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| March 2006 |
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George Very Passes
After a long bout with ill-health, George Very passed away last month. A true lover of sail, when George wasn't sailing his boat, he was selling them. He introduced many, many folks to the sport, who started out as customers and soon became friends. George's independant spirit had many passions; music, motorcycles, kayaking, camping, which he shared with his wife Nancy of 48° North. Our thoughts are with her and her family. His physical presence may be gone, but his spirit will always live on in our hearts. 9th Annual Women's Boating Seminar... Thanks Thanks 48° North for your generous door prize donation and your continued support of Women's Sailing. We had a lot of new faces this year who had either found out about the seminar at the boat show or by reading 48° North, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks! This year the seminar was held at a new location; Pacific Maritime Institute in Seattle. PMI is a leader in professional maritime training and is now offering Recreational Boating weekend classes. They have a state-of-the-art full ships bridge simulator in addition to a top notch facility. PMI offered all attendees a simulator tour which was one of the highlights of the day. There were 82 women in attendance on Saturday. Due to the "big storm" 15 of the women who had registered were unable to reach the venue. The general consensus was that everyone loved the new facility and format which offered 2 three hour classes, followed by a one hour group gathering at the end of the day. The drawing for valuable door prizes wrapped up the seminar and thanks to your generosity we had many happy winners. Sincerely, Judy Nasmith Thanks, Judy. There were many sponsors who also helped make this event such a success. Armchair Sailor, Churchill Brothers, Fine Edge Productions, Offshore Store, Latitude Sailing Assoc., Medical Massage Products, Pt. Townsend Sails, Ports and Passages, Robert Hale & Company, Seaview Boatyard, Staaf Sails Bellingham, Standard Horizon, Starpath Navigation, United Yacht Sales Seattle, UK-Halsey Canada, Vernon Publications, Barbara Lippert ATTENTION TOP 25 BOATS Awards for the 48° North/Harken Top 25 Boats (plus The Boss) will be handed out at CYC Seattle after the Blakely Rocks Race, March 4, around 4:30 PM. Harrowing Laser Experience Reading Michael Poulos' account of his Laser's demise during the first "Hangover Classic", I was reminded of my own harrowing experience with the type, and would like to share what I consider some lessons. Ours was a tired old original Laser, with a two-part mast. I've heard there's a newer version, and I don't know whether that also has a mast built in two sections. Regardless, the nature of this Laser's rig, my understanding of it (or lack thereof), and lack of experience with it are all crucial to my tale. We put in on salty Mono Lake in the eastern Sierra, looking for a day of sailing adventure. It was late morning, sunny and warming, with a few clouds and a breeze that started out way too light. I was bored stiff and a bit grumpy for other reasons, and conditions indicated we were in for a real letdown, sailing-wise. Then things started looking up, and after one good reach during a brief stretch of adequate wind, our little outing became a real battle. The wind rose suddenly from the direction of the launch ramp (our destination) to a level I'd call "fierce". We had salty whitecaps and way too much wind for the Laser's sail, and were promptly blown over. Now, I'd once heard something about how to right a small sailboat, so we gathered our belongings, I turned the Laser in the direction of the wind, stepped on the centerboard, and she popped up with almost no effort. We clambered aboard with the sail luffing like crazy, and got furiously underway again. This is where my own shortcomings and those of the Laser combined to make the situation rapidly worse. I couldn't see a way to shorten sail, and with the powerful wind and a full main, the Laser was either screaming full-tilt in one direction or another, or laid over in the water. With the wind coming from the direction of the ramp (and our truck), I fixated on the need to tack in that direction, but with our utter lack of experience, whenever we'd come about, the wind would topple the boat instantly. After several dunks, and with the wind seemingly ever-worsening, we hit upon the brilliant idea of swimming ashore, towing the boat with us. (Still we remained fixated on getting to the ramp, perhaps only a half mile away.) So, with the mast, sail and boom wrapped up on the deck, we each grabbed onto the boat and started dragging it into the wind. We struggled mightily, and we may have even made some progress, but there was no way to measure that progress in our position. After swimming harder than I ever have in my life (a little too hard, as it turns out), it all looked like a hopeless waste of time and energy. We gave up on the towing the boat idea, and I felt exhausted. That exhaustion was the beginning of my descent into what I assume was hypothermia. I developed cramps and shivering -- I couldn't control my muscles. I've never felt so helpless in my life. It was all I could do to haul myself into the cockpit well and wrap myself in the sail. I just lay there in a ball, shuddering. My companion suggested he swim ashore and get help. It certainly looked simple. But I remembered a story I'd heard of one of my uncles, who'd capsized a boat a short distance off shore back in Michigan, and told his companions he'd "swim ashore and get help". He'd suffered a heart attack and drowned. My mother had often cautioned, "as long as it's floating, stay with the boat". Relating this bit of wisdom (maybe my first spark of wisdom of the day), I insisted through chattering teeth that our best shot was to stick with the hull and let the wind push us to the opposite shore -- something like two miles away (or further). So there we were, bobbing upon the lake on little more than a surfboard, salt water in our eyes and throats, a nasty wind chilling us despite the frequent sun breaks, and planning to wait out the wind and reach the leeward shore. Once we dried off (and I stopped the uncontrollable cramping and shivering) we settled into what might actually have turned out to be a fairly secure and comfortable float. It appeared that things would work out after all. The major flaw in my plan was the increasing "fetch" afforded the wind on the water, as we