Capt. Dan's Southern California Sailing Charters » Ventura

Aground! – what’s the lesson for Oxnard and Ventura Sailors?

Capt. Dan — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 02:07:53 +0000

Mai Tai ashore at northwest end of Channel Islands Harbor near the world-famous Rudder Room. Photo: Rob Walton

An evening sail turns into a nightmare for Mai Tai

It’s always easy to pass judgment when you’re viewing the wreckage the day after. Nice to look at it in the light of day and pontificate. And I’ve heard a lot of that (and done a fair amount myself), but as we used to say in Naval Aviation: There’s no point in having accidents if you don’t learn something from them.

Discounting, at least for the purposes of this discussion, the obvious preventatives – waiting until daylight so that he could see, or turning away from the beach when the depth gauge showed 15 feet or so, what are the other actions he could have taken?

Let’s just say that he had to come in that entrance and that he had to make the approach fairly close to the beach, how could he have set himself up better? How could he have used his GPS better? How might a hand-bearing compass have helped him out?

A quick aside – the captain did do some stuff right: He did deploy the anchor, but the rode parted; they did call in a Mayday; they were wearing life jackets and they successfully walked ashore.

We met a guy on the beach digging near the keel the day after the incident, who told us that the owner of the boat “sold” it to a passer-by, a guy simply walking the beach. Digging guy was walking guy’s friend. They were going to excavate before trying to tow it off the beach.

If the owner did actually unload the wreck and pass the pollution and clean-up responsibility to someone else, well that was one very excellent move.

There’s a bottle of champagne going to the best answer on how the captain might have prevented this accident by using a fundamental navigation techniques. Something you learned in ASA 105 or similar basic nav class.

Put your answer in the comment section below.

BTW – here’s the link to the Ventura County Star story. the story isn’t great, but the comments are fun.

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Ventura beaches grade A

Capt. Dan — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 18:11:32 +0000

Only a couple of places got less than an A – one was at Ormond beach near the Superfund site.

According to the City Manager’s BLOG

“2009 water quality at Ventura County beaches was excellent. Of the 40 water quality monitoring locations during summer dry weather, 100% of the locations received A grades.”

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Rusty & Denise wed aboard Wiley off Ventura coast

Capt. Dan — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 02:34:19 +0000

Rusty and Denise now share a surname – They’re Rusty and Denise Ely now. They married aboard Wiley with several of their friends there to witness. Capt./Chaplain Dan officiated and Leia manned the helm and shot the video.

We had shirt-sleeve temps and enough wind to sail but not so much that the girls’ hair got messed up. The ceremony was conducted a bit off the Ventura coast, just outside of Channel Islands Harbor.

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We’ll react a whole lot differently on the next Tsunami alert in Ventura, California

Capt. Dan — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:39:41 +0000

The next time we get a Tsunami warning, we’re not going to dither. We’re going to do one of two things if we’re in Ventura:

1. Get underway and get to deep water
2. Get to high ground.

This video from the 1994 Thai Tsunami is very instructive. For one, it shows that the first wave is not necessarily the worst wave. Watch the video for at least a minute. The second wave shows up at 53 seconds.

Tsunamis are probably widely known as tidal waves because they look tidal in that a lot, a whole lot, a veritable s-load of water comes ashore. The wave may be only a couple of feet high, but it can be on the order of a half mile long. And initially, it’s moving at 500 mph. Compare that to towering surf, which around here gets to maybe 20 feet, but runs back maybe 100 feet. And it trucks in at -what? – 20 knots?

A lot of us now realize we have never seen anything like a Tsunami. Nothing remotely like a Tsunami. NOAA warned us to stay away from beaches and out of the harbor.

So those of us who ran to the harbor and waited on the boat for this monster to come crashing in the other day were lucky that this Tsunami was trivial. Had it been something on the order of the second wave in the video, folks sitting on their boats would have been in for a fight for their lives.

However, if they’d been in deep water, they might not even have noticed.

Next time I’m either getting underway or heading for Ojai.

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When the boating is just awful

Capt. Dan — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:06:32 +0000

High seas, low winds, brown water.

Yuck.

I decided not to sail yesterday – see a pretty nice alternative

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Artist David Gallup boards Sancerre to capture the Channel Islands on canvas

Capt. Dan — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:02:09 +0000

Hi, Shipmates -

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.

