Print this out and tape to your fog horn canister?
In or near an area of restricted visibility, whether by day or night, the signals prescribed in this Rule shall be used as follows:
1.Long. Under power, making way (sound every 2 minutes)
2.Long, long. Under power, not making way (sound every 2 minutes)
3.Long, short, short. Towing, fishing, restricted ability to maneuver, sailing, and NUC (sound every 2 minutes)
4.Long, short, short, short. Manned vessel being towed (sound every 2 minutes)
5.Bell for 5 seconds At anchor (sound every minute)
6.Short, short, long. You are running into danger (also 5 shorts)

I just finished reading Left for Dead by Nick Ward. It is an account of Nick’s experience during the 1979 Fastnet a book that is worth a read. Last week my instructor at IYT constantly made a statement I don’t agree with racing and racers are unsafe. I believe that is a very general statement to make. Yes in racing you take risks that you don’t when going out sailing for pleasure however, if it wasn’t for racing we would not push the envelope and go out in adverse weather conditions and push the boat and people to their limits. Without pushing ourselves to the limits we wouldn’t know what breaks and why. I didn’t learn that much from the book merely it reminded me of reasons the safety rules we comply with are in effect. Without races like the Fastnet and Sydney Hobart that have turned fatal we would not have development in safety standards.

88 boats out of the 303 starters finished that race in 2008 29 years later only 60 out of the 271 starters finished the race. The conditions were not as extreme as the 1979 Fastnet however, people retired. There has been a lot written about RORC’s decision to postpone the race and why so many boats retired. RORC is I believe compiling a report on the reasons for retirement. My take after reading the book, after 5 Fastnets and retiring ourselves in 2008 is not that people are any more or less qualified to do the race nor are their boats less well prepared (in fact with the more stringent rules their boats are better prepared) but that simply RORC’s contentious (brave) decision to postpone was in my mind the correct one. This decision meant that unlike in 1979 the fleet was still in the English Channel and therefore was able to bail out when each boat individually got to its limit of crew and boat capabilities. From reading Nick Ward’s account I believe if they had had the capability of retiring to shore when they saw the barometer dropping they would have but they didn’t have that option as by this time they were well out into the Irish Sea. Yes in terms of wind speeds the threshold of boats in 2008 seems to be low but at the end of the day this is for a majority of people who go out racing a recreational activity. When ever I start the Fastnet race in the back of my mind there is the memory of the 1979 race (even thought I was only one years old) that memory is what most likely helped swayed many skippers in 2008.

Sailing is something to be enjoyed it is not meant to be a mission in survival or a test of search and rescue techniques. It is not meant to be sport that leaves our families in fear of us not returning when we leave the dock nor one where we risk the life of members of the emergency services when they have to come and rescue us. Remembering this and the 15 people who died in the Irish Sea reminds me each year to spend time and money to take safety courses in an attempt to mitigate the risk involved and hopefully allow me to survive if the unforeseen occurs. Take the time this year to do a course that actually requires you to get in the water, set off a flare, right a liferaft and recover a MOB. Have fun on the water wear a lifejacket and clip in.

Recently on SA there have been postings regarding MOB situations. I am by no means and expert on the situation. I have spent considerable amount of money in the last year on safety equipment of my own which I take with me when ever I go offshore. I am not suggesting that everyone should do this it simply the precautions I take as I am in the position of sailing on many different boats and with many different crew. I have also generally been one of the most experienced people on the boat and am therefore someone who rightly or wrongly is asked to take command of a situation. This is worrying as I am as likely if not more likely to be the person who falls off the boat due to the nature of my activity onboard. So although it is bulky I have started to wear a bum bag around my waist when the conditions warrant in this bag is the following:

1)VHF

2)GPS

3)Personal EPIRB

4)Laser Flare

The theory is that if I go over and am conscious I will be able to communicate my position via VHF to the boat and will be able to communicate my distress via EPIRB and show my position using the laser flare. Lets hope I never have to use it

Rig prep before a long offshore can make or break your race.

