MONTHLY TIPS FOR SAILORS

Ahoy there Members
This month we are going to look at some safety issues at sea and what you need to take with you on your adventure. But before we start on that subject I am going to give you the tables for the phonetic alphabet. This you need to commit to heart as you will need them every time you communicate by short wave radio. In addition it is also very useful to know this alphabet today when our whole internet email system relies on one another spelling out email addresses verbally over the ‘phone. If you spell using this alphabet then there will be no mistakes.

NATO Phonetic Alphabet

A – Alpha	K – Kilo	U – Uniform	0 – Zero
B – Bravo	L – Lima	V – Victor	1 – Wun (One)
C – Charlie	M – Mike	W – Whiskey	2 – Two
D – Delta	N – November	X – X-ray	3 – Tree (Three)
E – Echo	O – Oscar	Y – Yankee	4 – Fower (Four)
F – Foxtrot	P – Papa	Z – Zulu	5 – Fife (Five)
G – Golf	Q – Quebec		6 – Six
H – Hotel	R – Romeo	. – decimal (point)	7 – Seven
I – India	S – Sierra	. – (full) stop	8 – Ait (Eight)
J – Juliet	T – Tango		9 – Niner (Nine)

I have given you the NATO table as this is the standard today and the most widely used. Learn this so you can reel it off from the beginning e.g. ‘Alpha, Bravo, Charlie ………’, and also backward just as fluently e.g.’Zulu, Yankee, X-ray, Whisky……’. Once you have mastered this you will be able to roll it out whenever you need to. Learn it now rather than later when you will have much other mind clutter and things to think about as you progress with your planning and come closer to your departure date.Two other websites giving you these tables are
http://www.grc.nasa.gov/ and http://www.geocites.com/

Safety at Sea:

This a major subject and one that often there is not enough thought given to and consequently may have tragic results because a piece of equipment failed, was not carried on board or worn, or crew had not been correctly or fully trained. We could fill every Newsletter for the next year on this subject, so I will take one or two aspects of it from time to time so that eventually we will cover them all.

To begin with I shall give you my list which we will then examine, not necessarily in that order:
Liferaft

Life jackets

Jack Lines

Danboy system with strobe

Life Rings

Harnesses

Flares

Pistol flare kit

406 MHz EPIRB

Grab bag with 121.5 EPIRB

Personal EPIRBS

MOB button on GPS

MOB retrieval block and tackle kit

2182 alarm button on SSB radio

Fire extinguishers

Fire blanket(galley)

Medical kit

Let’s look at a couple of these.

Liferaft:

Oviously this is a critical safety item and no ship should ever put to sea without one that has not been recently checked and certified. This certification needs to be done annually. Most used craft will come with one, so the first job is to take it to your certification station and have it checked. They will completely open it up and test it for soundness, no leaks, and also check all the contents and replace any that are not 100% satisfactory.

I recommend that when you have purchased your yacht and going for the first time, that you stay on and watch the procedure. Most will allow you to do this( you may have to go back at an appointed time) and it lets you see what your liferaft looks like on the inside.

Many liferafts are just strapped on the foredeck for coastal sailing and not particularly well affixed. If you are going ocean voyaging, then it needs to be well bolted down. Check the fixings and strengthen them if necessary – you DO NOT want your liferaft coming adrift and separating from your foredeck during bad weather – especially if there is a possibility that you may be needing it.
If purchasing a new liferaft, always get one the next size up for the number of crew you will have i.e. if you are going to have three or four crew, purchase a six-man raft rather than a four, and so on. The price is very little more (maybe a hundred or two dollars only) and the additional space you will have if you ever have to use it in anger is a godsend. There are many good brands out there but do your research first and find the one that suits your purposes best.

Obviously, once it is in position, you don’t want to test it out as it is very difficult to pack it up again, so I recommend you attend a ‘Liferaft Safety’ course. They are run frequently in your area and you can book them anytime. It is a good idea to wait until you have your crew organised and have them attend as well. It is a lot of fun, but more importantly, familiarises everybody with a process which otherwise none of you would know until you had to use it for the first time – not
good practise. Good Seamanship therefore is be prepared – it is a very steep learning curve having to take all that in for the first time if you are preparing to leave a foundering vessel!
So, now you have your new liferaft in place, lets hope and pray that it remains there for the entire trip, only to be ever removed for its annual certification. Remember, if you ever do have to use it for real, this old nautical ‘saw’, ‘When abandoning ship, never step down into your liferaft, only ever step up.’

