New Boat 4 Sled

[sleddog]

In this week in 1826, Capt. Frederick Beechley of the Royal Navy and the crew of the HMS BLOSSOM, located, surveyed, named, and charted Blossom Rock in San Francisco Bay. Beechley's surveying showed Blossom Rock to lie 2/3rds of the distance between today's Treasure Island and San Francisco's City Front, right in the path of ships servicing a growing San Francisco, then the 10th largest city in the United States.

In modern times, Blossom Rock is covered 39 feet, and marked by a green bell buoy, “BR”, we are all familiar with as a race turning mark. Plenty of water for RAGTIME and JETSTREAM to round safely. But it wasn't always so. In Beechley's time, Blossom Rock measured 100 'x 190', with a least depth of 5'. Currents ripped there, and the 19th century marker buoy regularly drug off station.

On his chart, Beechley's noted two “navigation trees,” two especially large redwoods on the distant ridge of the Oakland Hills, near today's Skyline Blvd. Beechley wrote in his log that in order to miss the Blossom Rock, one should line up the northern tip of Yerba Buena Island with "two trees...south of Palos Colorados...too conspicuous to be overlooked." The distance from Blossom Rock to these trees was 10 miles, which attests to their size. Historical records indicate that the redwoods in this area ranged up to 20 feet or more in diameter.

Today, there is a bronze plate at the Madrone Picnic Area, in Roberts Regional Park, off Skyline, marking the location of Beechley's historic “navigation trees.”

Unfortunately, the navigation redwoods were logged about 1851, exacerbating the danger of Blossom Rock. Something had to be done, and it was.

In early 1869, 8 days of experimenting with 175 lb. dynamite charges began. The charges were lowered into crevices in Blossom Rock and detonated. But little rock was displaced.

The U.S. Corps of Engineers then drew the plans (attached below) for underwater tunnels to be dug into Blossom Rock, where blasting charges would be placed. A contract was let June 16, 1869, a bid accepted for $75,000 from mechanical engineer Alexis Von Schmidt, and Von Schmidt's work crew began tunneling into Blossom Rock in October, 1869.

The engineering and logistics used by Von Schmidt for demolishing Blossom were amazing. First came the construction of a wooden vertical crib and coffer dam (caisson) that was placed on top of the rock from a specially built barge,

With the caisson in place, Von Schmidt pumped the Bay water out, leaving the top of Blossom Rock bare. However, water seeped into the caisson from underneath. Cement and sand were then thrown into the caisson, sealing out the water. An iron cylinder, 6 feet in diameter and 14 feet high was placed inside the caisson. More cement was poured between the inner sides of the caisson and the outer sides of the cylinder to prevent leaks.

On Dec.7, 1869, Von Schmidt began sinking a shaft into Blossom Rock from inside the cylinder. At first, there was room for only one man.The men used steel-pointed picks and sledges to remove the dirt. By the end of December, the shaft was 22 feet below the water line.

In early January, when the depth reached 30 feet, lateral excavation began. Eight miners worked in the chamber using picks as well as small amounts of blasting powder. By March, the underground chamber reached the size of 12 feet in height, 135 feet in length and 55 feet in width. Rock columns, which had been left in place to support the rock ceiling were removed and replaced with wooden timbers.

16 men could now work inside Blossom Rock and they removed 50 cubic yards of stone a day. In April, the Blossom Rock crew suffered a large earthquake, luckily with no consequences. On April 20, Von Schmidt declared the excavation complete. The moment had arrived to blow up the top of the Rock.

In the Corps of Engineer's report, Major R.S. Williamson wrote that 43,000 pounds of a nitrate of soda powder were used in various charges. The powder was placed in 38 ale-barrels with a capacity of 60 gallons each and seven old tanks made of boiler-iron. At 2 pm on April 23, 1870, most of San Francisco's populace had gathered on nearby Telegraph Hill and adjacent shoreline to witness the giant underwater explosion.

