Admirals' Angle

#68 (Rerun) – Dinghy Driving 101

Gwen Hamlin — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 22:36:38 +0000

First printed in 2007, Dinghy Driving 101 is a perfect companion piece for the previous three Admirals’ Angle columns on cruising dinghies. In fact, Dingy Driving 101 was set to rerun in the July 2012 issue of Latitudes and Attitudes for that reason. Unfortunately, that issue of Latitudes and Attitudes never made it to print. With the debut of Cruising Outpost Magazine and the transfer of Admirals’ Angle to that platform, Dinghy Driving 101 got skipped. However we at Women and Cruising still feel it goes so well with the Cruising Dinghy trio, that we are reposting it here.

An Achilles heel for many cruising women – even for some Admirals – is driving the dinghy. Hardly surprising since couples cruising – especially for the first time – are doing pretty much everything together, and, without any particular thought, the guy gets into the habit of driving. When they finally reach Georgetown or Trinidad or Zihuatenejo, hundreds of miles out from their home port, enough is going on that couples need — or want — to do things separately. Suddenly, women discover that they’ve become dependent on their men to drive them around.

“Just take the dinghy,” he says, assuming that you will know how to drive it by osmosis. And maybe you will. Maybe you’ve been paying enough attention to wing it. Or maybe, if you ask, your partner can teach you. It may turn out, however, he’s been winging it himself!

Just in case, here’s Dinghy Driving 101.

In the outboard store there are dozens of different kinds of motors, but from a novice driver’s point of view there are two: ones with a transmission and ones that start in gear. Reading your engine’s manual (what a concept!) is the best way to get the starting sequence right.

Before setting out anywhere in your dinghy, even just to practice, be sure you have a dinghy anchor and rode aboard, lifejackets (a Coast Guard requirement), a line or painter to tie up with at your destination, and, until you get some experience, a handheld radio to call for help with! Oh, yes, and oars. Take a minute to learn how to mount and/or extend your oars, and remember to put in the seat. Even with these backups in place, avoid casting off from the big boat or the dock until you have your engine running. It is surely one of the most frustrating things to have to ship the oars and row back to your own boat when an outboard refuses to start.

Before yanking the start cord on your outboard, check the fuel tank to be sure you have gas. On external tanks, check that the fuel line is securely connected at both ends (with the arrow on the bulb pointing toward the engine) and without kinks and that the vent on the tank is open. Put the shift lever in neutral, and twist the throttle to the start line. If your motor hasn’t been run yet that day, give the fuel bulb a couple of squeezes and pull out the choke. Now give that start cord a brisk, even pull. It should start in two or three tries. If it doesn’t, review the above checklist.

When the outboard starts, push in the choke quickly, or it will stall. There is no need to rev the motor, and if it is revving loudly on its own, then you probably didn’t have the throttle set at the start line. Back it off. If on the other hand it sounds like it’s struggling, give a bit more throttle. If it does die, open the throttle a bit more, and start again (no choke). All motors benefit from a little warm up. Make sure your outboard is running well before you cast off and ensure nothing is dragging overboard.

Now, VERY IMPORTANT….before you do anything else, attach the cable from the motor’s kill switch to your person. This is the little twisted wire with a clip on the end that hangs from the outboard’s “key,” a C-shaped wedge shoved under the red “kill” button on the front of your outboard. Pushing on the button is what shuts your motor off, so pulling out this key will stop it instantly should you unexpectedly fall out while in gear. This is a habit that could save your life someday. Get into it!

To go forward, push the transmission lever forward and gently twist the throttle to accelerate. Underway your dinghy will steer like any boat with a tiller. If you push the tiller to the right, the boat will turn to the left and vice versa. In reverse, if you push the tiller to the right, the stern of the dinghy will go left “following” the direction the back of the motor is pointing. Very small outboards without a transmission start in forward. Since they don’t go fast, it’s not a problem. To reverse, you spin the whole engine!

Drive slowly to start. You’re probably already aware that a boat does not react as precisely as a car, especially at slow speeds. This is even more pronounced for a dinghy, especially an inflatable one. For example, when you come to a stop, the bow will blow down one way or the other as soon as you lose momentum. Another effect comes from prop walk; whichever way your propeller turns in forward, the stern of your dinghy will kick in that direction. In reverse the dinghy’s stern will pull hard the opposite way. This affects your maneuvering ability at slow speeds in tight places. Play with this, turning in circles, in forward and reverse, so you can anticipate these effects. With a little practice they can work for you instead of against.

Depending on the dinghy, the size of the outboard, the load you have aboard, and the water conditions, you can generally move across open stretches of water more quickly with less splashing if you can get the boat up on a plane. If you are alone, be cautious and sit forward as the bow can come up abruptly as you accelerate! Once on the plane, you can ease back on the throttle a bit and stay there. Be conscious of your wake and its effect on others, and when you slow down, do so gradually or else your wake will swamp you from astern!

To come alongside a boat, approach its quarter slowly from behind (into the wind) at a 45^o angle. Several yards before your dinghy touches, turn to parallel and shift to neutral. Your momentum should slide the dinghy neatly and gently alongside. This avoids smacking the side creating a scratch or a splash! Plus your remaining momentum gives you time to stand up with painter in hand and secure yourself before you blow off. This takes a bit a practice, but it is better seamanship than a T-bone or downwind arrival!

Landing ashore is always easiest at a dock. If there are too many dinghies to dock alongside as above, you may have to nose your way in. You will quickly appreciate the good protocol of leaving plenty of painter between the dock and your dinghy, so, if you lock up your dinghy, be sure your cable is plenty long. If your dinghy could be caught under the dock by a rising tide or if a wharf’s condition might damage your inflatable, play out your dinghy anchor from the stern as your momentum carries you the last few yards and tie it off just long enough to let you climb off. Leaving plenty of painter from the bow will spring the dinghy away.

Beaching a dinghy in anything but the quietest of waters is not something novice dinghy drivers should attempt alone. Getting cock-eyed in a swell can spin you, swamp you, or worse! Even in flat and tide-less conditions, you still need to worry about abrading the dinghy’s bottom when approaching and dragging it ashore. As water shallows, turn your motor off and tilt it forward to protect to your propeller. Then step out and walk the dinghy in. Either anchor the dinghy afloat or pull it above the high-watermark and put the anchor a few yard inshore or tie it off.

Becoming competent in driving the dinghy removes many fetters that constrain a woman’s enjoyment of cruising. It eases the making of friendships and frees you to spend more time doing things you enjoy. With experience will come finesse, but getting out there on your own is the first step.

This article was published in the June 2007 issue of Latitudes and Attitudes.

#67 – Accessorizing the Cruising Dinghy

Sylvie — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 14:07:35 +0000

Few cruisers have a master plan for accessorizing their dinghies, and instead leave things to evolve.

The result is often a cluttered dinghy, the kind that’s hard to step into, a pain to hoist aboard, and all-too-often not prepared to do what you need it to do when you need to do it! Improvements and additions are often devised AFTER there’s a problem and not before. To help you think ahead, here’s a collection of popular cruiser aftermarket upgrades.

The first thing you need to add to your dinghy is a painter, the line that attaches to the reinforced eye(s) at front of your dinghy, with which you will tie it up at docks and to the back of your boat. A simple thing, but darn important! Lost dinghies are usually the result of careless tie-ups behind the boat (or at parties!), so cultivate a habit of cleating the painter properly and then tying a safety bowline behind it every time.

The painter is also how you tow your dinghy. The painter needs to float to avoid tangling in your prop, so most cruisers select polypropylene line. Choose polypropylene that is flexible and has a nice finish since you’ll be handling it a lot, especially when hauling the dinghy in close for maneuvering! Unfortunately, polypropylene’s UV resistance is not great, so check it regularly, replace it as it deteriorates, and resist any temptation to tow in rough or open water.