1) Pull the rig and fully check all fittings and also sheaves for sharp edges

2) If you don’t have all line halyards install them – get rid of the wire rope halyards although they are cheaper they are not as light as wire and aren’t as flex resistant. High tech line is the way to go and you can save more weight by tapering them and make sure your rigger put spectra chafe gear where the halyard sits on the sheave.

3) What type of race is this? Upwind add in a spare jib sheet you can also use for change sheet. Downwind have a spare guy and chafe gear where the guy goes through the end of the pole. Carry an extra halyard and make all lines extra long so that in case of bad chafe you can resplice a few times.

MASTHEAD: The 2 most common masthead setups for spin halyards are externally hung blocks off of U-bolts, or a “Tri-sec” type where the halyards exit straight off the sheaves over chafe bars or rollers.

If you have externally hung blocks, make sure the bracket that extends them out from the masthead goes far enough to allow the blocks to swing well clear of the headstay or anything else. Also check the wear at the interface of the U-bolt and the block shackle. These often tend to saw through each other. It is becoming very popular to use spectra webbing or lashing here instead of shackles. Many wraps of spectra can be incredibly strong, light, and can flex forever. Make sure that there are no sharp metal edges touching the line.

For a tri-sec style masthead, if you had wire halyards get rid of them (more on this later). These mastheads are fine as long as the chafe bars or rollers have enough smooth surface area for the rope to bend around and spread the load out. Install new rollers if needed.

Make sure you have 2 spin halyards. It is customary to run at least one spin halyard external for these downwind races. The extra windage won’t hurt off the wind. I prefer not to run more than one external to avoid having too much line flopping around.

AFTERGUYS: The afterguys take a lot of wear at the pole tip so one thing to check is the pole ends. For boats over 35’ or so I highly recommend an offshore style pole end with a lot of bearing area for the rope. For the guy itself it is hard to beat single braid spectra for its wear and flex life. Use a heavy “donut” to keep the shackle from messing the pole end or getting stuck. On larger boats you may need an aluminum donut that won’t split under high load. Svendsens makes a high load aluminum donut for boats over 50 feet.

SHACKLES: For both the spin sheet and the guys use large bail shackles. These bear on the donuts better and allow enough room to hook the guy into the sheet shackle bail. Use “internal release” style shackles that can be spiked open under load and also have less of a tendency to “flog off”. Use spectra chafe guard in high chafe areas i.e. where a halyard goes over a sheave or through a jockey or spinnaker pole.

If you have a jib furler, remember to keep the spin halyards out of the way. Flip them behind the shrouds when not in use. One good “halyard wrap” and a halyard can be messed up good.

JIBSHEETS: Go for a line with a high tech core. Dacron is too stretchy for jibsheets unless you want to constantly adjust them for every puff and wave. For Bay racing jibsheet shackles are nice for tacking, but for ocean sailing bowlines are fine.

Line fiber types

SPECTRA: Best flex life. Very slippery so also great for chafe. Very low stretch under oscillating loads. Problem: Under steady high loads, spectra “creeps” or gets slowly longer. Usually not the greatest for main and jib halyards.

TECHNORA: Very strong and low stretch, with little or no creep. Does not have the flex life of spectra and should be protected from the sun. Great for main and jib halyards.

VECTRAN: Also very strong and low stretch, with little or no creep. A little better flex life than technora but not near that of spectra. Great for main, jib and universal (combo jib & spin) halyards. Rather expensive.

Synthia Petroka who works for UK Halsey in San Francisco put together a great document for the layman on the difference between the materials used for making sails. Enjoy

After our experience on Yeoman on the Fastnet one of the crew had a good idea about how to set a trysail effectively. After reading one of the books about the Sydney Hobart race a few years ago I took away the thought that tying the boom down on deck caused damage and some safety issues and if possible it was better not to have to do this. A few boats had problems when the booms were lashed to weather and the helm as a result couldn’t see the waves coming from the weather side. Waves hit the boom and broke it loose taking out stanchions, helm stations and people.