Everything went off according to schedule, and the plume of water, described as a “willow tree” in shape, reached an estimated 200'-300'.

Unfortunately for Von Schmidt, not enough of the contracted depth of 24' was created by the explosion. 1,800 lead line soundings revealed Blossom Rock had 7 “humps” whose depth was less than the 24 feet called for in Von Schmidt's contract. It was thought a loose debris field lay where the top of Blossom Rock had been.

Subsequently, Von Schmidt's crew built a giant steel rake, 8' across and weighing 2.5 tons. This rake was attached to the bottom of a barge by chains, which then raked the rock debris and leveled what remained of Blossom Rock to its contracted depth.

It is doubtful that von Schmidt made a profit from the job.

Blossom Rock was again “shaved” by explosives in 1903 and 1930, achieving its current depth.

You can't call for “sea room” on Blossom Rock. It ain't there anymore.

 

[sleddog]

As many may already know, the Volvo Ocean 65 TEAM VESTAS WIND yesterday grounded on Cargados Carajos Shoals, Mauritius, in the Indian Ocean. Fortunately, no one has been injured and the nine man crew has abandoned ship and waded across a reef, at night, to safety. Initial photos taken at daybreak by TEAM ALVIMEDICA show TEAM VESTAS WIND to be high and dry, and heavily damaged. The keel bulb has broken off and as the boat is being driven further ashore, chances of salvage diminish with each passing hour.

Props to the crew of TEAM ALVIMEDICA who quickly came to the scene and stood by in the dark, lending a huge boost to morale and radio coms. Without ALVIMEDICA nearby, things could have been even more dire. Presently, TEAM ALVIMEDICA has been released by TEAM VESTAS WIND and is back racing towards Abu Dhabi.

How a multi-million dollar race yacht, skippered and crewed by vastly experienced professionals, could slam into a 25 mile long archipelago of reefs and islands while running at 18 knots is unknown. Cargados Carajos Shoals are marked and named on my National Geographic World wall map.

TEAM VESTAS WIND had the latest in electronic navigation equipment and the experience and support to operate . Among other scenarios, unsubstantiated speculation has mentioned possible power failure aboard, or that the position of the Cargados Carajos was mischarted, or the wrong datum was entered on the chart plotter. As facts emerge, these speculations are proving ill found.

We do know another VO 65, DONGFENG, a few miles ahead of VESTAS WIND, narrowly missed the southern tip of the island and had to alter course at the last minute even though they had known its position well in advance. 15-25 knot boat speed averages get you places quickly.

It will be interesting to hear a first hand analysis of the events leading up to the loss of TEAM VESTAS WIND. Like anything of this magnitude, usually several causes come together to cause mishap. In this case I suspect distraction, miscommunication, and/or crew fatigue played a major role in "operator error."

In all the chatter, what is noteworthy beyond all comprehension is the fact TEAM VESTAS WIND's crew were able to safely abandon ship in the dead of night as their boat broke up around them. Seamanship, toughness, and heroism of the highest order.

 

[Sleddog_sis]

It is always so sad to see a boat high up on the rocks. I saw one, as we flew over low in a local plane, in Tonga in 1996, a Swan 48 I believe. I'd just been sailing with Skip on Wildflower the sloop, and was returning home. It doesn't take too many hours or waves to undo a proud sailboat.
Skip, thanks for keeping us informed. Another nearby team, Team Alvamedica, stopped racing and stood by close -- keeping in radio contact all night with the Vestas Wind skipper, ready to plunge in if circumstances required. They also helped the Il du Sud "coast guard" to spot the Vestas Wind boat and life rafts, so the CG could pick up the crew. Hats off to those guys, who are now back to racing, shaken and emotional they report on Twitter. For more viewing see You Tube videos put up by Team Alvamedica.
Your little sis.

