Black dust in the engine well

Do you ever notice black dust in the engine well or scattered round the engine compartment? If you do, it is more likely than not, due to extra wear on the drive belt connecting alternator to crank shaft. It may be that there may be misalignment, the belt may be rubbing against something or if belt tension is too loose, it may be slipping. Check the alignment with a straight edge; check the tension – the engine manual should give guidance as to how much slack there should be, and if needs be take up this slack. Has, at some stage, the wrong size belt been fitted? There is just the possibility that the belt may be too narrow for the grooves on the pulley wheels, it may be abrading on the grooves and the next item on the repair list is to fit a replacement belt. Well worth a check if you see signs of wear.

Rigging failure

How many skippers have run through in their mind what to do if they have a rigging failure and a shroud parts? I am a great believer in the “what if?” syndrome and always talk through the possible emergencies when teaching. One needs to be careful about being a doom and gloom merchant, but if crew have been talked through the major dangers of fire, explosion, man overboard, collision, grounding, mast down and abandon ship in a sensible and balanced fashion, they will be encouraged to follow the same guidelines when chartering or owning themselves. How many owners have a set of bulldog clips on board? A range of sizes to cover repair of stays and shrouds, cable controlled wheel steering systems and suchlike should be included in the inventory of the prudent boat owner. This way, if a check of standard rigging is made, a potential fracture may be spotted in sufficient time to rig the bulldog clips and prevent a serious accident happening. On a recent delivery trip, I was inspecting the standing rigging, prior to leaving, through binoculars and noticed from the deck that the wire halyard to the headsail was more than 50% chafed through. A quick hand swage repair prevented what could have been a serious incident.

Blocking up holes

Those of us who sail long distances always gather bits and pieces over time and many skippers have numerous plastic boxes full of those items which just cannot be thrown away because they may be useful in an emergency or for a simple repair. Reading through some magazine articles the other day, I was surprised to see an author in his list of “lessons learnt” say that he would, in future, carry some wooden bungs in case of another incident of holing from grounding on rock. This is basic safety equipment, and though maybe not rated as important as a lifejacket or harnesses, no yacht should go to sea without something to block up a hole quickly.

Care for jackstays

Do you have tape jackstays which may have been lying on deck for some time? Have they ever been removed and washed? These jackstays are, to my mind, far better than those made of wire, because unlike webbing stays they will not roll underfoot. However the tape variety will degrade in sunlight. Ideally the tape versions should be taken off and stowed below when the boat is not in use. A simple method of attachment is to cow- hitch one end to a strong point forward, say a mooring cleat; and with a lanyard, tension the other end aft. It will then not take too long to remove or fit the jackstays.

Lessons from a long passage

Our plan during the middle of November was to make a long passage out into the western approaches to the Channel, and perhaps pop into a port or two on the north Brittany coast. We had on board, three boat owners, one with a 22 footer kept in Boston, another with a Sadler 32 kept also on the east coast, and a third who owned a Dehler 34 moored in the Solent. All were looking for the chance to get some experience and add some miles to their log books for eventual Yachtmaster Offshore, though one said he was more interested in having some fun. The forecast was bloody, f8’s and 9’s from the south west were to prevail for the first two days, so we spent some time playing in the Solent and fighting wind and tides. There seemed a bit of a break in the weather coming up on the Wednesday, so we planned on sailing round the Isle of Wight, leaving Yarmouth with the last of the ebb, so that on turning round the Needles we would have wind and tide both going with us.

There were two major lessons which came out of this trip. The first was lookout with buoy identification. It is so easy, if you are not following a properly prepared pilotage plan, to assume that a buoy in the distance is the one you are looking for. As we came down to the Shingles Elbow red buoy just northeast of the entrance to the Needles channel, there were occasional squalls of rain which reduced visibility a bit, but not so much that buoys could not be picked out with binoculars. However the skipper for the day did not check the buoy colour or shape properly, and assumed it to be the Bridge westerly cardinal. As a result, a course steered to put this red buoy on our port side would have placed us close to the breakers on the Shingle Bank, but luckily we correctly identified the mark, and then picked up the cardinal. The lesson brought home in such a situation as this, is to have your plan properly prepared with courses and distances between navigation marks. If needs be, zero the trip log at each mark and always try to be one jump ahead of yourself when piloting. What I mean by this, is to identify the next mark but one when eyeballing the yacht in and out of harbour. If any of you would like a beginner’s guide to preparing a pilotage plan, email me and I will send you a copy of my notes. My contact details are available on my website: Arrow Yacht Enterprises.