You can follow our progress at SPOT

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Alarming ALLISION Alters Attitude, Amplifies Alliteration

Capt. Dan — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 14:46:46 +0000

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.

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Always a good idea to check the weather before leaving port, whether that’s Oxnard, Ventura or somewhere BFE or even Australia.

Capt. Dan — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:55:56 +0000

The crew and yacht lived through this rather colorful harbor departure.

To learn the whole story – and see some REAL boat acrobatics – follow Rob Walton’s link to YIKES!!!!

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Randy Bush shares a couple of secrets concerning docking and the use of spring lines

Capt. Dan — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 22:52:35 +0000

Randy Bush has been a guest BLOGGER several times. This usually happens when we do something a little out of the ordinary, a little training tidbit that everyone knows

about

but has never tried. Once mastered, or at least experienced, I ask that he share the experience with the rest of us. And this is the case today. Here’s Randy’s follow-up to the Fuel Dock Challenge of ’09.

Docking with Springlines

It is often said that if you own a 36 foot boat, the first 36 feet and the last 36 feet of any voyage are the hardest; the rest is a piece of cake. Even very experienced sailors often manage to botch a landing now and then, and this sailor has definitely starred in one or two entertaining spectacles at the local marina. So, it was in that vein that I managed to coerce Capt. Dan into riding along one morning while I did a few reps at the fuel dock with some warm-ups at Whale’s Tail pier.

This particular morning we were concentrating on working against springlines while docking parallel ( beam to the dock). There are two ways to rig spring lines – we opted to cleat them more or less amidships. Springlines, in any case, are either forward-tending (leading toward the bow), or aft-tending (leading toward the stern).

The first scenario was going forward against an aft-tending spring to help “spring” us into the dock: The helmsman approaches the dock slowly while a crewmember stands ready with a line already cleated amidships. The crewmember gets off and take a turn around a dock cleat toward the stern of the boat. Once the line is secured, the helmsman eases the throttle forward, which naturally will bring the bow into the dock, but the stern will have a tendency to swing outward. To counter this effect, the helmsman turns the wheel (hence the rudder) AWAY from the dock, which brings the stern in smartly.

Conversely, one can also back against a forward-tending spring. In this case, the crewmember takes a turn around a dock cleat toward the bow of the boat, and the helmsman then backs against it. This method will work better when docking port-side, since when reversing, the rudder position has much less effect, and prop walk becomes a greater factor. When reversing, a right-hand-turning prop will move the stern to port, which is exactly what we want. But in either case, turning the wheel away from the dock will still help. Backing against a springline is also useful when docking downwind.

Departing the dock is usually not too difficult unless there is a strong wind and/or current holding you on the dock. A push-off from the crewmember before he boards the boat is frequently all that is necessary. Then the helmsman makes sure he has adequate stern clearance when pulling forward, or bow clearance if backing away.

If the wind or current cannot be overcome with a simple push, the crew can rig fenders forward on the dockside. Cleat the springline securely on the boat and take a non-locking turn around the dock cleat, then snub it back on the boat’s midship cleat. The crew stands-by to snub or release the springline as necessary. The driver has the crew retrieve the bow line and stern line. The only line remaining is the aft-tending spring. The helmsman adds power and turns toward the dock. Crew gradually releases pressure on the spring and allows the boat to spring out. When the boat is 60 degrees or more off the dock, the helmsman signals release and retrieval of the spring, goes to reverse and backs away.

If this sounds complicated, well, it is, at least until you’ve seen it a few times.

The most important component, of course: practice, practice, practice!

Randy Bush
S/V Varekai
Channel Islands Harbor
Oxnard California

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Stayin’ alive in heavy traffic in Sea of Cortez – kudos from a friend

Capt. Dan — Sat, 30 May 2009 00:22:44 +0000

FYI – had four nights on the water and on only one of those did we share an uncrowded anchorage with 3 other boats – for virtual isolation the Sea of Cortez is awesome

And Dan – your training on speed of approaching tankers probably saved my butt on night as we were doing an all night sail and I saw distant lights that got a lot closer very very fast. There is a refinery at La Paz and this big boy was headed there

Thanks for some good safety training my friend.

Ken

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