Using Prop-Walk To Your Advantage

Prop walk is a necessary evil of boating. No matter what you do, you are never going to be able to completely alleviate the odd phenomenon. If we are going to have to deal with it, why not use it to our advantage. Yes, you something that generally gets in our way to actually help us, mainly in close quarters handling.

Every boat is a little different. Different boats will have more or less prop walk depending on how they are set up. Wake board boats with direct or v-drives suffer from it the most. Other boats with direct drives will suffer as well but not near as badly. Especially if it has twin engines.

Most boats are going to experience this while in reverse. Reverse is the direction we all dread to travel and it is always an area that is unknown. When the shift control moves backwards, anything can happen. The boat will carry a mind of its own. Naturally, in a normal world, boats are going to want to walk to starboard, or the right, when in reverse.

As the old childhood scientist Bill Nye says.... Please, consider the following......

Next time you are on the water, find an open space with no traffic around and do an experiment. Place your boat in reverse and see how fast it will walk at different speeds in different directions. In some cases, with the wheel turned hard in the opposite direction, the prop walk can not be counter acted. 

Once you know how fast it will move, now you are ready to learn how to use this to help. Ill first explain how I use it in my boat. When traveling down the fairway of the marina, my slip is on the starboard side of the boat. I know for a fact, that my boat will walk a considerable amount to starboard when in reverse. If I approach the slip in the current direction, bad things will happen. If I approach at an angle (which is the proper way to do it) then shift into reverse, prop walk is going to pull me to starboard, closer to the stern of neighboring boats that I would ever like to be. On the other hand though, if I take an extra 30 seconds to move past the slip and turn around the dock will now be on my port side. Great! Now, I can approach from the same 45 degree angle, then use slight bursts of reverse to carry the stern to starboard and line up perfectly with the opening of the slip.

Bellows can Remember!

A few years ago I learned that the bellows on a lower unit can actually have a memory if they are left in one position for too long. If you are going to keep your boat on a trailer, of course, you will need to raise it while you are traveling. But when you park for storage, it is best practice to lower the drive as low as possible. This will help to take some of the stretch out of the bellows for the extended period of time. If they are left stretched out for an extended period of time, the rubber will begin to have a memory of what shape they were stored in.

If you keep them lowered and not stretched, they will be kept in their more natural position.

Just a thought to start out your week. Remember, maintenance matters.

New Lehr 25 HP

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Power management on a "smaller" boat

So we all know that almost all of the electronics on a boat are run off of the battery. The problem with this is that there is not a constant flow of electricity to recharge the battery like there is in a car. There are times when you may pull into a cove to go swimming and have the engine off for hours, draining your battery with all of your lights and stereo systems as well as anything else that you leave on such as navigation systems, depth sounders,  etc. 

When traveling on long off shore expeditions on a sail boat, most boats will install either wind generators or solar panels. These will help to counteract the loss of power from everything necessary to run the boat while the engine is off. When traveling on a power boat, you will almost always have the generator on, if the boat has one. For the premise of this explanation, lets assume you have an average, 25 foot bow rider that you are using on an inshore lake or near shore in a bay or gulf. This boat is not equipped with a generator but it has lots of things that draw power. This boat has navigation, a stand alone depth sounder, a stereo system, as well as all of the necessary safety equipment such as navigation lights, bilge pumps, and a blower.

Part of what draws the most power is leaving things on when they are not needed. If you are sitting still at anchor, there is no need to have on your depth sounder or your navigation systems. If it is day time, there is no need to have on navigation or courtesy lights. I only turn things on when I need them.

One thing you can do to start to conserve power is replacing your light bulbs. If you find yourself boating at night often, LED lights can serve a few purposes. First of all, sticking with the subject here, they draw much less power than a conventional bulb. This helps to conserve power when it is most important such as overnight camping trips or watching fireworks on the 4th of July. Secondly, they are brighter. As far as I am concerned, the brighter the light the better. The quicker I can see you, the more time I will have to react in order to avoid a collision. Lastly, and the best of all is that they rarely go out. There is no filament that breaks inside. The only reason they generally fail is due to corrosion in a harsh marine environment. In most cases, lights are sealed pretty well and this will never happen. 

Now, there is no need to go and change all of your bulbs now as LED bulbs are quite a bit more expensive. Just change them as they go out. Change to an LED bulb in the light itself, then just to be prepared, keep an old fashioned bulb in the package in case of an emergency. 

To keep track of you power usage, there is the Battery Bug. A voltage gauge is pretty much useless on a boat. All it tells you is that the battery is charging. Well, I can tell you that if the engine is off then the battery is not charging. The battery bug sticks to the battery and measures the voltage in the battery and gives an alarm when the battery drops to a low charge state. They are great for boats with single batteries or a single battery for the "fun things." Click here to see the battery bug from Amazon. 

Docking with me rule #2

Again going with the "keeping things simple" idea. This one kind of overlaps with Rule #1.