It’s also useful to have a shorter line on the stern to be able to secure your dingy bow and stern when moored alongside a dock or the big boat, especially for loading and unloading, but also when hanging the dinghy alongside overnight. One line on a carabineer can be shifted from side to side as needed.

This line is also ready to do the brunt of the work when you must harness up your dinghy to the big boat’s quarter to propel it in the event of an engine failure, a situation that usually comes up without warning.

Clutter in a dinghy is obnoxious and even dangerous, especially considering that unless you’re using davits, you’ll need to empty the dinghy every time you hoist it aboard for passage.

One of the main culprits in dinghy clutter is a fuel tank left loose to slide around.

Many new dinghies come with a built-in indent and/or tie-downs to secure the tank in the bow. Using this distributes the load forward to counterbalance a driver sitting aft which is helpful when trying to get a dinghy up on a plane, especially solo. The fuel tank forward means a long fuel line aft to the outboard, so ensure it’s led so that other items don’t crimp it.

Fuel quality in outboard fuel tanks exposed to sun, seawater and third-world fuel docks is always a concern, so a desirable addition to your fuel line is an in-line fuel filter. Simple glass ones trap dirt particles and let you see that fuel is flowing, but some cruisers go a step further and mount a fuel/water separator.

Another culprit in cluttered dinghies is oars. It’s easy to overlook the importance of oars aboard when the outboard is working, but when it fails, for any one of myriad reasons, oars better be aboard! One of the best things about today’s inflatables is that they come with collapsible oars ingeniously stowed so that they are ALWAYS ABOARD… at least as long as the rower remembers to re-stow them after use! Careless stowing of oars often results in loss of one or both! Collapsible oars may not be the best choice for actual rowing, but wooden oars are heavy and generally too long to easily stow.

Other things that should always be in your dinghy are a bailer or pump, a light to show at night, and anchors. Popular dinghy anchors are small Danforth-style anchors, mushroom anchors and folding grapnels. It is useful for dinghy users to carry two anchors, one on a short rode and one longer, to be able to set a longer rode off the stern to hold the dinghy off rubbly shores, beaches, ragged wharves, or docks and drop a short bow anchor in the shallows. Divers and snorkelers who visit remote reefs are wise to carry one rode at least 125’ long on a burying anchor with several feet of chain, if they want the dinghy to still be there when they return! Dinghy anchors are a good application for stainless chain, to avoid mess from rust.

Some way of containing anchors in the dinghy keeps them from underfoot and reduces the risk of punctures. Many dinghies have built-in bow lockers, but buckets or tubs also do the job or a mesh bag, sewn to fit the length of your anchor and designed with a flap to snap around a dinghy life line or to hang over a dinghy seat. Either contains anchors and rodes plus makes it easy to lift them in and out.

Bow lockers are good for stowing required safety gear like life jackets, but they are not water-tight, so other safety gear like a flashlight convertible to a night running light, a signal mirror, a whistle and even some hand-held flares, plus a small toolkit for your outboard with spare spark plugs, should be kept in proven watertight containers.

If you plan to cruise anywhere remotely tidal, where you need to beach and later relaunch your dinghy, you will absolutely want to invest in dinghy wheels that mount on the dinghy transom. If you have a heavy RIB, choose wheels with large, fat tires to support the dinghy’s weight over sand.

Mount these carefully so it will be easy to manipulate the locking pins into place in both the raised and lowered positions, because sometimes you’ll find yourself doing this after dark!

Another popular upgrade, for those who like to crank up the horsepower and go fast (always clip that kill switch to your person!), is the addition of hydrofoil stabilizer fins (e.g. from Doel Fin®) to your outboard. These reduce propeller cavitation and help your dinghy get up on a plane for a smoother ride.

If you are routinely driving a big dinghy solo, consider a tiller extension, which allows you to sit farther forward and keep the bow from rearing up.

Alone or with others, if you like to take your dinghy on long runs out of sight of the anchorage, add a waterproof handheld VHF radio to your safety gear.

If fishing is your thing, a couple of rod holders mounted to the transom are great for trolling inshore reefs, as is having a short handled gaff or net. For scoping out the bottom of an anchorage or a channel from the dinghy a hand-held depth sounder can prove incredibly valuable, while for sightseeing a reef or checking the anchor without getting wet, consider a Bahamian “look bucket” – simply a bucket with a see-through bottom.

We mentioned dinghy covers previously when talking about dinghy choice. Covers are conceived to protect inflatable pontoons from both UV and chafe and are usually custom made by canvas-workers to fit around all the dinghy’s handles, lines, fittings (including oars, oarlocks, and valves) via Velcro flaps.

If you choose to use one, it should fit snugly, be of UV resistant material, and have chafe patches over areas vulnerable to wear.

Finally, smart spares to have on hand are a patch kit for pontoons, a spare stern plug, spark plugs, a propeller (or shear pins), gearbox oil, and replacements for the start cord, kill switch and a set of ends matched to your outboard’s fuel line and tank.

A good cruising dinghy stands ready to serves you in many ways. Prepare it ahead instead of playing catch-up later.

This article was published in the June 2012 issue of Latitudes and Attitudes.

#66 – Choosing the Cruising Dinghy’s Outboard

Sylvie — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 21:51:55 +0000

Once you’ve selected a dinghy that you believe will best serve your needs when cruising (see last month’s Admirals’ Angle), it’s time to start outfitting it so that it WILL serve those needs. Many sailors allow this to evolve, but some forethought can make a huge difference in how easy your dinghy will be to run, use, hoist aboard and launch.

The first thing you will shop for is an outboard.

You may be offered a package deal for one when you buy your dinghy. Proceed cautiously; just because it’s a deal, doesn’t always mean it’s a good deal for you.

First, read the placard on the transom of the dinghy to determine what range of horsepower (hp) and weight the dinghy can handle, and understand that there’s an upper limit for safe operation.
Next, zero in on what performance you expect. Will you mostly use it to putter around an anchorage, or do you expect to make long trips where you will need enough power to get you and any load (e.g. multiple people or scuba gear) up on a plane?
Finally, as you weigh brand names, consider the ability to get service in remote destinations.

Just as there has been a trend in recent years toward bigger tenders, there has been a trend toward more horsepower.

Logical: it takes more oomph to move heavier dinghies. There is, however, also the factor of modern mankind’s addiction to speed, and speed in a dinghy is a lot more dangerous than people realize. In my sailing career I’ve known several people who’ve been run over by their own dinghies after being thrown out after hitting a wave at speed. Usually they were travelling solo in an overpowered setup without using the kill switch. It’s not a pretty way to go.

So when choosing horsepower, remember that half the point of cruising is to slow the pace of life down a notch.

Also remember weight. Bigger outboards are heavier. Unless you have a catamaran or a very big monohull where you can carry your dinghy with the outboard in place, you will be manhandling your outboard and gas tank between the dinghy and the big boat every time you haul or launch your dinghy. In the store a bigger outboard may seem manageable, but picture yourself and your partner dancing around with it on deck in rolling or bumpy seas. We’ll talk later about ways to help manage this.

Finally, because big outboards can be harder for smaller women to pull-start and tilt up, they can cramp our independence. You don’t want an outboard you can’t use on your own!

These days, in North America, your options in shopping new outboards are largely confined to four-stroke engines.

Four-stroke engines have pushed out two-stroke models because they are quieter, smoother, have better fuel economy, and meet stricter EPA pollution standards. I guess it’s the good-citizen choice.

However, if you already have a 2-stroke model, the reality of third world cruising is that you aren’t likely to encounter “4-Stroke-Only Waters.” Two-stroke engines have been in use all around the world for 80 years, which means in the smallest port you’ll likely find someone with knowledge and maybe even parts to fix it when there’s a problem, perhaps not as likely with a 4-stroke. For these reasons, some cruisers actually weigh the advantages of buying used two-stroke engines or waiting to buy new models outside the country where often prices are lower.

Many cruisers carry two outboards: a larger model – 10-20hp (with 15hp being average) – to use when taking bigger dinghies farther distances or carrying more load, and a small 2-3HP back-up motor that’s easy to hand up and down between deck and dinghy and which can certainly get you around most harbors while using much less fuel.

