 Transpac races. Though I'm sure there were small amounts of plastic in the Eastern Pacific even back then, I don't remember any being visible.
Today, in the glassy calm of the Pacific High, a crew is never out of sight of plastic. An estimated 17.6 billion pounds of plastic enters our oceans every year, the equivalent of dumping a garbage truck’s worth of plastic every minute. With only 9% of all plastic waste generated being properly recycled, recycling has been promoted as a feel good marketing campaign giving false hope and assuage guilt in the attempt to solve the plastic crisis.
Following is a revealing report by Emily Petsko of the ocean conservation organization Oceana detailing the myth of plastic recycling:
Three arrows chasing each other in a triangular loop: For decades, the consuming public has recognized this symbol as a promise that “this package can and will be recycled.” However, the perceived promise of those interlocking arrows is a hollow one, as most plastic products – save for those with the numbers one and two on the bottom – are not recycled in any significant amount.
The arrows with numbers that you find on your soda bottle (usually a No. 1 plastic made with PET, or polyethylene terephthalate), your yogurt tub (often a No. 5 made with polypropylene), and other everyday products are part of the Resin Identification Code (RIC) system that was created by and for the plastics industry in 1988.
Each number signifies a different category of plastics – of which there are seven in total – and this system was designed to tell recycling facilities what type of resin can be found in any given object. As it turns out, they were never a guarantee that the item in question would be recycled.
“Resin Identification Codes are not ‘recycle codes,’” ASTM International, the organization that administers the RIC system, writes on its website. “The use of a Resin Identification Code on a manufactured plastic article does not imply that the article is recycled or that there are systems in place to effectively process the article for reclamation or re-use.”
If you find this surprising, you’re not alone.
According to a survey of 2,000 Americans that was conducted by the Consumer Brands Association last year, 68% of respondents said they thought any item bearing an RIC would be recyclable.
(In an effort to reduce confusion, ASTM International altered the symbols in 2013, replacing the arrows with a solid triangle. However, manufacturers aren’t required to change their equipment to incorporate the new symbol, which is why you still see the arrows on many plastic products.)
Consumers widely misinterpret RICs and, as a result, they “wish-cycle.” Many well-meaning and hopeful consumers place any plastic item with an RIC in their recycling bin, regardless of whether they will actually be recycled.
So instead of resulting in more plastic being recycled, this approach all too often slows down the sorting process, drives up recycling costs, results in higher rates of contamination, and ultimately sends more waste to landfills, incinerators, and natural environments. Our recycling wishes, in other words, are being turned into garbage.
The myth surrounding RICs makes us believe that plastic is recycled far more often than it actually is. In fact, only 9% of all the plastic waste ever created has been recycled, and many of those recycled items belong to just two of the seven resin categories.
Susan Freinkel, author of the 2011 book Plastic: A Toxic Love Story, told Oceana that “the only plastics recycled in any significant amounts are No. 1 and No. 2 plastics, which cover soda and water bottles, as well as milk, juice, and detergent jugs.”
A new report by Greenpeace takes this a step further, arguing that No. 1 and No. 2 bottles and jugs are the only plastics that can legitimately be called “recyclable” and advertised as such. That’s because they are the only resins that have “sufficient market demand and domestic recycling/reprocessing capacity,” according to the report. The remaining municipal plastic waste is often referred to as “mixed plastic.”
Ever since China shut its borders to the world’s mixed plastics in 2018, the U.S. has struggled to find a market for its plastic waste, especially No. 3 through No. 7 plastics, which are less valuable.
Some states (like Florida) and cities (like Erie, Pennsylvania) have urged residents to recycle only plastic bottles and jugs, which are generally made of PET (a No. 1 plastic) or HDPE (a No. 2 plastic). Cuyahoga County, the second most populous county in Ohio and home to Cleveland, has adopted this approach.
In 2015, local authorities told residents to ignore the numbers and instead sort by shape, placing only higher-value plastic waste like bottles, jugs, tubs, and jars in their recycling bin. After China’s plastic import ban went into effect, the list of items you could actually recycle in Cuyahoga County got smaller. Now, only bottles and jugs (like laundry detergent containers) are accepted.
“[RICs] were never meant to determine recyclability,” says Diane Bickett, executive director of the Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District, which serves as a countywide resource for recycling information. “People have been confused about that since 1988, when they started appearing on the bottom of the packaging.”