 

[sleddog]

In today's world of hi-tech rope, knot tying skills are becoming increasingly irrelevant to younger generations. Part of the reason is that hi-tech rope like spectra is so slippery that knots don't hold well. Another reason is that knots in hi-tech rope weaken the line by up to 50% at the knot. Splicing has become the new form of knot tying, as a splice can be as strong as the line itself, and won't slip.

There is still room aboard for a "bag of tricks" of basic knots. When asked, I recommend ability to confidently tie the following: the square knot, rolling hitch, clove hitch, the bowline, and sheet bend. Also the ability to “surge” a line on a cleat, then quickly secure said line.

A useful knot for sailing offshore is the Spanish Windlass. The Spanish Windlass is used to tightly draw two objects together, especially handy when jury rigging a broken spar or tiller. A good example, one that I have personally used, is repair of a broken spinnaker pole. I straightened the pole, then made a splint (in my case using a windsurfer mast) and laid the splint alongside the break in the pole. I then tightened the splint with multiple Spanish Windlasses and was back using the broken spinnaker pole in less than an hour.

To tie a Spanish Windlass first loop a miscellaneous length of line around the two objects to be drawn together. Secure the line (a square knot will do) in a loop.
Insert a lever arm such as a long handled screw driver, winch handle, batten, or awning pole through the middle of the loop and begin to twist the line around itself. Each twist tightens the loop of line.

That's it. Once the Spanish Windlass is sufficiently tight, tie off the lever arm so it doesn't unspin. A quantity of 1/8” flag halyard line is handy for tying a Spanish Windlass.

I currently have a Spanish Windlass holding down the hood of my car. It never fails to illicit comment. Howard S. used a Spanish Windlass to help build a conga drum in high school wood shop. As he likes to say: "Wonderous!"

 

[sleddog]

That was an unexpected little Forum interlude...thanks to our Webmaster for his patience and problem solving. Happy Holidays, All.

All quiet on the Capitola front. Last Thurs, 0500, as the ballyhooed cold front approached the West Coast with its forecast storm force winds, I went out and hitched the boat to the house with a couple of mooring lines. Not because of high water, although flood warnings were in effect locally.

I've seen boats hauled in boat yards blow over when jack stands wobbled loose in big breeze.

Although WILDFLOWER's mast is stepped here in the driveway, she wasn't about to blow over. I had WILDFLOWER well tied down to the trailer.

But to preserve tire wear, I have the trailer up on blocks...

My 0500 bad dream was the the boat trailer vibrating off the blocks, and WILDFLOWER and trailer taking off on a downhill sleighride with an uncertain ending..

It never blew too hard. Steady 40 knots near shore for one hour, with a 54.3 knot gust at 0920 at the Santa Cruz Harbor. An hour later it was calm and the rain began. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of roof, driveway, and street runoff flowed into Soquel Creek and the ocean. Probably enough in one hour, that if captured, would have easily have met the City's water rationing quota.

Except to surfers, Santa Cruz Harbor Entrance is not currently passable to deep draft, low power, sailboats.

 

[sleddog]

Having sailed on metal boats over the years, including the aluminum hulled 58' ROXANNE, the 12 meter CONSTELLATION, the One Tonner AMERICA JANE, and the all black Mull 55 LA FORZA DEL DESTINO, I can attest to the extra secure feeling aluminum construction provides.

Aluminum has its faults. But if you are running the chance of hitting something hard, like a rock, an aluminum hull will not likely be holed. Just dented.

A few days ago the big Fish and Game aluminum catamaran STEELHEAD attempted to enter Santa Cruz Harbor. The vessel is massively powered, took off on a wave, and broached into the tip of the West Breakwater.

The surprised professional captain was able to back off the rocks, proceeded inbound to an end tie, and found the damage to the bow to be minimal, just a big dent..

We got pictures ........

 

[sleddog]

The age old tradition of a "tot" of grog (rum) issued at noon to Royal Navy crews was continued until 1970. Given the hardships aboard in previous centuries, presumably a drunk crew was preferable to a mutinous crew.