To give you an idea of real situations, our dinghy was a 10’4” AB RIB with a 15hp Yamaha (2-stroke) that would plane satisfactorily with us and our scuba gear or a third person, but not with the scuba gear and a third person. On the other hand, when our previous Johnson was stolen, we borrowed friends’ back-up 3hp Honda and were astounded that it could actually move our heavy dinghy and gear to a dive site. It took a lot more time, of course!

Speaking of theft, larger outboards are a very tempting item in many cruising grounds. Ours was stolen shortly after the Mexican government issued an edict that offshore fishermen must carry a spare motor!

The first line of defense against theft is an outboard lock, a tube or channel designed to slide over your outboard’s mounting screws.
Second is not to leave your dinghy floating overnight.Instead, hoist it out of the water either on davits or alongside using your main halyard and a 3-point lifting harness (most inflatables come with eyes for this purpose and you can customize a harness from cable and Nicopress® fittings.)Raise it level with the deck against small fenders, secure the bow forward and stern aft so that it can’t shift around in wind or chop, and, in questionable areas, add a locking cable between the outboard and the mother ship. In addition to keeping your dinghy and outboard safe, this habit alleviates worries about careless knots or lines chafing through and keeps crud from growing on your dinghy’s bottom.
Another defense, less against theft than accident, is to have a short cable securing your mounted outboard to the one of the eyes on stern of the dinghy. Outboards put out a lot of torque and can spin themselves off the transom if bolts aren’t tightened enough.

Now that you have your new dinghy and outboard, you have to figure how best to carry them aboard for passages.

Before buying, hopefully you scrambled around with measuring tape to be sure the dinghy will fit on your foredeck or in your davits. Personally, I don’t favor davits, especially for long trips and heavier dinghies, except, of course, on catamarans. I don’t like the weight aft, the issue of shift and chafe in swell, the risk of getting pooped, and, not the least, the obstruction of my fishing deck and sightlines aft. We had davits but only used them in marinas.

I (and I think the majority of monohull cruisers) prefer to hoist the dinghy aboard with a halyard and carry it upside-down on the foredeck. This keeps the underway boat a more compact unit, especially in heavy seas. If, however, it will interfere with getting around on deck, hopefully it’s not too late to consider an inflatable you can deflate and stow away instead of a rigid hull.

Underway, cruisers typically carry their outboard(s) on a special mount on the stern rail, arch or amidships by the mast, since most outboards ride best upright (with prop lower than the head). A mount on the stern makes it easy to integrate a small hoisting arm with block and tackle to facilitate manhandling the outboard between deck and dinghy.

We positioned ours so that, with the dinghy secured bow and stern alongside the quarter, one of us could lift the engine from its mount and lower it – using a three-part tackle hitched to an outboard harness (ours was homemade from cable) – directly to the dinghy transom where the other would bolt it down. Never did we have to “dance” with our 15hp outboard and never was there a chance of dropping it overboard! Being prudent types, we still often hitched a safety line to the outboard handle.

Equipped with the right dinghy and outboard and a system for getting them aboard, the next step to the perfect cruising dinghy is to accessorize it so that it gives you the best service possible. More next month!

Photos: Thanks to Kathy Parsons, Hale Kai.

This article was published in the May 2012 issue of Latitudes and Attitudes.

#65 – Choosing the Cruising Dinghy

Gwen Hamlin — Mon, 28 May 2012 21:04:24 +0000

Drop a new cruiser into a busy anchorage, and one thing sure to surprise is the variety of tenders hanging behind the anchored boats. Who knew they came in such a mind-boggling array of sizes, shapes and materials?!

New cruisers who have bought pre-owned boats may have inherited the previous owner’s dinghy choice…and considered it a good deal: an accessory they didn’t have to go out and shop for right away. Cruisers who buy new are likely to choose a model on display (or on sale) at the last boat show or closest chandlery.

Chances are in neither case do they fully evaluate all the ramifications of choosing a tender for their new lifestyle. We tend to think of tenders as a means to get between the boat and shore and forget to consider so many of the other things they do for us.

Our tenders are everyday workhorses, schlepping laundry and garbage bags to shore and groceries back or carrying heavy fuel and water jugs back and forth to rugged work docks.

We ask them to land in tricky places — tidal docks, ragged wharves, barnacle- encrusted boulders, muddy mangroves, and beaches with surf – and then get back afloat when the tide goes out or the surf comes up.

We count on them to set and retrieve second or stern anchors, run lines to trees ashore, tugboat the big boat (harnessed alongside the quarter) when the engine fails, and in some instances to double as life-rafts.

Some people even use their dinghies as laundry tubs!

We also use our dinghies for the fun and social side of cruising. We zip around the anchorage in them visiting or raft up with friends at sunset for a happy-hour dinghy drift. We use them to go fishing, snorkeling or scuba diving on distant and sometimes exposed reefs or push them up muddy or rocky rivers to explore.

Some of us regularly use our dinghies to ferry bikes ashore, and if you have a dog? Well, there’s no more regular a commuter!

If we have kids aboard, we might want tenders able to pull boogie boards, tubes or water skis or sport a sail and let our junior captains practice tacking and gibing with some autonomy!

But sometimes, we may also want to row quietly for exercise or solitude or get around the anchorage independently. We ladies in particular want a dinghy we can handle ourselves.

So, clearly cruising dinghies are not simple people ferries. What you choose will be a compromise between what you want to do with it, where you plan to take it, how many people it will regularly carry, how you can carry it aboard (typically upside-down on the foredeck, on davits, or folded up and stowed away), and (as always!) how much you can spend.

Those issues will impact how big a dinghy you need, how stable it needs to be, what material you want it to be made of, and how big or small an outboard will work for you. You may not be able to get all you need from one tender. Some cruisers carry two: one to be the work horse and another smaller one to be the “second car,” often a sailing or rowing dink or even a kayak.

Generally speaking, the more active you expect to be in your dinghy (e.g. setting up scuba gear or fishing), the more important a flat rigid floor may be; the more rugged your landings, the more important a hard bottom. The more water activities figure in your cruising plans, the more important it is to choose a dinghy easy to get into from the water; the more you travel alone, the lighter it needs to be.

The most commonly-seen dinghy in today’s cruising fleet is the inflatable. RIBs – inflatables with rigid fiberglass bottoms, single or double hulled — have grown hugely in popularity in the last decade or two because of their stability, speed through the water, and comfortable ride.

They are, however, relatively heavy for pulling up a beach or getting on deck for passages, and they collapse only as far as their rigid hull. They are also expensive.

There are also many models of roll-up inflatables, which have soft bottoms or inflatable keels. Most of these inset wood or aluminum panels to provide a firm floor, which come out should you use the option to deflate and roll the dinghy up. These dinghies also give a comfortable ride, just not quite as fast, stable or as dry as the RIBs.

A neat thing about inflatables of either style is they typically come with seats and stowaway oars, often a small anchor locker, plus lifelines, towing and lifting eyes and various handles helpful for pulling the boat ashore or getting back aboard out of the water. Not all inflatables position these the same way, and some configurations are more useful than others.

A major issue with cruising inflatables is the material it is made from. If you plan to cruise the tropics and want an inflatable, be sure to choose one made of Hypalon® fabric. Inflatable dinghies made from PVC have a poor record for holding up in tropical strength UV.

A vulnerability of inflatables in general is their susceptibility to punctures from anchor flukes, spearguns, and sharp projections on docks. Many owners make Sunbrella® covers to protect pontoons, but even so it’s important to choose a model that has multiple air chambers and to carry a patch kit.

Also, the bigger the pontoons, the drier the ride, but the harder it is for swimmers to climb back aboard from the water.

