The Art of Plotting a Course

I am thinking ahead to the late winter and early spring when I shall be taking some budding Magellans across the Channel and down to the North coast of Brittany and back.   On these passages, the navigators will be planning their courses to steer over legs of 60M+ (good opportunity for those aiming for the Yachtmaster Offshore ticket).  I have found a number of times that the art of planning a course to steer has been forgotten, or skippers have never been taught a simple method.  Reliance on GPS, chart plotters and all the modern electrickery on boats now is all very well; but have you planned what to do if your main electrics fail, the hand held GPS’ batteries are dead and there are no spares?  For any passage across the Channel I plan my course to steer by working out the total set/drift of tides in a westerly direction and then in an easterly direction and subtract the smaller total from the larger.  This then gives me a total push in one direction, which I use to shape my course to steer.  I have a simple form which I use, not my design, but imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and I am sure the originator of this form would not object to my plagiarism!
If any of you are about to embark on a cross channel trip and would like a copy of my guide, email me and I will send it to you (instructor@sail-help.co.uk).   I also have a simple mathematical method of interpolating between springs and neaps which avoids using the graphs included inside the front covers of tidal stream atlases.   Alternatively if you would like to join me on my Easter or Whit Sunday cross Channel cruises, send an email.

Taking a group of budding Yachtmaster Offshore candidates the other week, I was surprised to find one had never conducted a pilotage exercise to take a boat into a river or port at night.  I believe that it is important that both competent crew and day skippers should experience sailing at night.  What happens to a day skipper who charters a boat and has no idea of how to safely navigate himself, boat and crew into a haven, particularly if something has delayed the daytime passage

Have you ever thought of retrieving someone from the water using a headsail sheet?  This is not the easiest recovery method in rough weather, but is feasible particularly if you have no other means.  A lot will depend on how many are on board your boat, their strength, how strong the casualty is and in what stage of hypothermia he could be.   The method can only be used on a sailing boat which is rigged with a furling headsail.    The sail must be furled away, and the sheet should be unrigged from any turning blocks or cars but remain attached to the headsail and led back to a cockpit winch.   A bight of this sheet should be lowered into the water in which the man overboard places a foot.  He can use part of this bight to haul himself up so that he can grab the toerail.  Then, with the sheet taken directly onto one of the primary winches, the casualty holding onto the toerail and with his foot in the bight, a member of the crew can be wind him up onto the deck.  Once close to the toerail, the casualty, with self preservation foremost in his mind, will be able to grab a stanchion or the toerail, or proffered arms and haul himself onto the side deck.  I hope that the photo taken in the quiet confines of a marina shows enough for you to get the idea; note that the lady with the safety line to the casualty is not part of the rescue operation.

The last three month’s tips have shown you some ways of recovering someone from the water, in all cases the method has been dependent on the casualty being conscious.  Have you a preferred method of recovery?  What would you do if the person who fell overboard was unconscious?  How will you secure him alongside, how will you get a line round him, and how will you recover him?   Man overboard is close to the top of the list of the worst things which can happen to a skipper.   Have you thought through how you would deal with such an emergency?

Fire! Or just an old starter motor…

I experienced my first, what seemed to be initially, on board fire a fortnight ago and it was certainly educational.  I hope it will be the last.  I was giving some own boat tuition to the owner on his four year old Beneteau, and we were coming into Ocean Village Marina in Southampton a little before midnight having completed a night pilotage exercise.  The owner had piloted us up to the entrance to the marina and taken over the helm.  There were four other crew on board, and they were ready with warps and a couple of wandering fenders as we came in to the outside visitors’ pontoon.  The wind was coming from the south west, so it was on our port quarter, and when we were literally 10 yards from the pontoon, thin blackish grey smoke started rising up from the companionway.  The owner saw the smoke first and shouted “Fire, fire, fire”.  I told him to get the boat alongside, whilst I tackled the fire.  Luckily I knew there was a fire extinguisher at the base of the companionway steps, and taking a deep breath, I went down below, grabbed the fire extinguisher and opened up the smallest side hatch to the engine compartment.  More thin blackish grey smoke came out, but not much, and there were no signs of any flames, luckily.  By now the engine had stopped and the smoke became less, so we opened up all the portlights and got a good breeze going through the boat and the smoke cleared pretty quickly.   One of the crew had the presence of mind to grab a fire extinguisher from the cockpit locker, and had waited at the top of the companionway in case it was needed.  No doubt readers will think that our actions were precipitate, but there were a number of relevant factors:

• The smoke was not all that thick and it did not appear to me to be fire driven; luckily I was correct in this assumption.
• The engine had not died on us and we assumed that the fire was not fuel fed.
• The automatic fire extinguisher had not gone off, so the heat was less than one would have expected.

The owner then carried out a detailed examination of the engine and found that the starter motor was extremely hot.  We called in a marine engineer the next day and the diagnosis was simple.  The bendix on the starter motor had failed to disengage from the fly wheel, and with the engine running the starter motor became a second alternator and overheated to such an extent that it produced the clouds of smoke.  We were lucky that it happened so close to the marina, and with plenty of light to see the nature of the smoke.