Even with Cuyahoga County’s efforts, roughly a quarter of all items tossed in recycling bins are contaminated, and some of that is because of the unrecyclable plastics that are still being “wish-cycled.” In response, the Solid Waste District’s communication efforts are focused on getting a new message across: Waste reduction.
“We’re just trying to tell people that we’re not going to recycle our way out of our waste problem,” Bickett says. “There’s just too much material, and too much waste, being generated.”
Freinkel, in her book, talked to a plastic industry spokesperson who referred to recycling as “a guilt eraser.” The spokesperson told Freinkel that “as soon as they [consumers] recycle your product, they feel better about it.”
“Recycling,” writes Freinkel, “assures people that plastic isn’t just an infernal hanger-on; it has a useful afterlife.”
Of course, that is also a myth. We all need to separate the hopeful and increasingly fantastical act of recycling from the reality of plastic pollution. Recent data indicates that our recycling wishes, hopes, and dreams – perhaps driven in part by myths surrounding RICs – will not stop plastic from entering our oceans.
Instead, if we truly want to protect the environment and marine life, we need to campaign for more plastic-free choices and zones, and for the reduction of plastic production and pollution.
My hope for Earth Day 2020 is not only continued awareness on behalf of 2021 SHTP competitors to leaving clean wakes, but also to minimize the amount of disposable plastic carried across the Pacific and brought ashore at Hanalei Beach Park, only to end up in Kauai's overflowing landfill.
Here in brief is Kauai's local government statement on recycling: Plastic containers that are not bottles and jars even if they are #1 and #2 plastics are not recyclable on Kauai.... Plastics #3-#7 are not recyclable on Kaua'i because they have low market value and we do not have a materials recovery facility on island to manage this material at this time.
Back in the day, a classmate, Denis Hayes, began promoting his idea of initiating a day of celebration of the Earth, its wonders, and fragility. After graduation, Denis went to work for Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson, who bought into Denis' idea and issued a call to action. 20 million mobilized for the first Earth Day, 50 years ago, and the rest is history. Or is it? Out of that first Earth Day came bedrock environmental protection laws such as the EPA, the Clean Air Act, and the Clean Water Act, all currently being undermined by the current administration.
By 1970, I had been fortunate to have made 4 Transpac races. Though I'm sure there were small amounts of plastic in the Eastern Pacific even back then, I don't remember any being visible.
Today, in the glassy calm of the Pacific High, a crew is never out of sight of plastic. An estimated 17.6 billion pounds of plastic enters our oceans every year, the equivalent of dumping a garbage truck’s worth of plastic every minute. With only 9% of all plastic waste generated being properly recycled, recycling has been promoted as a feel good marketing campaign giving false hope and assuage guilt in the attempt to solve the plastic crisis.
Following is a revealing report by Emily Petsko of the ocean conservation organization Oceana detailing the myth of plastic recycling:
Three arrows chasing each other in a triangular loop: For decades, the consuming public has recognized this symbol as a promise that “this package can and will be recycled.” However, the perceived promise of those interlocking arrows is a hollow one, as most plastic products – save for those with the numbers one and two on the bottom – are not recycled in any significant amount.
The arrows with numbers that you find on your soda bottle (usually a No. 1 plastic made with PET, or polyethylene terephthalate), your yogurt tub (often a No. 5 made with polypropylene), and other everyday products are part of the Resin Identification Code (RIC) system that was created by and for the plastics industry in 1988.
Each number signifies a different category of plastics – of which there are seven in total – and this system was designed to tell recycling facilities what type of resin can be found in any given object. As it turns out, they were never a guarantee that the item in question would be recycled.
“Resin Identification Codes are not ‘recycle codes,’” ASTM International, the organization that administers the RIC system, writes on its website. “The use of a Resin Identification Code on a manufactured plastic article does not imply that the article is recycled or that there are systems in place to effectively process the article for reclamation or re-use.”
If you find this surprising, you’re not alone.
According to a survey of 2,000 Americans that was conducted by the Consumer Brands Association last year, 68% of respondents said they thought any item bearing an RIC would be recyclable.
(In an effort to reduce confusion, ASTM International altered the symbols in 2013, replacing the arrows with a solid triangle. However, manufacturers aren’t required to change their equipment to incorporate the new symbol, which is why you still see the arrows on many plastic products.)
Consumers widely misinterpret RICs and, as a result, they “wish-cycle.” Many well-meaning and hopeful consumers place any plastic item with an RIC in their recycling bin, regardless of whether they will actually be recycled.
