Sailing safety - the good old fashioned way...

by Canadian Yachting on 24 May 2010 MOST OF US who are beyond our teens or early twenties, will pick up a cell phone and marvel at its capability to do what we saw as futuristic science-fiction only a few of decades ago.

This palm size unit can be used to send text messages, take pictures, play music, store data, possibly be a GPS and even make a phone call.

This incredible technology can easily transfer to the boat and along with other “doohickeys”, be integrated into one impressive computerized navigation, communication and operations system that runs the whole show.

But, do we ever wonder what happened to the “basics” on board our boats?

Have we overlooked the fundamental gear that – after all the buttons are pushed and levers are flipped – helps
us not to feel lost or a little exposed? If a hard drive was to crash, a circuit was to get damp or the power supply interrupted – how do we get water out of the bilge? How do we plot our course? How do we find the entrance to the bay when parallax makes the distant shore look like a continuous wall of rock and trees?

We think it makes sense to pack in the following equipment to be ready for every voyage you make, no matter whether you are out for a day sail or setting out to cross an ocean.

Now do a double-check - does the boat you sail on have all these simple objects on board?

BAILER AND BILGE PUMP – the old ice cream container or bleach jug (cap on with the bottom cut out) are about as
inexpensive and effective as they come to get water, regardless of how it got there, out of the bottom of the boat. Not only does this keep the vessel seaworthy but a dry bilge is not usually an odourous one.

In those hard to get at, in-between places, the bilge pump that hasn’t changed design in almost 55 years (yep, manufactured since 1955) can’t be beat.

Put the two together and what you can’t get with the bailer can be bilge-pumped into the upturned bailer-cum-bucket and thrown over the side. (Both are also effective in inter-vessel waterfights.)

WHISTLE – today’s whistles – the plastic and pealess sort – are a sure way to get someone’s attention. A shrill note or two on one of these will attract the eye of the boater who’s not watching where they’re going. You can be heard, if not seen, even if the fog is too thick; you can possibly bring alongside the yacht club’s tender operator who is at the other end of the moorings and upwind to boot. In a daysailer, racing boat or your own tender when you row ashore after you have given up on that yacht club guy, a whistle helps meet the carriage requirements for safety gear and it fits into the pocket on your PFD – best attached with a bungee cord in case blown offshore.

BINOCULARS – ol’ one-eyed, one-armed Horatio Nelson used a telescope, usually held to his seeing eye to plan his
strategy against his many seafaring adversaries. He could view approaching land masses or determine if clouds on the horizon were of the menacing type. Binoculars offer far better scope and range and allow you to pick up landfall
aids to navigation, the entrance to a port on a hazy day, landmarks difficult to discern with the naked eye and approaching vessels that may be on an intersecting course.

Having binoculars aboard is also a good cure for the affliction known as two-foot-itis; looking through them backwards while seated in the stern will cure you of any need to think you need a bigger and longer boat.

PAPER CHARTS – nautical charts are truly a piece of art. The amount of information that is seemingly esoterically
designed into one of these gems is unfathomable.

From the compass rose’s magnetic and true bearings, to the minutes of latitude running down the sides of the chart to provide you accurate distances and all of those little symbols each with their meaning and definition, a current chart presents everything you need to be sure you get from A to B without getting lost at C…and when all the electrics goes, or after a lightning strike, the paper charts will still be there.

COMPASS – not a virtual one or a handheld GPS unit but a real magnetic card that spins and floats in oil and does not
need batteries. It’s so old fashioned it is almost modern since, imagine this, this tool of navigation works on invisible
forces we cannot see or really understand. No matter where you are or where you are headed, if you get turned around it will always indicate which way is North.

Just be sure you are not packin’ a pocket full of magnets and you refer to that chart’s compass rose to see what the true magnetic variation is for the waters on which you are navigating.

FLASHLIGHTS – today there are flashlights that have no batteries but a grip that you pump to spin a small magneto
that powers the light; and there are LED flashlights that use so little power the batteries practically never run out. One way or another, there are going to be times when it is dark at sea and shining a little light around will help you find your way, locate your wallet that was stowed haphazardly below decks before rowing ashore from an anchorage, show others where you are so you don’t get run down and also show them where they should come to get you when
you don’t end up where you were actually going.

Never go anywhere without one of these in your pocket!

Yes, with this old style gear aboard, you’ll be able to:

look at a chart and find your course;
take a gander at the compass to get your bearings;
evaluate whether it is the bailer or pump that is best employed to keep your feet dry;
see how far you have drifted downwind away from your anchored boat while rowing ashore in your tender,
blow Dixie on a pealess whistle and
flash SOS on the hand cranked light – all without any batteries or modern devices at hand...

...the good old-fashioned way....