If conditions had been severe, orders to "splice the mainbrace" were issued, and a second round of grog was served.

Drunk sailors running mechanical equipment in the modern English Navy put an end to the practice of serving rum. Three beers were served instead.

Alcohol aboard in the British Empire was common until this week. That's when the Canadian Navy decided to ban beer onboard their ships and removed beer vending machines, theoretically available only to "off duty" crew. The new measures come after the Canadian warship HMCS WHITEHORSE was recalled from a port visit to San Diego after incidents involving inebriated crew.

Nothing like a little shanty for Holiday cheer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGyPuey-1Jw

 

[sleddog]

Happy Solstice, All!

As Howard, Rainer, Rich Gerling, and I enjoyed coffee early this morning at the Santa Cruz Harbor Kind Grind, big swells would top the breakwater, sending plumes of white water as high as the top of the 60 foot lighthouse.

Looking out at Steamer Lane, a mile to the West, long time big wave surfer Rainer pronounced the wave "faces of 20-25 feet, breaking top to bottom." It looked like they were cresting a half mile off Lighthouse Point, in the vicinity of Second Reef.

Rich Gerling recalled joining the Coast Guard during the Korean War to avoid serving in the Army. Rich grew up at Stinson Beach and lifeguarded as a kid. In the CG, Rich was put in charge of a Coast Guard self righting surfboat that patrolled outside the Golden Gate in the vicinity of the infamous Potato Patch.

As a result, Rich grew intimately familiar with wave characteristics on the South Bar and was probably one of the first and only people to surf this area when it was knarly. Rich taught multi-hull enthusiast Arthur Piver the thrill of surfing the Potato Patch under sail, and the two of them would ride monster waves on Piver's trimaran.

Piver, a WW II fighter pilot, was a dreamer of sorts. Once he saw the speeds his trimaran was making taking off on some really big waves, out near the San Francisco Lightship, Piver's mind was truly blown. So was the Lightship crew, who would launch their lifeboat and try to discourage Piver with no effect.

Arthur Piver's dream became to sail one of his designs into the Southern Ocean, take off on a 40 foot Greybeard, and ride it around the world.

50 years after Arthur Piver disappeared off the California Coast in one of his trimaran designs, today's big multi-hulls are pretty much riding Southern Ocean storm waves around the world. Maybe not quite as Piver envisioned, but 30-35 knot average boat speeds is now being achieved crossing oceans.

 

[sleddog]

Back in the old days, February of 1967 to be exact, a 33 year old young man arrived in Santa Cruz and began working for Jack O’Neill. 47 years later, Rich Gerling stills works for O’Neill cleaning and maintaining the O’Neill building on the beach near the Crow’s Nest.

Most of us never see Rich as he maintains odd hours and performs his work duties mostly at night when the tourists have gone home. There are hundreds of us who owe at least part of our sailing skills to Rich Gerling.

O’Neill Yacht Center used to be an active chandlery and boat dealership offering sailboat rentals and lessons. Rich worked the sales counter, assembled Hobie Cats, commissioned keel boats, performed maintenance on the store and the building, and gave sailing lessons.

Rich Gerling grew up in Marin County and spent a lot of his early days on and near Stinson Beach. Rich was a life guard back when surfing was done on a board, “dope” was airplane glue and “joint” meant jail. Rich has never been interested in drugs and alcohol and considers both to be a shameful waste of time.

Along with surfing, Rich enjoyed racing hot rods up and down Mount Tamalpias
In Rich’s day a hot rod was usually a frame off some old car with seats and a motor cobbled together from another car. There were fewer vehicles on the road back then so it was not as risky, careless or dangerous to race up and down the mountain roads with reckless abandon as it would be today.