So instead of resulting in more plastic being recycled, this approach all too often slows down the sorting process, drives up recycling costs, results in higher rates of contamination, and ultimately sends more waste to landfills, incinerators, and natural environments. Our recycling wishes, in other words, are being turned into garbage.
The myth surrounding RICs makes us believe that plastic is recycled far more often than it actually is. In fact, only 9% of all the plastic waste ever created has been recycled, and many of those recycled items belong to just two of the seven resin categories.
Susan Freinkel, author of the 2011 book Plastic: A Toxic Love Story, told Oceana that “the only plastics recycled in any significant amounts are No. 1 and No. 2 plastics, which cover soda and water bottles, as well as milk, juice, and detergent jugs.”
A new report by Greenpeace takes this a step further, arguing that No. 1 and No. 2 bottles and jugs are the only plastics that can legitimately be called “recyclable” and advertised as such. That’s because they are the only resins that have “sufficient market demand and domestic recycling/reprocessing capacity,” according to the report. The remaining municipal plastic waste is often referred to as “mixed plastic.”
Ever since China shut its borders to the world’s mixed plastics in 2018, the U.S. has struggled to find a market for its plastic waste, especially No. 3 through No. 7 plastics, which are less valuable.
Some states (like Florida) and cities (like Erie, Pennsylvania) have urged residents to recycle only plastic bottles and jugs, which are generally made of PET (a No. 1 plastic) or HDPE (a No. 2 plastic). Cuyahoga County, the second most populous county in Ohio and home to Cleveland, has adopted this approach.
In 2015, local authorities told residents to ignore the numbers and instead sort by shape, placing only higher-value plastic waste like bottles, jugs, tubs, and jars in their recycling bin. After China’s plastic import ban went into effect, the list of items you could actually recycle in Cuyahoga County got smaller. Now, only bottles and jugs (like laundry detergent containers) are accepted.
“[RICs] were never meant to determine recyclability,” says Diane Bickett, executive director of the Cuyahoga County Solid Waste District, which serves as a countywide resource for recycling information. “People have been confused about that since 1988, when they started appearing on the bottom of the packaging.”
Even with Cuyahoga County’s efforts, roughly a quarter of all items tossed in recycling bins are contaminated, and some of that is because of the unrecyclable plastics that are still being “wish-cycled.” In response, the Solid Waste District’s communication efforts are focused on getting a new message across: Waste reduction.
“We’re just trying to tell people that we’re not going to recycle our way out of our waste problem,” Bickett says. “There’s just too much material, and too much waste, being generated.”
Freinkel, in her book, talked to a plastic industry spokesperson who referred to recycling as “a guilt eraser.” The spokesperson told Freinkel that “as soon as they [consumers] recycle your product, they feel better about it.”
“Recycling,” writes Freinkel, “assures people that plastic isn’t just an infernal hanger-on; it has a useful afterlife.”
Of course, that is also a myth. We all need to separate the hopeful and increasingly fantastical act of recycling from the reality of plastic pollution. Recent data indicates that our recycling wishes, hopes, and dreams – perhaps driven in part by myths surrounding RICs – will not stop plastic from entering our oceans.
Instead, if we truly want to protect the environment and marine life, we need to campaign for more plastic-free choices and zones, and for the reduction of plastic production and pollution.
My hope for Earth Day 2020 is not only continued awareness on behalf of 2021 SHTP competitors to leaving clean wakes, but also to minimize the amount of disposable plastic carried across the Pacific and brought ashore at Hanalei Beach Park, only to end up in Kauai's overflowing landfill.
Here in brief is Kauai's local government statement on recycling: Plastic containers that are not bottles and jars even if they are #1 and #2 plastics are not recyclable on Kauai.... Plastics #3-#7 are not recyclable on Kaua'i because they have low market value and we do not have a materials recovery facility on island to manage this material at this time.
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Thank you, sir. It was sobering to realize that all the plastic I saw out there was created in my lifetime. Your hope for this Earth Day is well taken. Perhaps the powers that be will address the issue in the race documents. It would not have deterred me from entering if the 2018 rules forbade leaving plastic in Hawaii.
BobJ
Alerion 38 "Surprise!"
The last time Sled and I raced in the SHTP (2008), this was one of the equipment requirements:
"4.12 Storage facilities to contain all rubbish on board up to the arrival ashore. Recyclable rubbish shall be contained separately from non-recyclable rubbish."
While most skippers avoided plastic containers anyway, the rule could be expanded to require taking them back to the mainland.
