Capt. Dan's Southern California Sailing Charters - Sailing in the Channel Islands

Too fat to float

OK. The Surgeon General says we’re too fat. It’s his business to keep track of our health. But now the Coast Guard?

Eat Drink & Sail!

I wish I had someone else’s picture for this, but all the ones I found were too insulting or showed fatalities. So I used my own, and by God, I’m going on a diet.

Here’s the deal — the Coast Guard has changed the calculation for carrying capacity raising the assumed weight of passengers to 185 pounds. According to Soundings, since 1960 the assumed weight had been 160 pounds.

The call for change stemmed from two boating tragedies. In March 2004, a pontoon water taxi called Lady D overturned in Baltimore Harbor with 25 aboard. Five people died; four were severely injured.

In October 2005, a monachal called Ethan Allen sunk in 70 feet of water on Lake George in New York while carrying 49 passengers. Twenty elderly people died.

This doesn’t affect cruise ships or recreational boats, but does impact so called T boats. One Miami cruise operator points to his craft, which before the modification was allowed to carry 49 passengers and is now limited to 35.

Though we haven’t heard of a Fat Patrol, it’s not a stretch to imagine that Harbor Patrols will start looking a bit more closely at boats that are riding low in the water.

Tags: to fat too float

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Dec 17 2011

Santa Ana winds — sailing the margin

Published by Capt. Dan under Oxnard,safety,Sail Channel Islands,weather

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Santa Ana winds roar through Oxnard Plane

Santa Ana winds roar through Oxnard Plain

Santa Ana winds regularly whip through this area about this time of year. But you don’t have to quit sailing just because the wind is out of the east.

NOAA doesn’t call all easterlies, not even all strong easterlies, Santa Anas. I’m not sure what NOAA’s Santa Ana criteria are, but looking at the Sailflow chart, you can figure out that the heart of this thing is moving along at 30 knots.

That’s not a lot, especially not when you consider that historically these winds have clocked in near 100 mph (NOAA thinks mostly about effects over land, hence mph rather than knots.)

Yesterday’s Sailflow looked about the same as this morning’s. It was a warm — better than summer — day here in Oxnard and we were eager to sail. So off we went.

As we reported yesterday on Facebook, it was a rip-snortin’ day, but on reflection, there were some lessons to take aboard for the next bout of Santa Anas …. which happen to be lashing the palm trees right now.

Sailflow was exactly correct: the winds were NE and not affecting Channel Islands Harbor. We started out on a broad reach heading south. We were in the yellow band — the margin of the flow. We saw winds in the 20 regime, but what is weird and dangerous in the margin is that the air is very turbulent and wind direction and velocity swing wildly. We saw 20 from the NE and then a 10 second calm, when the windex did a 360 and then 15 knots out of the NW.

That happened over and over: the water would boil with short period gusts and we’d get ready for a forced jibe, then it’d settle down and we’d be rocking along on an 8 knot sprint.

We had a great time: starboard rail in the water and almost instantly a lull was followed by a wind shift that put the port rail in the water.

Great fun, actually. Had we wanted more consistent wind, we could have sailed a bit more to the south and had all the NE flow we could stand, or we could have sailed north into more consistent (though still gusty) W to NW winds. In the gusty region we explored, we elected to keep the main in pretty tight, mostly because we were uncertain that we would be able to predict when the boat might jibe. We also remained scrupulously clear of the boom.

Only two other sailboats were out there with us, but they returned early. One looked like a Hunter with a jammed main furler. The other guys just quit.

Our helmsman was worn out at the end of three hours and we replenished our strength at the Lookout, where they tapped a new keg of IPA for us.

Altogether, a very satisfying day on the water.

Tags: Santa Ana wind

Dec 12 2011

Landing Cove, Anacapa Island added to Sail Channel Islands Cruising Guide

Published by Capt. Dan under Channel Islands,environment,flora and fauna,navigation,Sail Channel Islands

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Landing Cove at the far east end of Anacapa Island is the only place that you can gain access to the east island. Most days, it’s pretty difficult to get there in a kayak or dinghy because there is usually a pronounced swell, which makes getting into and out of — but particularly into — a small boat very tricky.

You’ll likely find yourself dropping the hook in 50′ of water. And even at that depth, your boat is going to be very close to the bluffs. I think it prudent to keep qualified boat driver aboard at all times when anchored here.

Tags: anchorage, channel islands national park

Nov 29 2011

Santa Ana winds coming to Oxnard, Ventura, LA

Published by Capt. Dan under weather

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Santa Ana depiction Thursday night

Gusts to 60 Wed to Friday. The Oxnard Plain really lights up Thursday night.

Read the detailed NOAA warning.

Tags: high water, Santa Ana winds, wind warning

Nov 24 2011

You probably don’t care much about the perigean tide

Published by Capt. Dan under astronomy,grounding,navigation,weather

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Yesterday the moon was the closest it gets to the earth– 359691 km and today there is a New Moon.

So what(?) you say

Since you’ll most likely be home and not near or on a boat, a mighty shrug is all you need to convey your interest. But if you are near the water, you’ll see the greatest tidal range. In our marina, the low tides will find a few boats sitting comfortably on the bottom for a couple of hours. Look for masts canted to one side or the other, those are the ones in the mud.

We really don’t worry much about tides here. Our range is skimpy compared to much of the world — somewhere in the six foot range on a full or new moon, but for the next day or so it’ll be closer to nine feet, with the low a foot and half below datum (-1.55).

Low tide -1.55

It’ll be a good idea to favor the center of the channel and keep a closer eye on the fathometer as you transit near shore.

But what’s the problem with high tide? How can that cause a problem?

Hi tide +7.14

It’s a low probability worry, but a little surge could turn these floating docks in to, well, boats. That was one of the big factors in boat destruction in Florida in the last big hurricane.

The Florida disaster wasn’t because of a perigean tide, but it’s easy to see that the risk of having the marina drift off to sea is higher on these days.

Without mentioning all of these facts, NOAA has compressed it all into a coastal flood warning for today. They’re not forecasting much flooding, fortunately. We wouldn’t want to have to scramble to get underway with turkey on the table.

Hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving. You probably don’t care that this is my favorite holiday, but it is, principally because there is no holiday song that must be sung today.

BTW — there’s a hybrid solar eclipse, but we won’t see it.

pics by Capt. Rob of R Escape

Tags: perigean tide, tides