In 1959, Rich met a guy on the Sausalito waterfront who was building trimaran sailboats. The guy asked Rich if he wanted to go for a day sail. That day sail ended up being out the Golden Gate and around the Farallon Islands and back! Rich loved the way the trimaran sailed—it was very fast, surfing waves with little effort and there was no “tipping.”

Rich and Art Piver hit it off right away and Rich decided that afternoon that he was going to build one of these “funny, little boats.” Art built boats to his own designs and he made them using resin and fiberglass over plywood which was fairly modern in the early 1960s. Art shared a set of plans with Rich for a 24-footer, called a Piver Nugget.

Just out of the US Coast Guard and still attending the Academy of Art in San Francisco, Rich was very open to the adventure. Rich spent the next 14 months attending classes, working for the State Parks Service and building his little 24-foot Nugget. He christened it TRIUMPH.

It was 1961 and Piver had a plan to follow the Transpac fleet to Hawaii in his 35 foot, Lodestar to promote his boat designs. Rich’s parents supported his decision to sail his own 24-footer to Hawaii following Piver. Just a few days before his departure to San Pedro a guy named Ned Dwyer showed up at the waterfront with a guitar, a few cans of tuna and a jar of peanut butter. Rich enjoyed music, thought tuna was OK and he loved peanut butter. An instant friendship formed and Ned signed on to sail to Hawaii with Rich.

Both of them were novice sailors and they basically learned how to sail and how to navigate along the way. Just a few hours after the start of the Transpac, TRIUMPH
lost her leeward float hatch off the West End of Catalina Island. Rich and Ned turned back to Los Angeles to make a new one. Consequently, they lost two days and in addition, their passage to Hawaii was slow. The Oakland and San Francisco newspapers erroneously reported Rich and Ned missing and the US Coast Guard launched a search mission for both Piver and for Rich.

Piver had sailed too far into the Pacific High. Art had also over-hyped his trip before the start declaring that he could make the passage in just seven days. He showed up in Hawaii after 14 days reporting his only “emergency” was running out of chocolate cookies.

Rich and Ned showed up five days later. While they were “missing” they were, in fact, having the time of their lives. They had sailed out of the High and were experiencing beautiful sunsets and line squalls that left them surfing down giant, green swells during the day and silvery, moonlit swells at night.

TRIUMPH arrived in Honolulu with her crew wondering what all the fuss was about. Rich recently told me that when they arrived, officials and reporters were waiting to question and interview them. This did not upset Rich as much as his missing the hula girls and parties that greeted all of the official racing boats in typical Transpac fashion.

At the end of the summer Rich sold his boat in Hawaii and returned to the Bay Area. He went to work building boats with Piver. The two of them built a 38-foot tri named
BIRD which they shipped to Florida. Next they built Piver’s 33-foot, STILETTO, and sailed her from San Francisco to Florida though the Panama Canal. This was in the early 1960s before trimarans were well-proven and generally accepted. These guys were among the earliest pioneers of multi-hull sailing on the West Coast.

More on Rich Gerling and Art Piver ahead.

 

[sleddog]

Art Piver’s plywood trimarans were light, strong, and fast. One of the few times I’ve heard Rich brag is when he tells how he and Piver, just the two of them, lifted the main hull of the 33 foot STILETTO off a frame jig.

After a few years of boatbuilding Rich developed resin poisoning, got very sick, and had to stop working with Art Piver. This is when he decided to come to Santa Cruz in 1967.

Rich knew Jack O’Neill from San Francisco. He surfed with O’Neill when Jack had two eyes and a small surf shop on San Francisco's Ocean Beach.

The wetsuit wasn’t yet invented and Jack was experimenting with ways to keep warm in the cold Pacific Ocean waters. One method that failed was wearing a wool sweater under a rubber t-shirt. Jack’s experimentations eventually led him to use a surplus material leftover from the US Navy called neoprene, but that’s a whole other story, how Rich's friend Jack O'Neill invented the wet suit...

