Tag Archives: safety at sea

PLAN ZERO

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on the rocks

Photo: Chris Tucker Sailtime

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.

see you on the water

/capt dan

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Do you think winds to 20 and seas to 25 feet are a bit much?

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The Coast Guard blog made the following report”

Mavericks

ALAMEDA, Calif. — The Coast Guard and Pillar Point Harbor Patrol have recovered two men from the water after their 34-foot sailing vessel capsized near Pillar Point at approximately 4:30 p.m. today.

The Coast Guard launched two 47-foot Motor Lifeboats from Coast Guard Station Golden Gate and an MH-65 Dolphin helicopter from Air Station San Francisco in response to a 9-1-1 call and a flare sighting south of Pillar Point. The Pillar Point Harbor Patrol recovered one man shortly after the flare sighting. A search continued for a second person who was spotted by the Coast Guard helicopter crew at 5:37 p.m. and recovered by the Pillar Point Harbor Patrol.

The cause of the capsizing is unknown at this time. The weather conditions in the area during the search were winds of 20 miles per hour with seas between 15 and 25 feet.

Perhaps the captain should have checked weather and buoy reports. The wind doesn’t seem too bad, but seas up to 25 feet are hazardous to boats much larger than 34. And don’t forget, Pillar Point lies at the foot of Mavericks – site of international Big Wave competitions.

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Alarming ALLISION Alters Attitude, Amplifies Alliteration

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Allision at Hueneme

We all know lots of weird nautical words – pintle, gudgeon, scuttlebutt, boatswain – and some of us (I) thought we knew all worth knowing. But yesterday the Coast Guard reported the allision of a Swedish Freighter with the dock at Pt Hueneme.

After consulting half a dozen online dictionaries and finding several conflicting definitions – I did find one that distinguishes a nautical collision – whacking your boat into another boat or moving object – from allision: whacking your boat into a fixed object.

So the next time your landing is a bit forceful and you bounce off the pier and people wince, just announce: No worries, another normal landing and a perfectly lovely allision.

Click for Ventura Star story.

Editor’s note: We are aware that the Alarming Allision would effect Alliteration, but, according to our Humor Editor, that just wouldn’t be funny.

New movie of Willows Anchorage, Santa Cruz Island in Southern California

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Willows Anchorage is one of our favorites … but you’ve got to get there early because almost everyone appreciates the beauty of this spot and it’s likely to be full if you show up near sunset.

In addition to the movie, check out our cruising guide on Willows at Capt. Dan’s Cruising Guide. If you have anything to add (or dispute), please comment right here.

See you at the islands!

Why won’t this happen to you?

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Sean HaggertySean Haggerty, skipper of Sea Hag, did at least one thing right … and it saved his life.

Back a couple of weekends, near platform Gina, a Coast Guard helicopter circled us at low altitude and hailed us on #16. They wanted to know if we’d spotted Sea Hag, which was overdue on its float plan. We hadn’t.

I’d been at Santa Cruz for several days before this and had headed home just in front of a Gale Warning. And gale it did. And this poor soul was out there in it … or washed up ashore. The story ends happily, but that seems accidental too.

Sometimes you just gotta ask, “What were you thinking?”

Indeed, what do you think this skipper was thinking? What questions would you have for him and what lessons can we derive from this incident? Comment at any length and feel free to comment multiple times as the discussion gets rolling. This should be very interesting.

On 6 April, San Diego’s Channel 6 news reported that “A sailboat that was the object of a weekend-long search was towed today into San Diego Bay, hours after the Coast Guard located the missing boater and his crippled craft, which had been struck by a 25-foot wave.

“Sean Haggerty, 39, of San Francisco, was located around 7 p.m. Sunday, about 46 miles southwest of San Diego, by the crew of a C-130 aircraft that was getting ready to turn around for home.

“He had last been heard from Wednesday, when he told a friend via cell phone that the backup engine of the 26-foot sailing vessel Sea Hag, his GPS and radio were inoperative, said Coast Guard Petty Officer Kevin Neff.

“Neff said cell phone records show Haggerty’s last call was made near Point Conception in Santa Barbara County.

“Helicopters from Coast Guard Air Stations San Diego and Los Angeles, as well as a C-130 aircraft from Air Sacramento, spent the weekend searching the California coast from Point Conception south to the coast of Mexico.

“Haggerty told television station KGTV that he saw the airplane circling, but wasn’t sure if the crew was looking for him because he couldn’t establish radio contact. The air crew dropped a radio to the boat, he said.

“Neff said Haggerty had lost his job in the San Francisco area and didn’t have the money to repair the engine on his sailboat, and sailed to San Diego, where he had landed a new job.”