When I have experienced skippers on board, I let them prepare and execute their plans without my input, unless something is going to go pear shaped. We had rounded St Catherine’s Point and had a strong spring flood pushing us along; we were sailing with just one third headsail and two reefs in the mizzen, making 6 – 7 knots through the water, and sometimes up to 9 knots over the ground. David was doing the navigation for the day and was quite relaxed about it all. It was he who had come along for the fun! The wind was up in the 20 – 25 knots range so we were making good progress, but it was quite clear that if we did not harden up in the SW wind fairly soon, we would end up being taken a lot further east than would have been good for us, and would have ended up with quite a beat back into Portsmouth. Rex, who had a lot less experience than the others on board, had clearly taken in what he had learnt during his theory courses, and pointed out what the tide was doing to us, and what the end result would be. David saw the wisdom of Rex’s point, and we hardened up and sailed on that point of sail all the way to the entrance to Portsmouth. The lesson here is to make use of your instruments, monitor your course over the ground (COG) and speed over the ground (SOG) and deduce what is happening to you. A quick estimated position (EP) on the chart will tell you what is going to happen to you in two hours time and often will save a lot of unnecessary sailing, particularly if you are trying to make that pub for supper or a pint before closing time!

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!)?

Some thoughts after a Yachtmaster Assessment

During a Yachtmaster preparation course a few months back, two of the three candidates were well up to the required standard and both passed. The third came to me with misgivings on the Wednesday, saying that he was not happy about his boat handling and thought he should have more practice before taking the assessment. I thought he was up to the required standard and told him so. I seem to have given the chap confidence, so he said he would have a go at the exam. We had, in fairness to this candidate, some strong winds during the Monday and Tuesday of the preparation week and it had not been easy to park the boat on finger pontoons with a strong cross wind; but the other two had managed successfully. The third candidate had made two Atlantic crossings and had spent most of his time in either the Mediterranean or Caribbean, he had been crew and mate of a large charter yacht, but had rarely been behind the helm for close quarter manoevres, and was understandably a little lacking in confidence in strong tide and wind conditions.

The examiner arrived on board and candidate 3 decided to be first with the assessment. A safety briefing was given, followed by preparing a passage plan to take us from Gosport to Cowes, setting off about 9.30 pm. The examiner ordered that the GPS be turned off.

The first point I would like to emphasize here is that a Yachtmaster is not expected to buoy hop down the Solent to get from A to B. Reduction of soundings exercises should be carried out to ascertain the rise of tide at a particular time. A Yachtmaster then can see if there is sufficient water over a shallow which will allow him to cut a corner safely and, if needs be, save time on passage. He should then be able to shape a course to his destination, providing there is sufficient water over the shallows. By all means use buoys to help on position finding and to help keep a check on progress. The trouble with candidate 3 was that he followed the ferry route out of Portsmouth harbour when we were close to HW; he took as his departure point one of the port hand buoys close to the small boat channel, but failed to make a log entry of time, log reading and course steered. Not being familiar with the Solent, the candidate then started heading for the north beacon off Wootton Creek thinking it was north Sturbridge, the two are in fact nearly three miles apart. Shortly after that he admitted he was lost.

I have always encouraged any navigator who is lost or confused to stop the boat and gain time to gather his thoughts. This can be by heaving to, putting down the anchor or taking down the sails and motoring into wind or tide so that there is the least amount of speed over the ground. This the candidate sensibly did, but was a trifle nonplussed with being lost and having difficulty in locating lights which could be recognized on the chart.

See my tips on the man overboard procedure we practiced.

GPS accuracy

Are you happy with your GPS accuracy? If you have doubts, it may be worthwhile checking whether you have the correct datum entered in your set. A useful accuracy check is to compare GPS ranges, for example, between waypoints with some on the chart.

Mooring – ropes

When mooring to a quay or pontoon be aware that others may need to use the pontoon as well. How often do we come to moor and find a mass of rope on the cleats? Bowlines or round turns and half hitches should be used to make fast to the cleat, ring or bollard on shore, and the bights made fast on board, each one on a cleat, post or whatever there is to hand AND each one able to be eased under load.

Follow the maxim that there should be one rope for each job with the ends made fast on the pontoon/quay or whatever.  This way you will have shown consideration for others and been seamanlike.