In the early days, O’Neill Yacht Center took up the entire bottom floor of the O’Neill building at Santa Cruz Harbor's East Beach. They sold boating supplies, Pearson Yachts, Hobie Cats and other new and used boats. Jack bought three Pearson Ensigns to use as rental boats and for sailing lessons.

Rich became one of Jack O'Neill's sailing instructors. O’Neill sailing students never got to use auxiliary power. They were taught to sail in and out of the slip regardless of wind and weather conditions. I’m sure Rich had something to do with that. Rich had little use for motors on sailboats.

The Ensign is well-balanced and many times in the 1970s you’d see Rich sailing on a Wednesday Night sitting on one of the mast spreaders, steering by leaning his weight to windward or to leeward.

At 6’2” with a deep salt water tan, barrel chest, bushy eyebrows, and a child’s twinkle in his eye, Rich could flirt (and still does) with any young lady.

In 1967 Rich bought a brand new Volkswagen van. That model year came with a 1600cc, dual port engine and disc brakes. Some VW enthusiasts will tell you it was the best year ever. Rich towed Hobie Cats back from LA in that van, slept in it at times, used it to launch and retrieve Ensigns at the launch ramp and drove the heck out of it. That same van served him until about 1997. Ten engines later, with over 1 million miles on the frame, and countless rolls of duct tape holding it together, that old van was fully used up by the time Rich gave it away.

Rich loves art and music and is an outstanding self taught musician, probably one of the best flautists and flute technicians on the Pacific Coast. He used to take a flute up the coast at low tide, climb into a sea cave and play. He always said it was better if there were sea lions in there to listen to him.

These days, as he has for many years, Rich volunteers as a music teacher for kids at Shoreline Middle School. He supports the middle school music program by moving equipment, tutoring students, fixing instruments, setting up concerts or building stage equipment, always for free. Rich collects bottles and cans for recycling, turning them into money that he uses to fix the instruments that the school system won’t. It’s not unusual for Rich to have dozens of bags of recycling piled up in his storage unit waiting to be turned into guitar strings, sheet music stands or reeds for the wind instruments.

Rich continues as maintenance and janitor at O'Neill's. He does not have a fixed address, but is not homeless. Rich just lives a different lifestyle, and his home is Santa Cruz, Planet Earth.

Quirky, caring, funny, and non-judgmental, Rich is the perfect big brother for young students and friend to all who take the time to introduce themselves. Carefree, kind, unassuming, tuned into nature and good to his word are a few other things that come to mind when I think of Rich Gerling.

And, next time you’re up the coast and hear flute music coming from a sea cave,
climb in, introduce yourself and you’ll meet one of the most interesting people I know.

 

[sleddog]

Christmas past in a foreign port. From WILDFLOWER's 1986-1987 Log:

Dec. 25 Isla Partida/ Espirtu Santo, MX. With passage of yesterday's cold front, we are tucked well up into the west portion of the Bay, 2 anchors to windward in 20'. Cold/ gusty from the northwest, 10-25..

As the eastern sky began to brighten, I rigged the Windsurfer with the 52(sq.feet.), donned red foulies, sea boots, and Santa's cap. Have a bunch of kid's presents aboard, never knowing what Mexican village we might anchor off.

0700 Filled the red Murphy and Nye sailbag with gifts, slung it over my shoulder, and took off across the Bay. There are about a dozen cruising boats anchored nearby, at least 7 w/ kids aboard.

As the sun rose over the red cliffs, I could see sleepy eyes peering out through cabin windows. Pretty soon, kids heads would pop out a hatch. "Mommy, Daddy, Santa's windsurfing!!

Careful to avoid whirring wind generators, I'd drop my mast and coast alongside to deliver presents...."HO HO HO Merry Christmas."

 

[BobJ]

I can sure see you doing that Sled. A happy Christmas to you!

 

[sleddog]

Weather comes, and weather goes. I happen to like my weather in color. A Christmas present to SSS friends: www.windyty.com is a tool that shows a living, breathing, delicious view of the world's wind patterns, both local and trans-ocean and forecasts along with optional overlays for everything from pressure, temperature, to humidity.