The main alternatives to inflatables are rigid fiberglass dinghies. The most traditional of these are rowing dinghies, some of which can double as sailing dinghies. This flexibility, the fact that they are virtually indestructible, as well as their lower cost make them popular with cruisers on a tighter budget and with families as a second dinghy. Rigid dinghies, however, are not as stable as inflatables nor as buoyant. If they fill with water (from waves or rain), they will sink.

You occasionally see skiffs and Whalers behind bigger cruising boats. These are typically faster and drier than even RIBs and indestructible like rigid-hulled dinghies, but thanks to inbuilt flotation, relatively unsinkable. The reason you don’t see more is their cost and the difficulty of carrying them aboard. Hanging them from davits is too much weight off the stern for most cruising boats.

For singlehanders, the most important criteria for a tender is that it be one they can launch, handle or beach solo, not to mention fit onboard often smaller motherships. These are the cruisers whose tenders are kayaks, rubber rafts, tiny inflatables, Porta-botes®, or small rowing dinks.

Is bigger better? The bigger the dinghy, the bigger the outboard, the more load you can carry – people or gear (like scuba gear) – and the farther and faster you’ll be able to go.

HOWEVER, the bigger the dinghy (and its outboard), the more fuel you need to run it and the heavier the dinghy will be for hauling up a beach, for towing, or for hoisting aboard. Also, the bigger the dinghy the harder it can be for one person (particularly the slighter and less strong members of the crew) to manage.

In the final analysis, whatever dinghy you decide you need, it must also fit your boat. If you can’t fit it on the foredeck, collapse and stow it, or hang it from davits without overweighting your stern, then it is not the right tender for you.

All this is a lot to consider, but choosing the right dinghy is just the first step.

Next month we will look at considerations for choosing the right outboard.

Photos: Thanks to Kathy Parsons, HALE KAI.

This article was published in the April 2012 issue of Latitudes and Attitudes.

#64 – Provisioning Principles

Gwen Hamlin — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 13:35:09 +0000

Chances are you never used the word provisioning before you went cruising. My online dictionary defines provision as “food and other necessities, especially for a long journey,” and provisioning as a “preparatory step taken to meet a possible or expected need.”

Provisioning the boat with food and essential spares is the single biggest preoccupation of cruisers getting ready to leave port.

This is especially true when leaving your home country and heading to parts unknown. Before you have been somewhere, it is hard to imagine what you will and will not be able to get or how much it will cost. After a lifetime in the first world where you can get anything anytime you want it, the possibility of doing without, of making substitutions, or of making favorite things from SCRATCH (or jerry-rigging a part) is a daunting prospect.

Making favorite things from scratch

Although there are many books and articles on provisioning and countless cruising-oriented cookbooks have resulted from food-lovers collecting their best ideas, things have really changed over the last decade in terms of what you can carry aboard as well as what you can find when you shop. Observations on individual websites and blogs can sometimes give the most up-to-date insight.

On our website www.womenandcruising.com we present in our Resource Section a good list of these with which to get started, plus we have a whole collection of galley and food-related material by contributors in our Articles Section.

Overprovisioning

So, it is not my intent here to go over lists of what to take and how to mark, preserve, or store it. Instead, I’d like to offer some principles to guide your decision-making, because one of the biggest mistakes cruisers make is that they seriously over-provision on things they think they should have and under-provision on what they actually will want.

What’s wrong with over-provisioning?

You need room in your freezer for that 30lb mahi-mahi you are going to catch

First is the waterline goes down! Canned goods in particular can add a lot of weight. So can an overstuffed freezer. An over-loaded boat works harder and goes slower, plus you’ve left no room for the big wahoo you may catch!
Next is the fact that things go bad, especially in tropical environments. Overstock in oils and nuts go rancid; crackers, chips and cookies go stale and get pulverized; flours and mixes get weevils; spices lose their potency: yeast and medications expire; aluminum cans develop pinholes, and plastic bottles can chafe through. (This last is particularly depressing when the plastic bottles contain spare engine oil!)
And finally, when you cram lockers full of things you think you ought to have because some book or article told you to, you are likely to end up carrying around for years all this stuff you don’t particularly like.

It is hard to find anything if every locker is … CRAMMEDFULL!

What’s wrong with under-provisioning is quite simply that you may go hungry! Or you may get to a destination and find the things your family considers essential are exorbitantly priced or just unavailable.

So, when you sit down to plan your provisioning, consider the following:

Take what you like to eat!

Provisioning Principle #1

Shape your plan around THE THINGS YOU LIKE TO EAT.

It may take some ingenuity, but you can, within reason, figure out ways to eat favorite things right round the world! You’ll just need to stock the ingredients, recipes and equipment to make them from scratch!

Provisioning Principle #2

People eat everywhere, and, if you cannot find the same foods you are used to at home, you will not starve. The trick is to know as much as you can about what will be available and affordable when you reach your destination and to be flexible and ready to try new things.

Basics are in even the smallest stores pretty much everywhere

Basics like flour, yeast, sugar, rice and milk powder are in even the smallest stores pretty much everywhere, and you may wish you had taken up less room with these bulky items. Unfortunately, other things you may consider staples may not be staples where you are going. Sometimes it is because they are not part of the local diet, other times because it is so costly to ship in and stock. In the Bahamas, for example, meat, chicken, beer, wine, and snack foods are very expensive and you may kick yourself for not bringing more.

Fortunately, one of cruising’s greatest pleasures is trying the foods of the places you have sailed to. The ladies of the morning marketplace love nothing better than to teach you how to cook that unfamiliar vegetable! The same is true of local dishes at restaurants if you ask for recipes. Eating fresh and local is always cheaper, better, more interesting (and healthier) than eating canned.

The ladies of the morning marketplace love nothing better than to teach you
how to cook that unfamiliar vegetable!

Even in the impersonal aisles of supermarkets, there are adventures to be had. While many American products make their way onto foreign shelves, check out the unfamiliar label next to it. It may be less expensive. Sample before stocking up, because it may taste different than what you’re used to, but you might discover something you like even better … or can live with at a much lower price.

Check out the local labels

There are many products standard outside North America that are particularly useful to cruisers — like canned cream, New Zealand butter, bulk cheddar cheese, crackers in tins (they stay fresher), and there are even canned (or UHT-boxed) prepared products that are more interesting than the ones you are used to seeing, e.g. the paired cans of ratatouille and couscous available on French islands.

Provisioning Principle #3

On the other hand, when you see something that really matters to you – a favorite peanut butter or a preferred mayonnaise — buy it then and there. You never know when you’ll next see it!

Provisioning Principle #4

What and how much you need to put aboard depends on several factors besides your eating style:

How much you entertain?

how much passage-making lies ahead,
how much time you’ll spend in remote anchorages versus ports,
how much you expect to eat out,
how much you entertain.

Foods for entertaining – sundowner get-togethers and potlucks –account for a far greater proportion of most cruisers’ stores than many people anticipate! The same goes for snack foods!

Finally, how much refrigerator, freezer and storage space you have (or don’t have!) must necessarily shape your choices and quantities. Also consider what ambient temperatures will be, not just for preservation, but for how often you’ll want to use your oven!

Provisioning Principle #5

To keep track of what you have onboard, an inventory system, is useful.

Keep an inventory

Go low tech – a notebook, an alphabetized address book, or index cards – or hi-tech – a computer spreadsheet, database or an app (e.g. ListPro or Bento) for an iPad or tablet. Remember, too, you need to know not just what you have, but where it is stowed. Devise a layout system and stick to it.

Inventories, however, take discipline to maintain daily. If it becomes too much trouble, at least keep a master list of your preferred stores and check your shopping list against it to remind you what you may be forgetting to buy. A smart adjunct is to keep a running list of things you have used and update the inventory before shopping.

Provisioning Principle #6

In avoiding over-provisioning, don’t cut things too close on a passage. Things don’t always go as they should. Have enough of something to sustain you should S-@#$ happen!

Finally,

Provisioning Principle #7

It helps to be clairvoyant about what lies ahead. Invariably, we cruisers bemoan that we should have bought less/more if we’d only better known what was/wasn’t available at the next stop!