"4.12 Storage facilities to contain all rubbish on board up to the arrival ashore. Recyclable rubbish shall be contained separately from non-recyclable rubbish."
While most skippers avoided plastic containers anyway, the rule could be expanded to require taking them back to the mainland.
Tchoupitoulas
Member
We need a “moon shot” program to create a plastic replacement.
solosailor
Member
They have bio-degradable plastic but of course it isn't at the same low price point of regular plastic. Laws could easily change the scaling.
As the retired Matson container ship S.S. KAUAI, currently under tow by the RACHEL, crosses the Gulf of Tehuantepec on her last voyage through the Panama Canal and to the ship breakers in Brownsville, it's a good time to reflect the "six degrees of separation" this ship brought to singlehanded sailing, and to the SSS in particular.
sleddog at the 12" wheel of SS KAUAI, surfing downwind at 22 knots in 30 knots TWS off Port Orford. It took a full minute for the ship to respond to a change in helm.
KAUAI's master, Captain Bob, owned the Lapworth 36 BELLWETHER and with his family on summer vacation was at anchor in Hanalei Bay, June 29th, 1978, when WILDFLOWER came sailing around Puu Poa Point to finish the first Singlehanded Transpac. I recognized BELLWETHER, and Bob from a brief encounter 4 years earlier in Mazatlan. Bob was as surprised as I meeting at Hanalei.
"What are you doing here? Bob asked as WILDFLOWER sailed by.. "Finishing the Singlehanded Transpac," says I. "Has anyone else finished?" I queried.
"Don't know," Bob says, "there's a Santa Cruz 27 anchored over there. (Norton Smith on SOLITAIRE , first-to-finish, a day before WILDFLOWER.) "What, is there some sort of race coming here?"
Thus began the first welcoming committee for the first Singlehanded Transpac: Captain Bob and I in BELLWETHER's Sabot dinghy rowed cold beers over to subsequent finishers, 23 in number over the next 5 days.
But that wasn't the end of Captain Bob and the SHTP. During his Matson career, Bob kept track of SHTP racers' position reports, and would alter course of SS KAUAI (and SS LURLINE) to sound his horn in greeting to solo racers Mid-Pacific.
Captain Bob and I ultimately sailed many miles together, and he went on to a fine career as ocean racing navigator aboard such well known boats as RAGTIME, OAXACA, RETALIATION, LOVE MACHINE, SUNSET BOULEVARD, and the maxi CONDOR, as well as owning the Hawkfarm BELLWETHER, homeported in Haleiwa.
One final pic, taken by Capt. Bob from the bridge of SS KAUAI, as they passed WILDFLOWER 116 miles west of Santa Cruz on my passage home from New Zealand in 1997. Bob could see WILDFLOWER on radar at 12 miles in these gentle conditions, and I could see the KAUAI visually at 10 miles. As KAUAI passed WILDFLOWER at 22 knots, her crew gathered on the ship's starboard rail, Bob saluted with 3 blasts, and Ralph the radio officer, who had been my contact during our passages, just shook his head in wonderment and retreated into his radio room.
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Intermission
Member
There is only one side. Boating.
tiger beetle
N/M 45 Tiger Beetle
Well, the Dark Side has cookies! 
Not surprising news this morning from our friends in Port Townsend: The 2020 Seventy48, Race2Alaska, and Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival have been postponed to next year.
Sending along to Patty and Bill of DOLFIN this cool video, #3 of 4, about exploration of the Line Islands:, Palmyra, Washington, and Fanning by the crew of VELA. Both WILDFLOWER and DOLFIN have visited Palmyra. Anyone else? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqGy82xt9EQ
Sending along to Patty and Bill of DOLFIN this cool video, #3 of 4, about exploration of the Line Islands:, Palmyra, Washington, and Fanning by the crew of VELA. Both WILDFLOWER and DOLFIN have visited Palmyra. Anyone else? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqGy82xt9EQ
dolfinbill
Member
Thanks for the memories, Skip. When we spent two weeks there in 1988 on the way from NZ to Hawaii, the only residents were two wonderful dogs, Army and Palmyra. They would herd small sharks in the shallows and drop them at your feet to BBQ for them. At dusk on the Palmyra YC pier they would jump of and land on the backs of meandering Manta Rays just for the fun of it. We have a great photo of just that somewhere but I can't find it at the moment. In those days it was slides rather than digital photos and I have a gazillion of them.