Two further interesting things came out of this incident.  The smoke alarms in the cabins either side of the engine did not go off until well after the smoke had filled the cabins, which made me think they were just about useless.  I suspect that in this field “you gets what you pays for”, and more expensive alarms than those sold at your average DIY stores may be a worthwhile investment.  The second point is what the marine engineer said, and he had been on a special “starter motor” course.  He told me that this was not an unusual occurrence, and he advised that starter motors should be taken off engines and the lubrication checked to ensure that the bendix worked properly.  He recommended that this was done annually.  I wonder what other marine engineers think of this advice.

We sailed from Yarmouth that evening and had a good SW wind the whole way, so we managed a reach for most of the trip.  Those of you who sail in the Solent well know that there are unlit buoys on the starboard side of Southampton water which need to be avoided.   This is where it is important that you have some navigational tool to ensure you go nowhere near these buoys; either a transit or a clearing bearing is the answer, and I believe that the latter would be the better in these circumstances.   Some might use a clearing depth contour line, but I feel the clearing bearing is simpler and needs less calculation.   The other thing I do is to have someone up in the bow with a powerful spotlight, to light up any unlit buoys which may be on the route.  All very well, I hear some of you saying, but when beating and the weather is bloody, it is not much fun.  All I say in answer to that is, “What is more important, a bit of comfort or the safety of the boat and crew?”

If there are any of you out there who are not sure about how to set up and use a clearing bearing, email me and I will send you a little brief on how to do this. My contact details are available on my webiste: Arrow Yacht Enterprises

Man overboard procedure

Whilst preparing for a Yachtmaster exam we practised man overboard procedures under power and sail. The helm’s reactions will depend much on the prevailing conditions but I am a great believer in heaving to almost immediately the cry of “Man/fender/bucket overboard” goes up. Because of the design of Arrow, her size and keel and rudder configuration, it is very easy to heave to and steer straight back to the casualty in the water. It is also easy for a quick witted crew to reach down and grab the casualty with a boat hook or, if it were a real someone, to get a line to them. If the helm has misjudged the heaving to and getting back, the casualty’s position can be marked with a danbuoy and horseshoe buoy in the water nearby, and I have 11 cockpit cushions which can then be tossed overboard to give some form of a line back to somewhere reasonably close to the casualty. After the marking of the location the sails can be doused, and the casualty approached under power from a down wind position.

I always maintain that it is more difficult to recover someone from the water than it is to get back to them. Much will depend on the circumstances, but it is possible that a casualty could be hyperventilating and almost unable to help himself. So have you owners and skippers a plan for these circumstances? What would you do if the casualty in the water was unconscious? This is the worst situation in bad weather, and I keep a dry suit on board, which I reckon I can get on in about two minutes. Once hove to, and hopefully the casualty secured alongside, I plan to go into the water to get him out with either a tribuckle or a 6:1 tackle which is permanently rigged on a spinnaker or mizzen halyard ready for such an emergency. Some of you would argue that I am potentially doubling the problem; my criterion is to have a plan to recover somebody as quickly as possible. What is your plan? Have you thought it through in detail? Will your wife be able to get you out or just thankful that she increased the sum assured on your life policy last week (Mrs Sticky is quite busy at the moment!)?

Going up the mast

Do you ever have to go up the mast? On a recent 5 week delivery trip from Levkas to Dartmouth I had to go up four times, three in harbour and once at sea when a hand swage made four days before broke.

Have you ever tried this in the relevant calm of the harbour?

Do you wear a safety harness as well as the bosun’s chair?

How many crew do you have on winches, winding and tailing? Ideally it should be three, one pair to take you up and a third dealing with the reserve line to your harness.

How do you take up the necessary tools?

Some bosun’s chairs have pockets for tools and this can be convenient; but if you fail to take up all you need when you first go up and you attach a bucket which can be lowered for forgotten items, you do at least save yourself and perhaps, more importantly, your crew the chore of being lowered and raised a second time. Always make sure your crew stand clear once you are working with tools on the mast or rigging; a serious accident will be avoided should a tool be dropped by mistake.

Welcome, let me introduce myself

Welcome to Sticky’s Tips, the blog site of Richard Chetwynd Stapylton.

A bit about me…

I have been a trainer and teacher throughout my life, and am a Royal Yachting Association (RYA) qualified Yachtmaster Instructor, Yachtmaster Ocean Instructor and authorised to teach the Short Range Certificate to qualify students in the use of VHF radio. I have sailed the South China Sea, the Arabian Gulf, the Red and Mediterranean seas and the Atlantic Ocean. However, the majority of my sailing has been in the English Channel, with regular trips to south Brittany, the Bristol Channel and Eire.

In these pages, I’ll try to share my sailing know-how, hints and tips and the occasional tale of the high seas.

I run my own sailing school, Arrow Yacht Enterprises, so don’t forget to have a look at my website: www.sail-help.co.uk