To help on this very issue, Kathy Parsons collected info from world cruisers to put together a very helpful handout for her boat show provisioning seminar “Proper Provisioning” which she is willing to share. For a copy, email me at admiralsangle@yahoo.com.

Photos: Thanks to Kathy Parsons, HALE KAI; Ellen Sanpere, Cayenne III; Karyn Ennor, Magic Carpet.

This article was published in the March 2012 issue of Latitudes and Attitudes.

#63 – The Crew Quandary

Gwen Hamlin — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 18:01:08 +0000

Gwen at the helm, owner on the beanbag

When a long passage looms, many cruisers begin thinking about whether or not to take on crew to help. What pops promptly into our heads are the shorter watches that having extra crew enables. How seductive that idea of lying abed for more than two hours at a stretch! Maybe, even… together?! Uh, huh! But like most great ideas, taking crew aboard your boat is an issue with many facets worth considering closely. And the same is true for those crewing.

Don and I weren’t the only ones crewing aboard boats in the Sail Indonesia Rally. There was the monohull with a gal who’d crewed for the owners several previous times in the Pacific (whom we’d first met in Fiji) – a happy situation. There was the catamaran with a whole second family aboard; were they guests or crew? There was the midlife-skippered trawler with a bevy of free-spirited babes; hmm? And there was the couple stuck with an indigent sailor they’d taken on back in Trinidad.

What does it mean to be “crew”?

The label applies to many different actual situations. Is “crew” anyone who is not the captain? Or does it include all aboard, working together as a team? Most cruisers use it both ways, even when talking about a vessel’s basic complement of husband and wife!

Maintenance

But on a cruising boat there are different niches a body can fill. I’ve seen paid crew, paying crew, passengers and guests, and from each is expected a different level of contribution, while, in turn, to each is owed a different level of accommodation. Not everybody, of course, gets what they expect, but everybody should go in with their eyes open to both the plusses and minuses.

For longer trips, the most common cruising crew situation seems to be a sharing scenario, where the crewpersons joining pay personal expenses, share food costs, and pitch in like family on everything that needs doing. In return they get an experience they would otherwise not be able to have. This was the basis for all three of Don’s and my crew situations in Indonesia.

There are many advantages to having spare hands along on a long trip. In addition to shorter and less frequent watches (meaning everyone gets more sleep), there’s the comfort of knowing that, should one of you become ill or injured, your partner won’t have to manage alone. There’s help on deck with sail changes, the downwind pole or spinnaker, getting anchors up or down or launching the dinghy. Likewise, basic chores like cooking, dishwashing and everyday maintenance can be shared.

Getting the anchor up

Plus, when it comes to troubleshooting in remote areas or out at sea, more heads are better than one. When the mainsheet traveler car on Quantum Leap snapped departing Timor, Don was able to help Tom devise a fix that served for six weeks. And should crew come with special skills (such as a gift with languages or Don’s watermaker tech background) – it can be quite an asset.

In addition to physical help, having crew can enhance the experience by bringing new perspectives, making shared experiences and conversations more fun and interactive, even pushing each other to do more, such as our presence on Quantum Leap motivating our hosts to get back into scuba diving. Plus, when in port making trips ashore, there’s someone extra to stay behind and watch the boat, as we did for Quantum Leap and Dedalus in Bali.

From the crewpersons’ point of view, the advantages are obvious.

From the crewpersons’ point of view, the advantages are obvious.

Quite simply you get to do something you wouldn’t otherwise be able to do – whether it is the sailing itself, the places you visit, or the experience of a certain kind of boat – without the investment in the boat yourself! And afterwards, as Don likes to say, when the boat goes to the yard, you go to the airport!

When you are new to cruising, crewing can be an unmatchable learning opportunity.

I was able to show the captain several functions he didn’t know about on his chartplotter

If you already have some miles under your belt, it feels great to get out there and contribute, to exercise skills and share what you know, even while getting the chance to learn how other people do things, use different equipment, or experience a very different kind of sailing. (Even as I learned about multihulls, I was able to show the captain several functions he didn’t know about on his chartplotter.)

Furthermore, as we discovered, meeting new people along the way can lead to more opportunities.

For crewing situations to work, both parties need to do their part, but also recognize what compromises have to be made.

Sharing a space as confined and personal as a cruising boat is not always going to be a bed of roses whether you are the share-er or the share-ee!

For the owners, the boat is not just a vessel but a home filled with personal possessions and defined by personal ways of doing things. Bringing outsiders into the mix not only halves personal space but exposes you to compromises over itinerary, menus, and activities. Practically speaking, the finite resources of the boat – sleeping and storage space, foodstuffs and water… even battery power – will become taxed, laundry and trash will double, and each person’s threshold of “shipshape” may well be different.

Sharing meals

Even when crew are known friends – but definitely when strangers – there can be issues of trust, which is, in the final analysis, the cost of those extra hours of shut-eye. Ivory Street’s captain was taken aback to come on watch and find his crew (before us) flying the spinnaker in winds well beyond when it should have come down. He couldn’t sleep the same afterwards.

Owners and crew may bump heads over the way everyday things are done, from anchoring to washing dishes. Owners may sometimes feel second-guessed, criticized or challenged, phenomena that become, ironically, more likely the more knowledgeable and experienced your crew is! From the crew’s point of view, you must bow to not doing things your way. Indeed, good crew strive to stay conscious at all times of keeping to their hosts’ standards and practices.

There are things both owners and crew can do to make the situation work for everyone.

Aim to match yourselves up by compatibility, shared interests, and complementary attitudes and styles

First, aim to match yourselves up by compatibility, shared interests, and complementary attitudes and styles.

As crew, be sure you are comfortable with the boat’s condition, systems and space as well as with the voyage’s planned schedule and pace before you sign on. Be sure your own schedule is open.

Then, the captain must act as captain, making clear from the outset the way things are done whether it’s reefing a sail, washing dishes or flushing toilets. You can’t expect crew to follow protocol if they don’t know what the protocols are. However, a captain must never take unfair advantage of crew nor forget who is ultimately responsible.

And speaking of responsibility, both parties need to remember that the skipper of a boat is liable for the health and welfare of all aboard and cannot simply put someone ashore when things don’t work out.

Skipper’s responsibilities:
you bring them in, you have to get them out

For most countries, you bring them in, you have to get them out. In most situations, as in ours, this is a gentleman’s understanding.

However when South African friends took on their countryman in Trinidad, they understood he had his own means to contribute to provisioning, buy meals and clothes, pay for doctor visits and fly home when the time came. It did not turn out to be the case. They were stuck with him until they could repatriate him halfway around the world.

This article was published in the February 2012 issue of Latitudes and Attitudes.

#62 – Dabbling in a Different League

Gwen Hamlin — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 14:10:13 +0000

Lifestyles Aboard Three Big Boats

It has come as a bit of shock to Don and me that our style of cruising aboard Tackless II might rank as rather middle class these days. When I do Women and Cruising boat-show seminars and stand with Pam Wall and Kathy Parsons, Pam has always represented older-style, purist cruising, Kathy a middle ground, and I the relatively cushy, gadgety way.

But these days it seems there is an increasingly sizable “upper class” of cruising, folks who’ve sunk a lot of money into really nice boats, state-of-the-art equipment, and lots of little luxuries. I’m not talking about the mega-yacht circle, the ones with professional crews, but folks who are making the same course and weather decisions, pulling the same lines and changing the same oil as the rest of us, just doing so with more comfort and élan…and electric winches!

Being dropped in as guest crew aboard three different big boats in a rally like Sail Indonesia has given us an unusual opportunity to compare styles — snapshots though they may be. First was Quantum Leap — the 50′ St. Francis catamaran I wrote about last month — American flagged and sailed by Tom and Bette, retired medical professionals from “Sweet Home Alabama” (as Tom likes to say). Second was Dedalus a 60′ power cat, custom-built in Chile for George and Melinda, her Euro-based owners. And third was the elegant Australian-built 57′ Perry Prestige cat Ivory Street, home to Kiwis Greg, Christine and 12-year-old Michael.

