No longer do we think of pirates with tricorn hats, parrots, and brightly colored clothes. What comes to mind now are poor, desperate looking Somalis with high-powered boats and and automatic weapons.
But the other reality is that there are in fact pirates in the Caribbean. This is where most of us do our boating, so we should be aware of attacks happening in our reasonably local waters. The modern day pirate has upped his game and his equipment, yet in appearance can resemble any casual or seasoned boater. Many organized teams go for larger cargo ships, but there have been increasing reports of private craft being taken. They employ a number of different ways to board.

The most common and easiest way is to simply board the boat while at anchor and rob it of whatever isn’t secured. A trick that’s become more commonly used is the bogus distress call. A captain will report to assist a vessel and suddenly find armed bandits onboard. I’m not in any way advocating ignoring distress calls, but do take precautions. Typically, if the boat is within VHF radio distance of land the Coast Guard will already be aware of their problems and will have probably already issued a PAHN (pronounced “pon” – it is a French term for urgency). Contact them to check. If you are at sea, approach any vessel in distress with as much caution as possible and be prepared to get people below quickly and depart as fast as possible if needed. Watch closely with binoculars as you approach and check for any unusual activity.
The world is in a state of economic crisis, so piracy is bound to increase, particularly in the Caribbean.

Here are some safety tips:

⁃    Keep combo lock boxes on board at the entry ways and don’t carry keys.
⁃    Keep doors locked.
⁃    Keep someone on watch.
⁃    Lock down all tenders (i.e. jet skis, etc.) with the biggest lock and chain you can logically use when at anchor. Make it obvious how hard it will be to take any of them.
⁃    Travel in a convoy of boats when possible.
⁃    It is important to hide your boat from pirates. If they don’t see you they can’t board you. As a result, while on the open sea, unless vitally necessary, shut down all electronic devices that emit a signal. It’s wise to do this, anyway, to save battery power, but that’s how they locate you. Also, do not, unless necessary, accept any type of transmission such as weather reports, etc. The receiving device transmits an acknowledgement that allows them to locate you.
⁃    Remove all unnecessary metal from the boat and place it somewhere it will have reduced reflectivity.
⁃    Never use white light. Use red lights at night or use the moon. White light can be seen for miles.
⁃    Simply stay as quiet as you can. Don’t operate winches or other equipment unless absolutely necessary.

For more helpful tips, visit www.noonsite.com/General/Piracy.
By Lee Clymer
lee@yachtmasters.biz

This may be rehashing old news, but let’s face it folks, a one-day fishing trip can easily go awry with a change of weather, a lack of planning, a lack of common sense, and lack of adequate safety equipment. Mother ocean is a joy to all of us, but we should never take her for granted. Prepare for and presume the worst will happen. None of us want to find ourselves sitting on the bottom of a capsized vessel, but if we should find ourselves there by the beast Mother Ocean can become in short order, we must be prepared. There is nothing kind about 10- to 15-foot seas, even if you are prepared. According to statistics released by the Coast Guard, there were 398 incidents of capsizing resulting in 204 deaths, 284 injuries, and a whopping 1.8 million dollars in property damages in 2007. Much of this carnage could have been avoided with proper planning and safety equipment.

With the height of Florida’s boating season cranking up in the next month or so, it’s time to check your boat out thoroughly. An unused boat is an unhappy boat, and things, as we all know, just deteriorate from lack of regular use. Check your flares, for instance. How about dried fuel lines? You may think you’re safe just going out on the lake for a little bass fishing, but anytime you’re on the water, you’re in a hostile environment just waiting for you to slip up. The one thing you don’t check is the one thing that can come back to haunt you.

Life jackets are a point of contention for some boaters. The can be hot and they can be uncomfortable, but they save lives. There are various styles out there, from the horse collar to the self-inflating variety. “Sospenders” and other self-inflating life vests are small, comfortable, and very dependable. They simply inflate when doused with water. If you go over the side, they’ll come to life and keep you afloat even if you’re unconscious. They also have various hooks and fasteners useful for attaching communication devices such as whistles, flares, flashing lights, and waterproof radios.

In the event of a capsize, always stay with the boat. It is so much easier to find a boat floating than a group of ten people treading water. But the Coast Guard has technology that helps in these situations — SAROPS (Search and Rescue Optimal Planning Systems). The program takes all the data available and narrows down the search area. It tacks into account wind and water currents, prevailing sea conditions, and even the dock from which the boat left. Sea rescues are inherently difficult, even with the help of technology. Even from the air, vessels can be camouflaged by sea spray and waves. A single person in the water can be almost impossible to find without some nature of safety device such as a flare or personal blinking light.

The is so much we can do to help ourselves in the event of an accident on the water, but so many of us simply don’t want to bother. Enjoy the water, by all means, but don’t let the enjoyment blind you to responsibility for yourself and others around you.