Rule #2. If you are approaching (or leaving) the dock and need to get off (or onto) the boat quickly, never jump. When I am at the helm, no body is to get off the boat unless you are able to STEP off. If you have to jump, don't do it. If you have to take a crazy long stride, don't do it. If you have to run and jump hoping you will make it, don't do it. If you are leaving the dock and you "miss the boat," don't worry. The captain should  make a circle and come back for you, they wont leave you standing out there. If you are coming in and you aren't able to safely get off the boat to tie off, don't worry. The captain should back out, make a circle, and come try again.

This goes along with putting yourself where the boat wants to be. If you miss, you will end up in the water and could potentially hurt yourself severely, I have seen it.

Docking with me rule #1

Lets keep things simple for the do's and don'ts....

Rule Number 1: Keep your hands and feet out of places where the boat wants to go (i.e. between the boat and the dock, between the boat and another boat, between the boat and the ground if it's beached). It is much easier to fix a boat than it is to fix a hand or foot. If the boat is going to hit the dock, please don't worry about it. Getting a small scratch here and there is part of boating. If we were to worry about every one of them we would never be able to use our boats. 

Follow your dreams

Recently, I have started to become inspired by those much like me, in a sense. Specifically, it is two siblings. Zac and Abby Sunderland are a brother and sister pair that have had a love for boating and sailing their entire lives. Along with their passion for the water, both of them set out to do some big things. 

Zac was the first person under the age of 18 to circumnavigate the world. He completed his trip in 13 months and 2 days. Throughout the trip he encountered some hard times and equipment failure, but then again, it is a boat. This feat inspired his sister to do the exact same thing. Abby set out when she was 16 years old. She wanted to be the youngest person to circumnavigate the world single handed, much like what her brother did. This time though, she had the advantage of using the things that her brother learned on his trip. In a nut shell, unfortunately, Abby did not make it around the world. She was hit by a rogue wave in the Indian Ocean. This tore the mast off and left her stranded. She was rescued by authorities and was back home in California a short time later.  

I have been inspired by both of these young sailors and it proves that anything is possible and age is just a number. Stay tuned as I plan on highlighting each of them and their great accomplishments in later posts. 

Declaring an Emergency - Mayday vs Pan Pan

So I was just thinking about something. If we are going to learn about sailing, we need to learn how to declare emergencies. Yes, they do happen on power boats, but on sailboats there are many more things that will be happening at one time. It is important to know quickly how to get your message across to the people that could help you most.

There are two phrases that could notify those around you that you are in trouble, Mayday and Pan Pan. Lets look at the differences. 

Mayday - Mayday should be used when there is a life threatening emergency aboard the vessel. This could include sinking, a person that has become unconscious (most likely by the boom), a fire aboard the vessel, or any other situation that the captain deems could be life threatening to those aboard. During a mayday call it is important to stay calm despite the situation that is happening around you. If you are unable to make the call in a clear and concise way that will tell the authorities and those around you what the problem is and your location, it could potentially delay the assistance you require. A mayday call should be made as follows. 

All mayday calls should be made on channel 16. 

Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. This is [your name or title on the vessel (i.e. Michael or "The captain")] on [Sailing Vessel, Motor Yacht [name of boat]] declaring an emergency.

Release the PTT key and wait a moment to ensure the channel is still clear. Then continue....

Mayday. The vessel [insert vessel name] is located [current position, speed, and bearing (if possible) or relative location ("one mile east of [marina name or point of reference such as a boat ramp]") We are a [sailboat or power boat] experiencing [distress situation (taking on water, loss of life, fire on board) and are in need of immediate assistance. There are [number] of souls on board. [Give any other pertinent information about location, passengers, or description of boat that could be useful to the authorities]. This is [vessel name] over. 

If you don't have all of the information necessary, give as much information possible. 

In the heat of the moment is is likely that the person making the call will not do it in this exact order. BUT, it is important to always start out by saying "Mayday" three times and giving the name of your vessel.

If you find yourself in an emergency where you as the captain don't feel as if there are any lives in danger, it is more likely that you will want to use the "Pan Pan" signal to hail for assistance. "Pan Pan" tells those around you that you are in a state of emergency but you are not to the point of having a loss of life or property. Some examples of when you would use this command are in the event or a injury, serious illness, or a man overboard. You will use the same methodology as you would when making a mayday call.

We all can hope that we never have to use either of these calls, but it is also important to know how to do so just in case the need arises. No matter how seasoned of a captain you are, there is always the chance for problems. It is best to learn how to deal with the problems before they happen rather than be in the middle of a problem trying to learn how to deal with it. 

The Reason for Chain on your Anchor

Seasoned captains may know why, but I have met many new captains that don't know the real reason why there should be chain between the anchor and the rope. First off, it is not necessary to use rope. It is possible to use all chain for your anchor rode. The rope is just much easier to handle and weighs much less. If you look, most sport boats use rope and chain, some only use rope which can prove to be a bad idea.

The reason for the chain is simple. It actually can serve two different purposes. The first is to prevent chafe. If the rope is constantly moving up and down on the anchor, it could eventually break causing you to loose the anchor. The other reason is to absorb the shock from the boat as it moves up and down in the waves. If the boat is moving up and down it is constantly pulling on the anchor. If this happens enough it will pull the anchor loose and you will loose all holding power and begin to drag.

Simple as that!

Tacking Explained Video Posted

Take a look here!   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yt6R-ofwc7E