Our being on three big catamarans was self-selected by being boats that had space for us (and owners willing to invite us!), but, of 104 boats in the rally, twenty-five were over 50′. That’s nearly 25%! Only twenty-two were under forty feet, and even three of those were cats and one a trawler.

I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t confess that when invited to sail aboard Quantum Leap, a boat we considered big and luxurious, we’d been giddily tickled. Who would’ve thought she’d be the smallest boat we’d sail on!?

Quantum Leap in Komodo

Tom and Bette, veterans of three boats and nearly 40 years of sailing together, bring a southern graciousness to their cruising style, always ready to help others with parts or medical counsel or to invite new acquaintances over for cocktails. The boat is attentively decorated with items collected in their lifetime of travel, and Bette provisions for the apocalypse. The galley is crammed full with microwave, Vitamix blender, Soda Stream, spices and condiments, a full line of pots and silicone bakeware, plus nice china, glassware and tableware. They mostly serve sit-down meals, preceded by a quick grace. They have a spinner, but — egad! — laundry is hand-washed in the tub.

Quantum Leap’s inside nav station

Technologically, they have a chartplotter at the helm, but separate radar and AIS units inside, alongside an SSB, Iridium and two computers for weather, back-up navigation, email and Skype with grandchildren.

However they’re notorious for failing to listen to SSB Nets or having their VHF loud enough to hear. They had paper charts aboard, but rarely referenced them, yet planned from both applicable cruising guides (such as they are!) and material from internet travel blogs by former rally participants.

Raymarine’s emergency MOB alert wristband

They were casual about logging and using jack lines, but rigorous about watch-persons wearing a Raymarine MOB alarm wristband.

Above-deck, Tom is quick to get sail up, set a downwind pole, or accept an anchoring spot, while Bette Lee counterbalances him with more reflection — Is there too much wind for the full main? Is the wind steady enough from that quarter for the pole? Will we get sufficient breeze if we drop the hook here?

While it is Tom who checks engines and makes water, it was Bette who went up the mast to fix a steaming light and who diagnoses electrical problems.

We were aboard Dedalus with her owners for only one day’s voyage but yacht-sat the boat for a week, so our observations are less personal but still insightful.

Dedalus at Gili Aer

With no previous sailing background, Melinda met George in the midst of his building Dedalus, so plunged into bringing herself up to speed. They imported a woman 1600 Ton captain from the US for the dual role of overseeing electronics installation and teaching Melinda in particular how to be a good mariner.

Melinda on watch

As a result, Melinda is exacting and by the book. Every gauge, dial, screen or data resource is at the inside steering station: on, interfaced and duplicated.

Meticulous logs are kept — current, tide and weather references monitored, cruising guides tabbed with post-its — every switch is labelled, and a separate instrument keeps a 24-hour anchor watch.

George & Melinda with their engine and windlass remotes

George is just as precise in his engine room maintenance, and he left us pages of detailed instructions on every system.

My most lasting image of the two of them will be their standing on the foredeck, heads down over remotes for windlass and engine, push-buttoning the anchoring process!

Dedalus‘s decor is all wood and Euro black leather, with Panamanian molas the only souvenirs in sight.

Melinda’s galley is sleek and all-electric (including a dishwasher!), a common situation on power yachts, although underway there’s enough motion to make cooking on the infrared cooktop without gimbals dicey. Everything has a customized place, eg china in fitted drawers, and the fridge, freezer and pantry hold just what they’ll need for their careful diet for the season.

There’s a washer and drier aboard…and in a den a big flat screen TV!

For the last leg of the rally from Bali to Singapore we joined the McM- family on Ivory Street.

Ivory Street at Gili Aer

At a potluck aboard back in Darwin, Tom of Quantum Leap admitted rare “boat envy” of this sleek, new catamaran.

Ivory Street salon

It has an elegantly modern, yet practical cream and myrtle-wood decor, spacious accommodations, perfectly placed windows for peripheral sightlines and good ventilation and light, and a lovely cockpit.

The boat is equipped with Raytheon E series nav instruments at the outside helm, electronic controls for the engines and windlass, and a top notch sail suite with all control lines led to the cockpit. Nav data can repeat on flat-screen TVs inside, there’s a Bose stereo, an ice-maker in the bar, while out back there’s a 13′ dinghy w/ 30hp outboard and a dive compressor. Other domestic luxuries include a washer/drier, dishwasher, and even a pod espresso machine.

And yet, there’s a lean feeling about the boat: no wads of clothes, books, or stuff nor glut of provisioning or culinary indulgences. Generally they eat light and simply, and meal prep is sometimes make-your-own.

Interestingly, this beauty is Greg’s first boat. Greg is the calm, dry, determined characteristic Kiwi, self-educated in the waters of Australia and New Zealand on every detail and aspect of sailing and maintaining her. Chrissie and Michael enjoy the trip well enough, but they are here because Dad wants to be, and Greg essentially single hands the boat. We’re along simply to help with night watches for the busy approach to Singapore.

So here’s what we ask ourselves: have we merely stumbled fortuitously into a corner of cruising’s “Lifestyles of…”, or is this indicative of a seismic shift in what people expect of the cruising life? Despite the economy, I think it’s the latter, but perhaps these boats predate the downturn. Perhaps the cycle will turn again, and people who want to go badly enough will return to a simpler way. After all, there were those twenty-two boats under forty feet!

Either way, large or small, cushy or basic, we all share the same anchorages, winds, experiences, and beach bars, and, in the end, that is the democratic point of cruising!

This article was published in the January 2012 issue of Latitudes and Attitudes.

#61 – One Hull or Two?

Gwen Hamlin — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 13:35:18 +0000

“So? Whaddya think?”

Everybody’s asking us. They want to know what we — 20+ year veterans of monohulls — think about our first eight-week catamaran experience cruising aboard a 50 foot cat? Some anticipate utter conversion, some expect loyalty, others could care less about the boat and want to hear about the trip.

Comparing catamarans to monohulls based on our experience is not even a question of comparing apples to oranges, but rather THIS apple to THIS orange.

Individually and together, Don and I have 20+ years experience on one boat type, the CSY 44 cutter, a 20-year old production boat, but the sum total of our catamaran experience is the eight weeks we’ve sailed with friends aboard Quantum Leap, an 11-year-old semi-custom St. Francis 50.

You might think these two boats would have nothing in common, but to us they do. The first is that both boats were constructed on principles of solid construction and strength. This results in a heavier boat for its class, perhaps not as fast as others, but with a more secure-feeling ride in heavy conditions.

The second is more abstract. It has to do with feel. I loved the look of our CSYs, particularly Tackless II (T2), the walk-thru. The classic lines and color choices we’d made for paint, canvas, and even bottom paint pleased me approaching across an anchorage. I truly appreciated her cool, comfy, breezy cockpit and 360* view, while inside, I loved the welcoming feel of the honey-toned carved woodwork, the decor we’d chosen, most of the layout and the generous natural light from her big salon windows.

Tom and Bette Lee Walker (right)
aboard Quantum Leap

When we first met Tom and Bette Lee Walker in Fiji, their boat struck us similarly, with handsome aesthetics, fine joinery, and pleasing layout. Like most tire-kickers, we’ve walked on and off a lot of catamarans, at boat shows and socially, and rarely have we had that reaction of, “Yeah, I could do this one.” We had it right away with Quantum Leap (QL).

So we were thrilled to be invited to meet up with QL in Darwin, Australia for the first leg of the Sail Indonesia Rally to Bali.

Right off, we appreciate one of the big advantages of a catamaran, the room to have guests aboard.

Guest berth aboard QUANTUM LEAP

On T2 our guest cabin had filled up with stuff, but on QL we have a whole hull to ourselves, a queen berth with ensuite head, generous lockers to put clothes away, and even a spare cabin in which to pile our empty suitcases! Head-in on the bridge deck, our berth is comfortable and well-ventilated with plenty enough headroom — nice for sleeping or an afternoon reading getaway.