On the passage from Samoa to Palmyra we listened to the drama on the Pacific Seafarers Net of the teenage girl who climbed a palm tree in Palmyra for drinking nuts and fell down backwards maybe 15 or twenty feet. She was paralyzed under the tree for several days while her parents and the four or five other boats in the lagoon worked the ham radio for a rescue. They had to clear a spot on the old coral runway for a chopper to land from a Japanese destroyer and take her to Christmas Island where a C-130 flew her to Honolulu. Her parents were sailing out the pass the same time we sailed in and their daughter recovered just fine and actually looked after our daughter Kelly in Ala Wai two months later. So many memories - where do you start.
Here are a few photos I could find. I remember you helped celebrate Kelly's 8th birthday in Moorea with the donuts on a string and here is a photo of her 10th birthday somewhere in the Gulf Islands BC along with Wildflower rafted up with Nimbus and Dolfin.
View attachment 5322
sleddog at the 12" wheel of SS KAUAI, surfing downwind at 22 knots in 30 knots TWS off Port Orford. It took a full minute for the ship to respond to a change in helm.
Sailboats have a natural oscillation as they over the waves. Is there a similar oscillation for commercial freighters but on a different scale?
sleddog at the 12" wheel of SS KAUAI, surfing downwind at 22 knots in 30 knots TWS off Port Orford. It took a full minute for the ship to respond to a change in helm.
Sailboats have a natural oscillation as they over the waves. Is there a similar oscillation for commercial freighters but on a different scale?
While DURA MATER was tacking in confined Delta channels, another good friend, Captain Ivo, half a world away in the Suez Canal, was steaming his giant container ship north towards the Med, also in narrow quarters.
Ivo's SAMA, at 1,312 feet and 18,800 TEU, is one of the largest ships in the world..and careful navigation is required in the Suez Canal, where the dredged channel width is often barely wider than the ship, and not much deeper.
Like any good captain, despite the "Senior" Egyptian Canal pilot being in charge, Ivo does not leave his ship's bridge for the 16 hours it takes to transit the 120 mile length of the Suez Canal at the mandated 7.5 knots max speed. Things can go pear shaped quickly, as you will read below, and running a ship the size of SAMA aground would cause major Canal disruption while tugs were summoned.
Here's part of Ivo's recent letter:
During this Suez Canal transit I was very close to grounding. The Pilot was an old, tired man, and our helmsman not the brightest seaman onboard. I was fortunate that I attended last May for one week training on simulator at Ismailia, city in the middle of the Suez Canal.
So, I was just sending an email from the computer next to navigation table when I heard orders from pilot "port ten"' immediately followed by more excited voice "port twenty". I immediately realized something went wrong and moved next to helmsman and telegraph. We were running at rpm between dead slow and slow, just entering section turning some 20 degrees to port. Our draft was 15.6 m, nearly fully loaded.
I saw our bow approaching shallow water on the starboard side with rate of turn just 1 degree per minute to port. I informed pilot that helmsman will now follow my orders, moved telegraph to full ahead, ordered rudder full to port.
After that we finally started turning faster to port as necessary but our stern was at the same time
approaching pretty fast shallow water on the starboard side. We could feel the bank effect acting where the ship's hull in proximity to shore is sucked even closer to shore..
Next I order rudder full to starboard. As soon as the stern stopped approaching the shore I moved telegraph to "slow ahead" in order not to speed up too much. With the ship like loaded SAMA you are asking for trouble in Suez in case the speed reaches some 12 knots. As soon as you move from the center of canal you feel the bow or stern, whichever is closer to shore, is sucked to the side. Of course reducing of speed reduces also maneuverability.
Our bow started to be sucked to port side shore no matter the rudder was all the time at hard starboard. Again moved telegraph to "full ahead" and when bow started to move to starboard reduced to "slow ahead' and rudder full to port. After that we stabilized our movement more or less in the middle of the Canal, slowly turning to port as we needed.
The pilot told me half an hour before that incident that he is "the senior SC pilot that I can go to take a rest in my cabin" ... Luckily I know those 'professionals' and don't leave the bridge during the whole SC transit. If I was not on the bridge in that situation I'm 100% sure we would run aground. Well, we managed to avoid the accident and saved at the same time some cigarettes as I didn't give the pilot anything as a tip. And believe or not, he was not even surprised.
(The shallow 20 degree turn Capt.Ivo describes above is at the lower right of the waterway, just south and to the right of the pointed tip of land.)