Windyty.com is both beautiful and useful. If I were a '15 LongPacker, I'd have Windyty in my weather arsenal. Did I mention I like color?

I'm not sure who recently created Windyty.com. But it is free, and one of those special things to be found on the Internet. http://vimeo.com/112849132

Thanks, VIXEN, in Sparks, NV. for your lead.

 

[Philpott]

Christmas past in a foreign port. From WILDFLOWER's 1986-1987 Log:

Dec. 25 Isla Partida/ Espirtu Santo, MX. With passage of yesterday's cold front, we are tucked well up into the west portion of the Bay, 2 anchors to windward in 20'. Cold/ gusty from the northwest, 10-25..

As the eastern sky began to brighten, I rigged the Windsurfer with the 52(sq.feet.), donned red foulies, sea boots, and Santa's cap. Have a bunch of kid's presents aboard, never knowing what Mexican village we might anchor off.

0700 Filled the red Murphy and Nye sailbag with gifts, slung it over my shoulder, and took off across the Bay. There are about a dozen cruising boats anchored nearby, at least 7 w/ kids aboard.

As the sun rose over the red cliffs, I could see sleepy eyes peering out through cabin windows. Pretty soon, kids heads would pop out a hatch. "Mommy, Daddy, Santa's windsurfing!!

Careful to avoid whirring wind generators, I'd drop my mast and coast alongside to deliver presents...."HO HO HO Merry Christmas."

Oh for a GoPro back then! And I'll bet you could do it again today, albeit a bit more carefully. Thank you for the smile, Skip! And Merry Christmas to you.

 

[Harrier]

Have anchored there several times, so easy to visualize your friendly antics, Skip. Merry Christmas from Harrier.
Ken

 

[chautauqua]

Love your ingenuity Skip. Same place a year later. We gave a bit of attitude adjustment to some local marauding teenagers who hand paddled out in the dark to our little CHAUTAUQUA. We surprised them with Banjo and Mando picking just as they were thinking we were not aboard, and instead invited them aboard. Sang songs with them, plied them with hot chocolate, cookies and oranges.... sent them back in their leaky dingy humming xmas carols. We all pretended that they had just come out to wish us a happy holiday.

 

[sleddog]

As kids, our father taught us coastal navigation. We learned to use a magnetic compass, WW II binoculars, parallel rules, a divider, and a mechanical Kenyon knotmeter that was a 6" bronze lever sticking out of the bottom of the L-36. Water pressure pressed the lever back against a spring that rotated a needle on a 10 knot scale on the back of the cabin. We learned anything the needle registered above 6 was "going good."

Later, we got an Apelco depth sounder that blinked a light on a calibrated circular window telling the depth. But the blinking light could rotate the window multiple times, and you never exactly knew if you were reading 60', 120', or 180'.

The first electronic "instrument" aboard HOLIDAY was an RDF (Radio Direction Finder). We learned to take a bearing on Point Loma or Point Arguello, and then a cross bearing on KFI on Mt. Wilson, or KBIG near Avalon. Radio Direction Finder bearings are none to accurate, with a 10-15 degree "null" being the norm.

LORAN, SatNav, and GPS were still in the future.

So we learned to hourly plot fixes, and estimated positions using DED Reckoning (Deduced, depth, and the bearing of prominent coastal features taken over the top of the steering compass.

Paper charts to us kids were like gold, with all sorts of possible coves to explore in the rowing dinghy. We learned to properly fold paper charts, to always measure distance from the side of the chart, and to always use the inner Compass Rose for dialing magnetic courses.

Paper charts are rapidly falling away. I have paper charts of much of the World, collected over years of sailor's garage sales and discarded commercial ship charts. Outdated paper charts are now more often used by the sailing public for Christmas present wrapping than actual plotting.