The cabins are all open because this cat has tons of interior and exterior lockers, so that deck gear, spares, and provisions are all put away. Even on deck, only their windsurfer and kayak are secured to a lifeline; all fuel jugs are in an external locker making for a very clear deck. Not the case on T2!

Space, of course, is the main reason people first consider catamarans: the extra cabins for family or guests, the spacious cockpits for meals and partying, the wide open deck for lounging about.

The second main reason is stability.

Seat down meals on Quantum Leap

Expected at anchor, it’s mind boggling how much stuff is just left sitting in place underway. Granted we’ve not made a major ocean crossing like a trip to New Zealand or the Indian Ocean, but, literally, coffee cups are just left sitting on counters! On a monohull, that would be risky at anchor!

However, while stuff takes the catamaran ride easily, we don’t do as well. The quick jostle of a cat underway makes moving around the huge deck unsettling. Here the space works against you with few handholds available. There’s plenty of room to manhandle the downwind pole into place, but personally, we feel like wobbly toddlers, totally vulnerable. Our hostess says they, too, had second thoughts about the motion initially, “but it’s something you get used to.”

We love the easy access to the water

Things we especially like are the electric winches and the way most lines can be worked from the cockpit area.

We love the ease of hoisting the dinghy with the outboard in place onto the aft deck via a hinged davit, a pair of tackles, and a halyard led to one of the electric winches.

We also love the easy access to the water for swimming, fishing and boarding the dinghy, and the perfectly-placed deck shower.

The bow seats on each pontoon are favorite reef and sunset watching spots underway…once we stagger up to them, but they are also convenient for bracing one’s butt when doing anything on the precariously narrow bows! However, I’m surprised how little we’ve used the trampolines or sat out on deck. Our first day under sail Don and I took Paradise seats on deck to read, but after that, in this UV conscious era, the lure of being in the hot sun has been way down.

But on the other hand, in the cockpit, we don’t like the lack of forward view typical of most catamarans. Yes, for safety, we can see forward through the salon windows, but it’s not the same as a 360* panorama. Nor as breezy. Underway the raised helm seat gives a good view, but for anyone else to see ahead, they must stand on the bench seat or step out on deck.

An eyebrow-raising negative of catamarans is their infamous “slapping”, the product of waves thwacking the underside of the bridge deck. It was particularly alarming on our one rough, 30-knot night passage. We’re told this happens less on higher-bridged cats, but none escape side slapping. Admittedly, our monohull occasionally pounded when hard on the wind in big seas. Another thing one gets used to?

On the maintenance side, there is, of course, twice the waterline to clean but also the very huge deck to get dirty. It’s mighty nice to have private heads, but it means there are four toilets and four showers sumps to keep up. Likewise, there are two engines to maintain, and engine access (on this boat under the aft berths) is a bit harder, so daily checks of engine fluids can be a pain (though far better on QL than cats whose engines are beneath storage lockers!) It could easily make them vulnerable to out-of-sight-out-of-mind negligence.

Speed, of course, is a third attraction of cats.

QL is well-loaded down, but from a monohuller’s perspective she makes great speed, under sail and under power, even at low RPMs on one engine.

The option to motor on just one engine is excellent (using only .5-.75gph), but not all cats have this choice if essential systems are divided between engines.

The biggest negative of catamarans is expense. The initial cost is more than double what you would spend on a monohull that would get you going sooner, plus you have to plan for extra costs to berth and to haul. (Of course, cats do have the nifty option of drying out on a tidal cycle for bottom work, something we saw several do on the beach in Darwin.)

But, after eight weeks, we feel really at home on QL. So, yeah, we’d consider two hulls on “a next boat.” It’d be perfect for taking the family to the Keys or Bahamas.

It’s just a matter of that lottery ticket coming in.

This article was published in the Nov/Dec 2011 issue of Latitudes and Attitudes.

#60 – Bedding

Gwen Hamlin — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 19:27:45 +0000

Around the cockpit table during a potluck among boats awaiting the start of the Sail Indonesia Rally in Darwin the topic of bedding came up. Robin of the American Voyage 44 cat Endangered Species was explaining to Michelle of the Aussie 53′ cat Thor how she’d solved her preference for a softer mattress when Rick preferred firm. “Ashore we had a waterbed, and when we moved aboard, we dismantled it for the surrounding collar and filled it with two replacement air mattresses that I finagled from the Sleep Number people.”

I was surprised. I had never heard of air mattresses on a boat. I’ve been to enough boat shows to know that there are plenty of entrepreneurs doing their best to market mattress upgrades and customized bedding to sailors, but I also remember when outfitting my first boat that mattress and sheet issues were way down the list of priorities.

But should they be? After all, a cruising boat is our full-time home. As I started asking around among Rally participants (who, having traveled this far, should have some opinions on the subject), I was a little apologetic about asking them about such an intimate and perhaps peripheral issue to the challenges of voyaging. But the reactions I got surprised me. After a moment’s hesitation while they gave it a thought, they’d laugh and bubble over with information. As Renata of the Hallberg Rassey Nuku’alofa exclaimed, “To Helmut, it is THE most important thing.”

Barbara & Tom of SV GOSI. Tom was into it!

In fact, when chatting up Barbara and Tom of the Valiant 40′ Gosi on the bow of an Indonesian dive boat, the importance of bed and bedding to the men was reinforced.

I asked Barbara what kind of mattress she had, she mused a moment and said, “Oh, I think whatever came with the boat.” “Oh, no,” said Tom, “Remember, we got a custom foam mattress from the vendor at the Annapolis boat show. It’s high density foam but wrapped so it looks like a regular mattress.” What about sheets? Barbara was similarly uncertain, but Tom jumped in again, “We bought the highest quality sheets that were on sale in the New Zealand department store and then had them customized for our mattress.”

Shortly after this I posed the question to Margaret of the Tayana 47 Peregrina, and she burst out laughing. “A while back, to pass time on passage, I asked Peter one of those questions a woman should never ask her husband, ‘If someone asked you to name something about me you really loved, what would you say?” and he thought carefully for several minutes and said, ‘She makes the bed every day!‘” Peter quickly jumped in to defend himself. “I’ve been on so many boats where you go below and the berth isn’t made, and I realized how pleasing it is to me to go into our cabin and have such a put- together, orderly space. It’s welcoming.”

Shipboard beds start with mattress choice. Many boats come with odd-sized mattresses shaped to the boat and not to standard sheet sizes, necessitating custom-tailoring. My “pre-owned” boat when I bought it came with the original four-inch thick foam fitted with removable covers. To upgrade to thicker mattresses I had get new covers, too. In both the fore and aft cabins, the mattresses (old and new) were split in half to facilitate moving them to access spaces below. In the v-berth, a much thinner piece fitted an insert to convert the two singles to a double, which required king-sized flat sheets. This is typical of older boats’ sleeping set-up whether berths are oriented fore-and-aft, athwartships or offset to one side. They are often a pain to make.

Our berth on TACKLESS II Classic!

In newer boats, berths are less traditional, marketed to give at least the illusion of more “walk-around” space and thicker, higher-class mattresses. But one should question how secure they will feel underway.

Most of the cruisers I queried had some variation of foam mattresses, usually described as firm, high-density foam, and most had toppers of some sort, either memory foam or egg crate. Most also, motivated by spending time in New Zealand (if not coming from northern climes to start with), had added underlayments to control condensation. The most mentioned foundation was a sort of fibrous material compared to a “loofah” or a “Scotch Brite scrubbie.”

Guest berth aboard QUANTUM LEAP

Bette Lee of Quantum Leap is a woman who does lots of research before making choices. She explained that firmness of foam is measured in durometers, or the amount of weight it takes to depress it, and how you sleep — side, back or stomach — dictates the thickness foam you need. For example, a side sleeper needs thicker foam to support the shoulder, but a back sleeper can get away with less. On her catamaran the forward two berths over the bridge deck are standard one-piece queens, six inches thick, while the aft berth mattresses over the engines are split. As a guest aboard, I find the one-piece mattress comfortable but heavy to lift for making the bed.