 So when we went to hoist the trysail we sheeted it to the end of the boom using the outhaul which we had pre set while at the dock. What I didn’t think about was that the outhaul didn’t have enough slack in it to allow the trysail to be ‘flogged’ while luff tension was taken up so instead you had to use the mainsheet to let the boom out but the boom was really low and therefore was a bit dangerous. We did get it effectively hoisted but it then pulled out of the track due to an over size luff rope – a different issue all together.

 So the idea that was put forward and makes sense is to put grommets in the luff and wool the trysail passing the wool through these grommets and around the rolled up sail. You would then store the trysail as a banded snake. Using a reef line you have unreaved from reef 1 you tie that to the clew before hoisting the sausage up the main track. After getting the luff tensioned how you want it you then pull the reef line to unband and ‘sheet’ the trysail. When I next have the undesirable chance to try it out I will tell you if it works in reality.

I was rebedding a pulpit the other day and the pins in the lifelines were put in the opposite of the above picture. I explained to the owner that I like to put them in as above as if the ring ding for some reason backs out and the boat is heeled the pin will either fall into the boat and you have a possibility of saving it from going overboard or it stays in place due to gravity. I really prefer lashing them on with spectra with the line going around the 1″ round. You are therefore not relying on the spot welds on the loops, there are no pins to go missing and if you have a man overboard you can knife the top lifeline to make it easier to get the MOB back onboard.

 I also had another pulpit that sheared so I to relead the bow light electrical as it was damaged and I couldn’t fish the end back out. I used fishing line and a pencil sinker pushing this into the hole in the pulpit and then jiggling it back and forth to get it around the twists and turns. Sounds easy but time consuming and frustrating.

I have been building a new boom for my brother’s moore 24 and also finishing off the mast which we bought from Buzz Ballenger. One of the important things to think about when making the holes in the mast for fittings is to make sure you use a file to round of the corners of any rectangular cuts made for sheaves. This is important whether it is a carbon mast or an aluminum mast. Last year we had the unfortunate situation of falling victim to a hole that was cut in the mast, the corners were not rounded off and the hole was oversized (at the time we were winning our class) we ended up retiring from the regatta due to the subsequent mast failure (see picture). N.B. The hole was not cut by the mast manufacturer but by someone after the rig had been delivered.

I use cardboard to create a template for the fitting that I am installing on the mast. I then trace the template onto the rig at the correct point, drill a large hole and then use a jigsaw to cut the section out. Next I take a file and make the hole the correct size for the fitting taking off a little at a time. Lastly I take a rat tail file and round of the corners. I take some electrical tape and use it as an insulator between the stainless and the aluminum by taping the plate and then using a razor to remove the excess tape. I use tefgel on the screws or rivets that hold the fitting in place to stop the electrolysis between the two different metals.

After spending way too much time untangling messenger line I decided what was needed was a cassette that would house the line and allow me to go up the mast and drop a tag line down inside the rig easily. The result was a search for industrial chalk lines that took me to Amazon.com where I buy Keson G150 Giant Chalk boxes. The cassettes will hold up to 150 feet of tagline. What I do is remove the chalk line and replace it with dacron tagline from Svends. I then go to the local bike shop and get some used bike chain. I cut sections about 8 inches long and I can tie this to the tagline. To stop the bike chain from wrapping around spreader bars in the rig take some electrical shrink wrap and shrink wrap the bike chain. The result is a long thin weight that will allow you to swiftly drop a new tagline into the rig from the masthead. The chain is flexible enough to bend into the rig over the halyard sheaves. When you want to coil it up you just open up the handle and with 3 to 1 ratio it is cleanly housed in the box with no tangles.