Jack Lines:

If these are not already fitted it is essential you fit a set – see 101 Tip no. 84 and page 48 ‘Voyage of the Little Ship ‘Tere Moana’ on my site www.sailboat2adventure.com They are there to clip on your harness line any time you or your crew leave the cockpit. They run the whole length of your boat on the port and starboard decks. Take 35mm black webbing, cut it to length and visit your sailmaker and have him sew up the ends. Fix them to the forward deck with triangle tangs and at the stern end (beside the rear end of the cockpit) with quick link shackles.
Tighten them to a twanging snap on the deck. Now you have a fine, taut and extremely durable and strong set of jack lines. As tight as you have them on the decks, you will still find you can easily slip your fingers under them to snap on your harness lifeline shackle.

Every time any crew member leaves the cockpit they should clip on to these jack lines. Many a life has been saved in rough weather by crew being ‘clipped on’ when the boat has been tossed, a wave come on board or a boom swung over. Even in fair sailing conditions it can easily happen that someone trips as they climb out of the cockpit or walking along the deck. If no one else is on deck at the time that crew can go over without being noticed. It is difficult to retrieve a MOB from the sea anytime in the best of conditions – but if that MOB goes over
without anyone knowing, retrieval is infinitely less likely.

More safety issues later.

This month I will leave you with a revised version of John Masefields’ ‘Sea Fever’, with words aimed at the electronic nuts out there.

“With apologies to Masefield”, author unknown

I must go down to the sea again, in a modern high-tech boat, And all I ask is electric, for comfort while afloat, And alternators, and solar panels, and generators going,
and deep cycle batteries with many amperes flowing.

I must go down to the sea again, to the autopilot’s ways, And all I ask is a GPS, and a radar, and displays, And a cell phone, and a weatherfax, and a shortwave radio, And compact disks, computer games and TV videos.

I must go down to the sea again, with a freezer full of steaks, And all I ask is a microwave, and a blender for milkshakes, And a watermaker, air-conditioner, hot water in the sink, And e-mail and a VHF to see what my buddies think.

I must go down to the sea again, with power-furling sails, And chart displays of all the seas, and a bullhorn for loud hails, And motors pulling anchor chains, and push-button sheets, And programs which take full charge of tacking during beats.

I must go down to the sea again, and not leave friends behind, And so they never get seasick we’ll use the web online, And all I ask is an Internet with satellites over me, And beaming all the data up, my friends sail virtually.

I must go down to the sea again, record the humpback whales, Compute until I decipher their language and their tales, And learn to sing in harmony, converse beneath the waves, And befriend the gentle giants as my synthesizer plays.

I must go down to the sea again, with RAM in gigabytes, and teraflops of processing for hobbies that I like, And software suiting all my wants, seated at my console And pushing on the buttons which give me complete control.

I must go down to the sea again, my concept seems quite sound, But when I simulate this boat, some problems I have found.

The cost is astronomical, repairs will never stop, Instead of going sailing, I’ll be shackled to the dock.

I must go down to the sea again, how can I get away? Must I be locked in low-tech boats until my dying day? Is there no cure for my complaint, no technologic fix? Oh, I fear electric fever is a habit I can’t kick.

And software suiting all my wants, seated at my console And pushing on the buttons which give me complete control.

I must go down to the sea again, my concept seems quite sound, But when I simulate this boat, some problems I have found.

The cost is astronomical, repairs will never stop, Instead of going sailing, I’ll be shackled to the dock.

Nautical saying for September:

Ahoy, or Ahoy there!

In ancient times ‘Ahoy’ was the battle cry of the Vikings.

Then it became the traditional method of hailing between ships. Today it is used as a general greeting or a way of attracting someones attention. It is still used when hailing other vessels at sea or when approaching a vessel on a marina berth when there is no one on deck. The hail ‘Ahoy’ goes out followed by the name of the vessel. This is the correct and polite method. The strength of the hail depends on the distance of the other vessel or whether or not the occupants of the moored craft are awake or not!

Enjoy and talk to you all again next month

Cap’n Vinnie