Umbrellas and Whistles

Sticky’s Tips No 109 August 2010
Umbrella
I searched on the internet for the list of least useful items to be found on a yacht and came up with the following:
Wheelbarrow
Spirit level
Bananas
Grand piano
Royal Navy Officer
Motor cycle
Umbrella
The wheelbarrow, though difficult to stow except on a largish boat, could well help with getting provisions delivered. The spirit level, during maintenance, could be useful in getting the water line correctly positioned. Bananas make other fruit ripen quickly, so they could be useful too. On the other hand you may, on a long passage, not wish your fruit to ripen too quickly. I have seen an upright piano installed in a 40’ yacht a few boat shows ago, though never heard of a grand piano except on boats of considerable size. Modern bicycles now can be fitted with electric motors, so maybe a folding bike taken on a yacht could be termed a motor cycle. I have sailed with quite a few RN officers and have found them to be just as good as the next man, some even better, either as skipper or member of the crew. The umbrella has a real use on board. A good strong golfing umbrella can be put to good use to keep the rain off, particularly in the dinghy, but most importantly for me, it acts as an excellent safety net to catch any screws, nuts, washers et al when working on any part of the boat which has no deck underneath. I was helping a friend fit out his new Elan 434 and was installing the bracket on which the horseshoe buoy was to be fixed. The boat was on the hard and a search for anything dropped would probably have found it in time. Yes I did drop a nut and you can see from the photo that the umbrella did save a trip to the ground and search for the lost item. If we had been afloat the nut would have been lost forever.

Anchoring
Before going into an anchorage, do you work out how much chain you need to lay out or do you make a guestimate? If you are staying overnight, it is essential that you work out what the least depth of water there is going to be at low water so that you do not ground You must also have an idea of the amount of scope to lay out, not only so that you have sufficient chain on the sea bed, but also so that there is no chance of swinging close to another moored boat. Always remember to add the freeboard (height of bow roller above the surface of the sea) of your boat to the maximum water depth needed, multiplying this by the relevant factor dependent on the likely wind and tide strengths, the size and weight of boat, anchor tackle and the nature of the sea bed. A look at the chart in well surveyed areas will give you an idea of the nature of the sea bed and it is worth knowing which “soils” hold well and which do not:
Poor Thin sand, weed, gravel, shells
Medium Soft sand, soft mud
Good Most sand and mud
Excellent Dense sand and mud, clay
Crew Briefing
What are your most important items to be covered in the initial crew briefing? I like to know if anyone has a medical problem, this can be mentioned in advance or via a booking form if the individual does not wish to talk about it in the rest of the crew’s hearing. The other important items to be covered initially are:
Lifejackets Cooker Lookout
1st Aid kit Radio Sea sickness
The heads Keeping warm Heeling for newcomers
One hand for yourself and one for the boat

Whistle
Not all yachts have a windvane or automatic pilot, and on long passage you may need to alert the sleeping watch below. The whistles on lifejackets never seem much up to the job of waking the dead, anyway it is quite a kerfuffle extracting them from the folds of the lifejacket. I have an Acme Thunderer from my days as a soldier; this whistle, made in Birmingham, like a lot of good solid English products of its time, could be heard above the noise of battle by those who needed to hear at a good 100 yards or more and apparently you can still buy them, from Mr Amazon (about a fiver), and they are still made in this country, at least according to their inscription.