It's a whole new World of electronic navigation, one I'm not yet comfortable with, and may never be. I received a colorful 3" diameter World globe Christmas ornament. The Christmas ornament globe shows St.Brandon Island and the Cargados Carajos shoals, a 25 mile long archipelago of sand banks, shoals, reefs, and islets located near 16-32 S x 59-32 E in the West Indian Ocean.

WILDFLOWER's new Si-Tex SVS-460 Chartplotter, complete with internal GPS, Navionics World cartography, and 15 levels of Zoom, fails to show any land, reefs, or shoals at Cargados Carajos. Just a nice blue stretch of clear sailing, even at the highest level of zoom. http://www.defender.com/product.jsp?path=-1|344|2028688|2028743&id=2640139

I have mixed feelings of sympathy for the professional skipper, navigator, and crew of the Volvo Ocean Race 65 TEAM VESTAS WIND. Had they pulled out their paper chart, stowed under the nav station, and plotted even one fix, something we learned as kids, they would have seen the Cargados Carajos reefs up ahead.

TEAM VESTAS WIND's Navigator Wouter Verbaak relied on his electronic charts on his two computers. Nobody checked him. They ran their multi-million dollar race boat onto Cargados Carajos at night at 18 knots, narrowly avoiding loss of life.

The full story is yet to come out. But I'm betting Navionics is hustling to put the Cargados Carajos shoals on all their chart updates, at all Zoom levels. I'll loan them my Christmas ornament.

If you are crossing oceans, or using electronic charts for coastal navigation, what you see isn't always what you get. I'll bet there are hundreds, if not thousands of uncharted hazards waiting to be accurately painted onto electronic charts.

Caveat Emptor.

 

[Harrier]

Amen to that, Skip! First time I made a 3000nm passage to Nuku Hiva I had a compass, sextant, wrist watch, a Radio Shack recvr which gave me time hacks and some aural weather. 30 days after departing LA, the island showed up as expected at 1 o'clock off my bow. Oh, and I had a complete set of charts for the various South Pacific islands I planned to visit. Nice to see that island show up as it was supposed to! There are some shoals north of the Marquesas that were on my charts. I wonder if they are on the electronic gizmos...???

 

[sleddog]

Hi, HARRIER! WF's mini-chartplotter would likely get me safely to the Marquesas. But sailing back from Fr.Polynesia to Hawaii without paper might could be dicey. The installed Navionics cartography takes six levels of zoom before either Caroline Island (9-52.356 S x 150-05.500 W) or Flint Island (11-22.423 S x 151-42.932 W) appears at the 25 mile scale. Neither is named.

On paper, Int. Chart 607, of SE French Polynesia, Caroline and Flint are both charted and named on the 1:3,500,000 Scale (1,200 mile)

Caroline is an interesting place to visit, with a reef anchorage seldom visited by yachties. I'd hate to be shipwrecked there. Coconuts but no water. Plenty of crabs and sharks.

Closer to home, if you were sailing well offshore down the Baja Coast, you might encounter Rocas Alijos. These spectacular volcanic islets arise suddenly from 1,000' depths. The top of an ancient volcano, the Alijos have been charted since 1598, but no one even tried to climb the 111' South Alijos until 1990.

I believe SSS supporter Sue, of CLOUD, has dived at Rocas Alijos, so she would know what that's like. As for me, on my Navionics "Gold" North America Chart Card, Rocas Alijos don't show up until zooming in 9 levels, at the 1 mile scale. Ouch. Better take an AAA road map if sailing without paper charts down the Baja. AAA knows the whereabouts of Rocas Alijos.

 

[Harrier]

Roger on Rocas Alijos. I've usually plotted them and then steered well away. Just for entertainment, I once deliberately steered to approach them closely and was able to get a good look. Supposed to be good diving, but I saw no way to anchor so I could try it out. Happy New Year from South Carolina to all my Calif sailing friends!