By: Lee Clymer
lee@yachtmasters.biz

The constants in the docking equation are that the wind, current, and conditions will always act the same way. That is to say that the boat will move with the wind in whatever direction it wants to blow you, and the current will carry you whichever way it is flowing. Put these two things together and invariably they will oppose each other or work with each other to try their best to get your vessel out of your control.

It is imperative that you do your best to judge these things each and every time you go to dock. No matter how many times you may have gone into a particular slip or dock, you need to note what the wind is doing and the direction and speed of the current. With a practiced eye, you will eventually have the feel of these two physical properties on your boat. You’ll be able to read current just by the way it flows over a piling or causes a small wake around an already docked boat.
If you have wind and tide in the same direction there will be more force to overcome. If they’re flowing oppositely, they’ll work to cancel each other out. A heavy current will always overcome a light wind, and a heavy wind will join forces with a heavy current if they’re flowing together or too close, and can cause big problems. Of course, those situations will be as varied as the points of the compass itself.

If you feel uneasy about your read on the prevailing conditions, take a run by the dock under power and with no intention of docking the first time. Get a feel for how the vessel is reacting. See what the wind does and how prop walk (the tendency of the turning of the prop to push the stern in one direction or the other) may help you or hinder you. It may be that the one pulse of power you were counting on may pull you away from the dock instead of neatly sliding you in.
Prop walk is typically very strong in reverse, with most vessels having a tendency to back to port because of the prop turning counterclockwise. At slower speeds the prop will push water harder because of less flow over the blades. Also, the water is denser at the bottom of the prop compared to the top, making for an inequity in the amount of propulsion. As long as you know how your vessel will react, you can use this to your advantage or compensate for it if it will be working against you. Often your easiest docking will be to use the prop walk to pull you in, meaning most boats should try to dock to port for ease.

Once you get close try to have someone on the dock to help you. If you can, you may want to make that slow pass, judge the conditions and get someone over on the dock if no one is waiting. With someone on the dock, have them tie off a line. A single line on the dock will let you take the boat right alongside through simple power and rudder changes. If you have a bow line tied off, slightly throttle forward with the helm over so the rudders are turned away from the dock. If you are docking to port turn the helm to the starboard. This causes the rudders to point to the right. The water flow over the rudders will cause the stern to go to port. The same thing if you are docking to starboard, only mirrored. The bow will be held in place by the bowline so the stern will absorb the energy of the motor, pushing it to starboard. In reverse, the opposite applies. You want to pull the stern in so if you are docking to port, turn the helm to port, and vice versa.
If you can only get a stern line on, you will work against that line by turning the bow into the dock. You throttle slightly turning the helm so the bow will work its way over. Since there is a distance between the bow and power source at the stern, it takes more finesse to pull this off. You have to get some forward motion so the bow will start fall under the control of the water flow over the hull. This strategy works, but not nearly as quick or dependably.

It is wise to practice these maneuvers and learn them well. While docking is almost never really easy, knowing these procedures will build your confidence and make life a lot easier.

Lee Clymer
lee@yachtmasters.biz

I understand that marinas are businesses, much like garages, workshops of all kinds, and other repair shops, but marinas have several significant differences that put them in a class all their own. Boats, like cars, are an expense in and of themselves, yet finding a place to get them repaired is infinitely more difficult.

Hauling a boat to a marina is a highly inexpensive proposition. First off, there’s a haul-out charge up front, which in this vicinity is typically $6 per foot, round trip. For a 30-foot boat, that amounts to $180 before taxes just to get the boat out of the water so work can begin. After that, there’s a storage fee for the hard, which can range into the thousands for a month-long stay. Even in the case of a day-long minor repair, costs start adding up quickly.

To repair almost anything on a boat requires a haul out, from the bottom to through the hulls and running gear. Of course, many engine repairs don’t require a haul out, but most boats are stored at some type of marina facility where the owner is already paying rent. If you’re on the grounds or in a slip at many of these facilities, you have to pay a vendor fee to get your boat worked on. Typically, this is in the area of $25.00 per visit for any vendor. Logic might tell you the vendor should pay that fee, but we all know that in one way or another the fee will be passed on to the boat owner, and believe me, it is.
Let’s look at what you get for paying that fee. First, you get to pay the vendor for the work, his travel time to the marina, parts, and, oh yes, his right to work on your boat because you’re paying a marina to keep your boat there and haul your boat out, which you end up paying for. Essentially, you’re being penalized for keeping your vessel in a marina.

One of the arguments: “Would a garage let you have an outside mechanic come in and do work in their space?” No they wouldn’t, but then you don’t store your car in someone else’s garage, do you? And secondly, you can take your car to any garage to get it worked on leaving you the choice of mechanics.

Many of us buy our materials from these marinas, so they definitely make money there. That’s fine; that’s business. Many marinas actually have pretty reasonable prices. If, however, I buy my materials from West Marine, Lewis Marine, or some other sales outlet, do I get penalized for that? Not usually, although a couple of marinas will give you a break on storage on the hard if you do, to encourage business. That’s good; that’s being competitive and smart.