Ivo's SAMA, at 1,312 feet and 18,800 TEU, is one of the largest ships in the world..and careful navigation is required in the Suez Canal, where the dredged channel width is often barely wider than the ship, and not much deeper.
Like any good captain, despite the "Senior" Egyptian Canal pilot being in charge, Ivo does not leave his ship's bridge for the 16 hours it takes to transit the 120 mile length of the Suez Canal at the mandated 7.5 knots max speed. Things can go pear shaped quickly, as you will read below, and running a ship the size of SAMA aground would cause major Canal disruption while tugs were summoned.
Here's part of Ivo's recent letter:
During this Suez Canal transit I was very close to grounding. The Pilot was an old, tired man, and our helmsman not the brightest seaman onboard. I was fortunate that I attended last May for one week training on simulator at Ismailia, city in the middle of the Suez Canal.
So, I was just sending an email from the computer next to navigation table when I heard orders from pilot "port ten"' immediately followed by more excited voice "port twenty". I immediately realized something went wrong and moved next to helmsman and telegraph. We were running at rpm between dead slow and slow, just entering section turning some 20 degrees to port. Our draft was 15.6 m, nearly fully loaded.
I saw our bow approaching shallow water on the starboard side with rate of turn just 1 degree per minute to port. I informed pilot that helmsman will now follow my orders, moved telegraph to full ahead, ordered rudder full to port.
After that we finally started turning faster to port as necessary but our stern was at the same time
approaching pretty fast shallow water on the starboard side. We could feel the bank effect acting where the ship's hull in proximity to shore is sucked even closer to shore..
Next I order rudder full to starboard. As soon as the stern stopped approaching the shore I moved telegraph to "slow ahead" in order not to speed up too much. With the ship like loaded SAMA you are asking for trouble in Suez in case the speed reaches some 12 knots. As soon as you move from the center of canal you feel the bow or stern, whichever is closer to shore, is sucked to the side. Of course reducing of speed reduces also maneuverability.
Our bow started to be sucked to port side shore no matter the rudder was all the time at hard starboard. Again moved telegraph to "full ahead" and when bow started to move to starboard reduced to "slow ahead' and rudder full to port. After that we stabilized our movement more or less in the middle of the Canal, slowly turning to port as we needed.
The pilot told me half an hour before that incident that he is "the senior SC pilot that I can go to take a rest in my cabin" ... Luckily I know those 'professionals' and don't leave the bridge during the whole SC transit. If I was not on the bridge in that situation I'm 100% sure we would run aground. Well, we managed to avoid the accident and saved at the same time some cigarettes as I didn't give the pilot anything as a tip. And believe or not, he was not even surprised
.(The shallow 20 degree turn Capt.Ivo describes above is at the lower right of the waterway, just south and to the right of the pointed tip of land.)
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Apparently recreational boating at San Diego and to Catalina still remains off limits..as does sailing in the Chesapeake off Maryland (but not Virginia) harbors. But wait, how come all those boats sailing off Annapolis?
Seems enterprising Maryland sailors found a loophole in the Shelter in Place rule that says boating for the purpose of feeding your self (fishing) is legal. So what you currently see is a heck of a lot of recreational sailors out for the afternoon with a fishing pole on their transom, and a line dragging astern....
Reminds me of the Singlehanded Farallones Race when Ed Ruszel passed WILDFLOWER while making trees in a Pt. Bonita backeddy all the while fishing for salmon off CHELONIA's stern.
Or the time Rob came surfing downwind on the afternoon's fresh trades, FEOLENA aimed at the 2008 SHTP finish line at Hanalei. "Hey Rob, congratulations!," says I.
"Nah, haven't caught a fish yet today. Think I'll keep going a while," hailed Rob, tending his lines astern.
Seems enterprising Maryland sailors found a loophole in the Shelter in Place rule that says boating for the purpose of feeding your self (fishing) is legal. So what you currently see is a heck of a lot of recreational sailors out for the afternoon with a fishing pole on their transom, and a line dragging astern....
Reminds me of the Singlehanded Farallones Race when Ed Ruszel passed WILDFLOWER while making trees in a Pt. Bonita backeddy all the while fishing for salmon off CHELONIA's stern.
Or the time Rob came surfing downwind on the afternoon's fresh trades, FEOLENA aimed at the 2008 SHTP finish line at Hanalei. "Hey Rob, congratulations!," says I.
"Nah, haven't caught a fish yet today. Think I'll keep going a while," hailed Rob, tending his lines astern.
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