Shopping for sheets, I’m quickly bewildered by the panoply of thread-count, material and finishes available and clueless to the ramifications for them in tropical climates. Cruisers, it seems, are as seduced by thread count as landlubbers, but at the same time they are swayed by what’s on sale. They were divided by loyalty to 100% cotton or cotton-poly blends, which, believers say, don’t seem to absorb the humidity. The best boat sheets I ever bought were discounted cotton-poly sets I got at a discount center; they were light-weight, wrinkle-free, soft, durable and resisted humidity — problems I had with later choices.

I was surprised how many cruisers admitted to not changing their sheets weekly, going as long as three weeks! Bette Lee carries three sets of sheets per berth, with dryer sheets folded into the spares in gallon-sized Ziploc bags to keep them fresh. Other cruisers use Space Bags to contain spare bedding.

In the tropics, many cruisers use an untucked top sheet they simply fold up to make the bed. Others still make the bed up daily with a thin blanket or lightweight quilt or fitted cover. For some, decor is important (really, it only takes a little extra time and money to get the coordinated look!), while others exclaim, “Well, they matched once!‘

Like sheets, pillows run the gamut from fiberfill, to memory foam to down. Barbara of the Sparkman Stevens ’47 Contrails adores her down pillows for sleeping, using washable polyester ones for the second pillows. She says the down has done fine in the tropics. Bette and her husband Tom, both side-sleepers use king-sized second pillows as body pillows to support knees and shoulders and ease lower back issues. An ingenious way to store extra blankets and quilts in the off season is to stuff them into pillow covers.

When I finally caught up with Michelle of Thor who was having that initial conversation with Robin at the potluck, she surprised me by saying she also had an air mattress. But it turned out it was new! “We had an innerspring mattress and I hated it. After talking with Robin I hunted all over Darwin and found one. We love it.”

Ah, the power of the potluck!

This article was published in the October 2011 issue of Latitudes and Attitudes.

#59 – Facing Fears

Gwen Hamlin — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 13:21:51 +0000

When we do our Women and Cruising seminars, the most unasked questions in the room are about fears.

Even in the companionable community of other cruising women, few people want to admit that they are afraid. And so concerns remain unasked and unaddressed, lurking behind less threatening topics like communications back home, finances, or provisioning.

A while back, we did our first online Women and Cruising webinar* for SevenSeasU.com the online cruising university organized by Seven Seas Cruising Association. While Kathy Parsons, Pam Wall and I addressed a question list of typical topics submitted by the attendees, over in the attendee chat box, perhaps enabled by the anonymity of the Internet classroom, someone typed, “Is anyone else afraid?” While we continued to talk about…what was it?…doing laundry, perhaps?…we watched as instant chats began flying back and forth — a flood of pent-up anxiety released.

We women have particularly capable imaginations.

Fear of storms

Fear of disasters

Fear of dragging anchor

Fear of the dark

Fear of sea monsters

Whether we are newbies to cruising with relatively little real information or multi-year experienced sailors with many sea miles under our belts, we ladies typically spend a lot of time fretting over possible scenarios. This is not entirely a negative attribute, at least not when the anxieties are remotely realistic, because when we fret, we plan. In other words, as we conceive disasters small or large, we develop counter scenarios for dealing with them.

But when fears are allowed to get a grip on us, when we are pushed too far too fast (for our pace, whatever that pace may be), or if we let fears piggyback one on top of the other, then we run the serious risk of undermining our dreams. We have all seen boats stalled out in some marina or hanging about indefinitely in easy anchorages. Either they keep procrastinating that first big step out onto the ocean, or they scared themselves silly taking too big a bite on their first effort.

Obviously how much we know about our area of concern affects the way we worry about it. If we are newbies with little background knowledge, our scenarios can become fantastic, the way sailors of old worried about monsters of the deep and vengeful gods. In other words, a huge amount of angst can be squandered on something that is very, very unlikely to happen.

But the more we know, the more the parameters of what we worry about narrow down to real and possible issues.

Sailing in general and cruising in particular certainly expose us to situations where some anxiety is not inappropriate: navigating in areas of tricky reefs, sailing at night in areas with boat traffic, coping with squalls at anchor or rough seas and big winds underway. Controlled anxiety motivates us to stay alert, and should a situation occur, the scenarios we have run through in our “worrying” — and the preparations that worrying has motivated us to make — are there and ready to be implemented. Once we get through the scary experience, we look back on it and congratulate ourselves on coping and realize that next time it won’t be quite so worrisome. In such a way we build our confidence bit by bit.

Another complication on board is that men and women often deal with anxieties and fears in different manners, chief among which is that women like to talk through worries and men often don’t.

Let’s take a very simple example. A relatively new sailor is taken out sailing by her boyfriend who hopes to convince her to go cruising. If winds are 12 kts or less, he’ll put up all sail and she’ll likely have a pleasant ride. But if winds increase to 18 kts and he doesn’t reef, the boat may heel way over and waves may splash aboard. If she is adventurous, she may love this, but if she has reservations, she may be fretting about the boat going right over. If the wind kicks up further, she’ll be fretting about things breaking.

What else is going on? While her knuckles are going white, the boyfriend, especially if he is a racing sailor, may be having a grand old time, oblivious to her discomfort.

Or perhaps he, too, feels that things are getting overpowered, but, not wanting her to worry, acts as if everything is under control, that this is normal.

If she voices her worries, the racer’s response might be a dismissive laugh, while the more sensitive guy might issue a band-aid comment like, “Don’t worry about it. Everything is okay.”

Now, I ask you, why should she believe him? Sure, he may be seeking to reassure, but he is doing so by dismissing the validity of her worries.

Instead, why not take a moment to explain the interrelationship of the keel and the sail. Better yet, why not, the moment he has a clue she is uncomfortable, reef the sail and accomplish two things: diminishing her tension and teaching her about the comforting physics of reducing sail. The two steps together demonstrate that the situation is under control and that he cares.

Every individual’s fears will be unique to the situation — situation being boat, environment, and relationship (or solitude if single-handing). But there are commonalities.

Some fears are very specific, very imaginable, like sinking or dismasting, sailing through bad weather, having a partner fall overboard, hitting something in the dark, having a health issue at sea to deal with, or even dragging anchor onto a reef while asleep.

Others are more abstract: how will my partner and I get on 24/7 in such a small space? Or how will I deal with the solitude and having to doing any or all repairs if I dare to sail solo? How will I manage in a new place where I don’t know the language, customs, and proprieties? How will I face starting all over making new friends and learning my way around every time we move the boat on to a new port or country!

Essentially what we all — women and men — worry about most is how we will cope with unknown circumstances, but letting fears stall your plans is no answer.

Instead, learn all you can, and get out there where you will learn more by doing. Push yourself to take each next step, but take care to pace yourself; don’t bite off more than you’re ready to chew.

Pam Wall has a great saying that she shares with all our seminar attendees. “All the things you worry about now most likely won’t happen, and the things that do happen, you’ll deal with.”

In response to the anxieties revealed that night in the webinar* chat box, we are mounting a new feature collection on www.womenandcruising.com called “Fighting Fears.” In it, ten (so far!) cruising women share the things that shiver their timbers as well as what steps they’ve taken to manage them. This will become one of our ongoing topics, so if you have any bottled-up fears you need to get out in the open, the womenandcruising.com community is here to listen.

* (Watch SevenSeasU.com or Women and Cruising for the dates of our next webinars.)

Photos: Thanks to Donna Lange; Kathy Parsons, HALE KAI; Sherry McCampbell, SOGGY PAWS; Teresa Carey, DAPHNE; Meri Faulkner, HOTSPUR.

This article was published in the September 2011 issue of Latitudes and Attitudes.

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