If you have a mechanic come in to work on your engine and it takes him four days to get the work done, you now have an extra $100 tacked onto the job just because your boat is stored at the average marina in this area. Your, let’s say 10-hour job at $50/hour is now $600 — one sixth of that paid to the marina just because you rent a slip from them.
I don’t have a problem with a business making money, but much like having to pay $10 for a bag of ice after a hurricane, this is taking advantage of people, and frankly should not be allowed. Certainly there will never be a law against it, and I am sure some people agree with the fees in place, but it remains a real pet peeve with me.

At the very minimum, if a marina doesn’t offer a particular service, they shouldn’t charge a vendor fee for someone else to come in. Even if they do, they shouldn’t limit free enterprise or penalize a client for renting from them. It seems ridiculous to me, and akin to highway robbery.

Marinas and marina owners should realize this does not shine favorably on them. Everyone says the same thing and complains about it, but no one wants to talk about the elephant in the room. Each of us should bring this up with the marina owners and let them know that these fees are unfair.

Boat owners are continually taken advantage of, the reason being, one assumes, that if you can afford a boat, you can surely afford the maintenance. They’ll charge what they want and for whatever they want. Let’s say you pay West Marine $30 for a stainless shackle you can buy for $5 at Home Depot. At least in that instance we can make a choice. When staying at a marina, however, our choices are severely limited.

That does not mean we can’t shop smart by calling marinas and asking if they charge these fees. Even if you want to stay or have to stay at that particular marina, let them know you object to the charge. Even if you agree, be sure to express your views.
Okay. That’s my rant for the year.

For the past two weeks I’ve been working hard on the hull where there’s been a blister problem I’ve ignored for some time. I’m now paying the price. I would like to tell you that I was addressing all my boat issues at once, but the bottom line has been my bottom line, so to speak, and it’s long been written in red ink. It’s been one of a number of problems I’ve located while attempting to accomplish one or two other unconnected issues.

This merely emphasizes the fact that constant maintenance is a must on any boat.

Ignoring your boat is the worst thing you can do for its longevity. Monthly, weekly, even daily vessel maintenance is a must. Good, regular maintenance will ultimately cost you less while making your vessel worth more in the long run. It certainly makes it last longer.

The first thing I recommend is that you actually read all your manuals. An obvious bit of advice, I know, but unlike cars, boats have a lot more integrated systems to be aware of, many inherent complexities you simply must understand. Unless you’re well off enough to have someone to worry about those things for you, you’d better start acquainting yourself with how these systems function.

The primary systems you need to really understand clearly are the engine, steering,  electrical, water removal systems, tankage (water, fuel, and sewage), all the pumps, and finally the hull, which is a system in and of itself. You should know absolutely everything about your boat, but those are the big ones to have a firm grasp of.

Your engine is very like a car engine, except that it’s marinized — able to bring in salt water, (a natural corrosive) with an electrical system attached, to employ as a coolant. Water flow in a marinized engine is helped along by an impeller, which can fail for any number of factors, ranging from foreign materials like shells tearing up the blades to simply having them wear out. Restricted water flow wears an engine out fast, second only to a lapse in  regular oil changes. Know your engine and know it well, especially if you are a power boater.

Steering systems aren’t very complex, but are usually the second most common failure next to dead batteries. They are simple to keep up, yet frozen rusted cables, broken rusted bolts, and maladjusted controls continue to plague boat owners.

Electrical system failure can range from the merely annoying to the deadly serious. These systems can be very complex and a great working knowledge of 12-volts is absolutely imperative. There are 110VAC systems on most boats, and although they are important to learn (especially since your battery charger runs off 110V), they are not quite as important as knowing the 12-volt system your boat runs under while underway. The 12-volt system is the electrical foundation of almost any vessel. Learn your batteries, your charging system, and how to read your electrical panel and wiring diagram.

Water removal systems are of equal importance since a floating boat is a happy boat. It is said that more boats sink at the dock than in any other place. Batteries run dead, the boat takes on water, and bilge pumps don’t come on when they’re supposed to. Even a heavy rain can start the sinking process.

Water systems can sink a boat as well. Many boats have sunk at the dock when the plumbing tank bursts while a running hose is left unattended. Out at sea, pure, clean water becomes a necessity, and a fouled tank is unacceptable.

Holding tanks have lately become an integral part of boats. No longer can sewage just be pumped overboard. Not only do they have to be functional, they also have to meet specific Coast Guard regulations for plumbing and materials. They must have valves to close them off and easily accessible controls.

The hull. Oh yes, the hull. While it’s unlikely any boat has ever sunk because of unchecked blistering, it can cause unwelcome drag through the water. If nothing else, dirty hulls can be a source of embarrassment.

Boats are an enormous responsibility. When not regularly maintained, they can cost you extra money, and could cost your life.

Lee Clymer can be contacted by email at:  leeclymer@yachtmasters.biz