Our Santa Cruz Island eaglets are growing fast, and, as I wrote to one of my shipmates I saw yesterday that the chicks are learning some manners, dodging out of 26′s way as she settled into the nest in the afternoon.
Those chicks are not pretty kids. They’ve gone from being really grotesque at hatching, to ungainly, to homely and they’re now on their way to becoming adults when they will be awfully foreboding.
I think the Muppets ruined the grandeur and majesty of eagles for me.
Fasten your seatbelts
Anyhow, the dear little things have discovered their wings, and Rocket #1 here is flapping those little stubs. He didn’t get much altitude – exactly zero – but he did get some crash landing practice has he rocked over on his face.
They’re getting more entertaining. Tune in before they fly away.
Winter rains have broken dormancy on an unusual number of wildflowers this year. Though not the “best ever,” it is still in the great experiences category.
Add to that a plethora of whales – Island Packer Captains are reporting up to 30 sightings a day of Grays and Humpbacks and a profusion of dolphins – estimated in the 2500 range – each day.
If you’re unable to make it to the islands this weekend, head to the National Park Service Headquarters in Ventura Harbor. They’ve got a nice little garden of island natives that is exploding with color. In fact, that’s where many of these pictures come from.
Chris Tucker in his Sailtime Blog has some great pictures of a near disaster this weekend in Channel Islands harbor. He makes an excellent case for having a PLAN B when things don’t go as planned.
Chris points out that these guys probably could have avoided scaring the hell out of themselves and damaging their boat if they’d had PLAN B.
I submit that if they’d had PLAN ZERO and PLAN A, they might not have found themselves in distress at all.
PLAN ZERO?
That’s basic training – knowing your boat and knowing how to handle it in all sorts of weather. PLAN ZERO also includes basic weather watching and presail preparation and establishing Go/NO-Go criteria.
Look at Chris’ picture. Does that snarly water on the outside of the jetty look like a place for a 22′ boat? Only on a bet, a dare or if the captain is drunk.
Could the crew in question have known that the weather was going to be snarly? Maybe they did check the forecast. Maybe it was wrong. Maybe they got fooled.
Hindsight tells us they should have reefed before they headed back in. Maybe they didn’t know how; maybe the boat wasn’t rigged for it.
While we’re here, talking about downwind survival tactics, I strongly disagree with Chris when he says
A good plan B could have included releasing the main and jib sheets prior to running into the rocks.
When you’re off the wind releasing the mainsheet will just drive the sail against the spreaders. You can’t simply “luff out” the main at that point. You’ve got to head up, too.
We make that point in training when we’re landing the Capri 22 with a 90 degree crosswind. If you parallel the dock with a 90 degree crosswind, the sail will be driven into the spreaders and you’ll be powered up and off to the races once more. Better to learn that in calm seas with 8 knots rather than 20.
What else could they have done to avoid being the butt of jokes and blogs and Monday-morning-skippers?
The textbooks says you can depower off the wind by releasing the vang. That’ll twist off some wind, but I doubt that would have done much good under these conditions. You can also bring the main all the way in – the opposite of what you do to gain speed downwind. Finally, and this would have been my choice if I could not reef the main, I would drop it and sail on jib only. The Capri and Catalina 22 handle quite nicely on jib alone. (Small Hunters, too.) I’d also start the engine on any boat. The surge coming around the breakwater can round you up quite smartly even in moderate winds. You can probably sail out of that, but the engine gives you maneuverability insurance.
PLAN C – drop everything and motor in.
PLAN D – when the seas are too high to proceed downwind i.e. you’re frequently rounded up even after reefing or the surge near the breakwater is too large, you forereach until conditions settle. And that may be a while.
Lifejackets. Chris’ report says this crew put them on but only after they were in trouble. My PLAN ZERO says my crew and I wear lifejackets any time we’re underway. Your PLAN ZERO should include a time to put on lifejackets. My specific lifejacket event is getting underway, yours might be with the occurrence of some other event, say when you decide to reef or when you take the first wave over the bow or when your wife starts wimpering.