drifted further from shore. Our final dunking came as a nasty and utterly demoralizing surprise when a small wave hit us. Now we were wet, cold and salty-eyed again, and the coming drift across Mono Lake was promising to be anything but comfortable -- we would be contending with growing swells in addition to everything else. And, what seemed worse, we'd lost the lower half of the mast and the boom. (I'd thought I'd securely tied and wrapped them up in the sail, but our dunking let them loose somehow.) Well, I could see that we were in for a long, cold ride -- we were drifting slowly and, though it was still early afternoon, there was no telling whether we'd be ashore before dark. But the loss of half of the mast suddenly made something obvious that should have occurred to me LONG before: I didn't need to raise the entire mast, and therefore didn't need to sail with a full sail. I pushed the upper mast section all the way up in the sail pocket, cut the pocket just below that to let the bottom end poke out, and stepped the mast segment, raising only the top portion of the sail. I got a clew by grabbing the leach with my left hand, and the tiller with my right, and wonder of wonders, we were able to sail surely and directly to shore. (I wasn't about to mess with any changes of course at this point.) We went straight in, dragged the boat high & dry, and walked the two miles back to the launch. Looking back, I'd say we were hindered by my lack of experience and (at crucial moments) imagination, and we were helped by some seemingly little things. First of all, early in our misadventure, I should not have been so fixated on getting back to the launch ramp. While the wind was threatening, but still manageable, I could have sailed a single starboard tack to shore, and walked the boat back. By the time I'd given up sailing into the wind, conditions were well beyond my capabilities. While the salt lake made floating easy -- we bobbed like corks out there -- it also led to acute discomfort. Our eyes burned and throats tightened whenever we took too much in the face. Fortunately, we'd brought several bottles of drinking water along for our trip. They floated when we turned turtle, and we made a point of retrieving them every time. If you're ever out on salt water -- especially highly saline water like that of Mono Lake -- bring along plenty of fresh water and keep track of it. And, we stayed with the boat. (Thanks for the story, Mom!) Finally, I will never go out sailing again without a plan for shortening sail when heavy weather hits. Had I calmly considered the question before launch, I believe I'd have quickly hit upon the approach ultimately taken. (Even if the boat had had a single-piece mast, I could have jury-rigged a smaller sail by using the boom.) As it was, in the thick of a struggle and with things going wrong in rapid succession, I overlooked a solution that would have saved us a LOT of anxiety and discomfort. Even applied as late as it was, it may yet have saved our lives. I don't know if heavy-weather survival is part of the standard course for small-boat sailors, but it should be. By all means Laser (and other day-sailer) captains, DO practice sailing "at half mast". Paul Brogger (My Puget Sound summer sailer is a Balboa 20, with its roller-reefing main.) Yes, I agree, your best option when the wind became "fierce" was just to reach into shore and get off the water if the wind was still building and you weren't confident in handling it. Getting to shore was more important than where you landed. Walking is easier than swimming. There is a way to shorten sail but basically you have to do it at the dock by rolling it around the mast, which gives you a smaller sail. It's really not the best thing to do and besides, you weren't at the dock. One fellow jokingly said that, in heavy wind, the best thing to happen is have the mast break which immediately shortens sail. Effective, but not a particularly attractive option. The good guys really tighten up on the vang for heavy winds but they're in the heavy breeze by choice and can handle it, doing some pretty acrobatic stuff with their weight. Staying with the boat was smart. Usually boats survive when people don't. Legendary Wooden Optis of Bainbridge Island Dave Jackson's article on Wooden Optis is a familiar story to a group of dads from the Port Madison Yacht Club on Bainbridge Island. In the middle 1990's, we got together and built 18 wooden Optis. Our boats were built before the overhaul of the rules, but still had to meet three pages of measurements. We were fortunate to have some highly skilled craftsmen along with a marine architect and a gifted engineer in our group. Uly Cheng designed a wooden buck that was so accurate that we could push the rules to the millimeter, to build a fast boat. Reed Hansen took his boat and mine up to Vancouver, B.C. to be measured. The measurer said that he normally wouldn't even look at wooden boats because they were so hard to build to the rules. To our delight, ours measured in and are legal boats (but only those two were measured). We have found our boat Splash to be very competitive with the "glass" boats. A bonus is that she is painted bright green and stands out from the fleet, even from a fair distance away on shore. These boats are still sailed regularly at PMYC and in the Northwest Youth Circuit, and are almost a legend here-on Bainbridge Island. When we loan Splash to a new, upcoming Opti sailor, it's considered an honor to sail the wooden Boat. Dan Taylor Bainbridge Island, WA More Opti info I just got done checking the website and was disappointed to see that the article by Dave Jackson in the January issue was not available online. Is there any chance I could get a soft copy of it for my personal use? There are a few dads I know that have been thinking about building a boat with our children for their use. I'd prefer we do an Opti over an El Toro and think this story would be useful to share with the group. (2 - 3 families) In advance, thanks for the assistance with my request. Regards, Ken Monaghan Seattle, WA Terrific! That was the whole point of putting the article in the magazine, to get some kids and dads building boats. They don't have to be for racing but just for "messing about in..." We sent magazines for Ken and his friends and hope to hear about some boats being built and launched soon. For those wishing more information on these Opti kits, conatact Peter Hess at the Woooden Boat Workshop website at: www.woodenboatworkshop.com
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