It would be interesting to know what sort of training this crew has had and what they discussed before they threw off the docklines.
If you have comments on the incident, please write them below. Your additional points will do the most good if everyone can see them here.
We board Sancerre in a couple of hours and will be off until Sunday to Santa Cruz Island with artist David Gallup, the Bosun, Marcella and David’s personal chef.
You can get an idea of what we’ll be seeing if you visit David’s site, where you will see some of his best work. Of course, the renderings on the internet do not give the full effect of his work. You have to go to the gallery for that. He posts his showings on the site. At the moment, the Orcas I’ve attached here are living at the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum. It’s worth the trip to experience this picture.
If wind and weather permit, we’ll head to Pelican this afternoon (Wed.) and be on our way to Painted Cave before dawn on Thursday … unless we turn lazy. After that, who knows?
In addition David’s capturing new scenes and sights at the islands, he’ll be giving painting tips to the Bosun’s daughter Marcella. She’s a budding artist, musician and all-around very bright kid.
The crew, of course, will sanitize its language for this adventure.
F/V Lady Frances aground at Smugglers. USCG photo.
It’s been a tough fishing season for the squid fleet and brisk business for Channel Watch Marine, the local Vessel Assist team. Lady Frances, above, is in the shipyards now, but not for repair. She’ll be cut up and most likely end up in a landfill. Another squid boat nearly sank due to rusted welds in the shaft log, and Donz Rig, another squid lightboat, nearly sank in Channel Islands Harbor last week.
Donz Rig in Bellport Marine Anacapa Shipyard. photo: capt. dan
Lessons for the rest of us
The near sinking of Donz Rig brings home a couple of valuable lessons. According to the owner, the captain got underway in fog that reduced visibility to 100-200 feet in Oxnard’s Channel Islands Harbor. He was the lone crew, and, as he neared the detached breakwater, the fog thickened and visibility was further reduced. The captain estimated he could see 25-50 feet. Unsure of his position, he was at idle and dead slow when he clipped the breakwater, opening a gash in the bow. He beached the boat on Hollywood Beach.
Lessons learned?
The owner says the primary lesson is “If you don’t know where your are, stop. Drop the anchor if you have to.”
Fishermen’s livelihoods depends on their ability to sail in nearly all conditions. We weekend sailors, on the other hand, can stay home. On the third hand, I’ve been caught in similar conditions when the marine layer moved suddenly. Donz Rig would have had a better chance if there had been a second crewman to monitor the radar and chartplotter. Zero-zero fog, particularly at night is tough to handle in the open sea. In close quarters, it requires thorough planning. Had the captain charted a heading from the end of the south jetty to open sea and then adhered to that heading, he’d have escaped damage. If he’d stopped as the owner mentioned, he would have reduced his risk. If he’d been able to monitor the radar closely, he could have avoided the breakwater.
So, four lessons obtain:
• Know where you are by eyeball, by radar and/or gps
• Know where you’re going. We always chart an escape course when we’re at anchor. If everything goes to hell at night and we get blown out of an anchorage we know and will steer a heading to safe waters. If you’re heading out in weather so rotten that you may not see harbor obstacles, make sure you know the heading from the last landmark you’re likely to see to safe water.
• Pick your weather and set reasonable limits commensurate with skills and experience
• Take crew
A fifth lesson, somewhat tangential, be ready to sound your fog signal.
Lessons from Lady Frances
F/V Lady Frances (apologies to the owner who did spell her name correctly) under tow by Channel Watch Marine/Vessel Assist. Photo Capt Paul Amaral
Oh, the hapless Lady Frances: A calm, windless night. A full moon. And yet she found herself on the rocks, her anchor still in the hawse.
What happened?
Best guess – after a long, hard day, the helmsman fell asleep. Amazingly, they’d cruised through Smugglers/Yellowbanks where 20+ boats lay to anchor before sliding onto the rocks.
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