Boat Plans And Kits | How to cure mast vibration

Boat Plans And Kits

HAVE YOU EVER experienced one of those times at anchor when a stray puff of wind hits you from abeam, and the mast starts shaking? It’s not a good feeling. I can tell you that from experience. You begin to wonder how on earth the darned mast has managed to keep standing all this time. You begin to wonder how close your mast has been to collapsing, if a little wind from the side can set it dancing like that.

The alarming effect of mast vibration can occur on almost any sailboat, but particularly on those with deck-stepped masts and insufficient fore-and-aft staying. The vibration is caused by wind eddies shedding alternately on either side of the mast, which theoretically oscillates at right angles to the wind.

In practice, nearly all such mast movement occurs when a moderate wind, up to about 15 knots, blows from abeam or thereabouts. When the natural frequency of the mast happens to coincide with the frequency of vibration, the mast can suddenly start shaking quite violently, rattling the whole boat and raising no small amount of alarm among her crew.

You can reduce the possibility of this vibration with an extra stay, such as a wire inner forestay or a removable baby stay. In a pinch, you can use a low-stretch line, made fast to the mast as high as you reach and taken to a bow fitting and hauled taut.

A more certain cure is to hoist in the mast groove a stiff (say 9-oz.) strip of sailcloth at least 4 inches wide. This will break up the regular vortices on the downwind side of the mast. But it’s also pretty certain, of course, that no one will want to go to this trouble.

Another way to improve matters somewhat is to tighten your shrouds and/or stays, thus increasing the downward load on the mast. That will usually reduce the fore-and-aft movement of the mast enough to give you some peace of mind, but I doubt it will help you sleep any better.

Today’s Thought

The wind’s in the east . . . I am always conscious of an uncomfortable sensation when the wind is blowing in the east.

— Dickens, Bleak House

Tailpiece

A man is sitting in a pub having a drink and nibbling peanuts from a bowl on the bar when he hears a voice saying: "You look smart, thats a nice suit. He looks around but the bar is empty. Eventually the barman reappears, and the mystified man tells him what happened. "Oh, that would be the peanuts," says the barman. "Theyre complimentary.

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

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Boat Plans For A Chesapeake Deadrise | How to prove youre a skipper

Boat Plans For A Chesapeake Deadrise

A FRIEND who has been sailing for years tried to charter a yacht recently. He found that the charter company’s requirements were quite strict. They wanted written proof that he could handle a yacht and navigate. And, of course, he didn’t have any written proof.

There was a cabinet full of silver mugs at home, the result of winning a lot of sailboat races over the years, but that didn’t help, of course. In the end he printed a list of his sailing experiences and had it signed and sworn by a notary public. That did the trick.

I had a similar experience when a yachting magazine sent me to Grenada to do a story about chartering in the Caribbean. The charter company asked me to list my sailing accomplishments before they would hand over their nice yacht. I must confess that my experience seemed quite meager on paper until I remembered that at one time in my life (albeit for a very brief period) I was a professional seaman — that is, they actually paid me money. 

It happened when I was young and adventurous. I was looking for a cheap way to get to Britain. I found a Union-Castle liner called the Warwick Castle that was heading that way and hopped aboard. I washed dishes and changed bedclothes all the way to London.

When I say I washed dishes that’s not quite correct. I learned from my fellow crewmembers that the correct thing to do, after fetching meals for the little messroom I served, was to throw the dirty dishes out of the galley porthole. I then picked up fresh clean dishes from the Tourist Class galley dishwashing machines.

I didn’t reveal to the charter company the exactnature of my professional seagoing experience, lest it should confuse them. I didn’t actually mention that I was a member for just three weeks of the British National Union of Seamen (Catering Branch), because that’s like telling a prospective employer that you’ve got a B.A. Calcutta (failed). It doesn’t divulge the full extent of your skill and experience.

No, I merely told the charter company that I had served time at sea as a professional. They were won over immediately. It seemed that not many of their prospective customers could produce such desirable credentials. So they cheerfully handed over their nice yacht, and June and I disappeared northward into the warm blue Caribbean Sea with happy grins on our faces.

Today’s Thought

Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward.

— Vernon Law, Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher

Tailpiece

A pessimist is a person who builds a castle in the air and then locks himself in the dungeon.

An optimist, on the other hand, is a person who fixes your eyes.

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

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Boat Plans Butler | How to do a pre survey survey

Boat Plans Butler

WHENEVER ANYBODY asks about buying a used boat, I always advise them to get a professional survey. It will cost several hundred dollars, of course, but it could save you a small fortune in unexpected repairs.

But, alas, I am not very good at following my own advice. Of the five major boats I’ve owned, not one was surveyed before I bought it. In fact, I’m almost ashamed to admit that two of them were mail-order boats — ones I found on the Internet and bought sight unseen.

I don’t know whether I have a special talent for sorting out the winners from the losers, or whether I’ve just been plain lucky, but I never regretted any of those purchases. Nevertheless,  if someone is not willing to gamble, as I am (and lose gracefully, if necessary) then I still think a professional survey is the way to go on anything worth more than, say, $5,000.

It occurs to me, however, that you can save money by doing your own pre-survey survey. By that, I mean you can take a good look at a boat and decide whether you would like to buy it if a professional survey showed it to be sound.

There are many bits of boats that can’t really be tested without destroying them. There are also many bits that are hidden, and whose integrity cannot be established. You will note that survey reports are replete with ifs and buts and legal sentences that mean “I can’t guarantee that this boat is seaworthy or even fit for the purpose of the survey.” On the other hand, an experienced surveyor will use survey language in certain ways to indicate that he thinks this one is in pretty good shape for its age and it’s probably as good any other of its kind, and if it was up to him, he’d make an offer for it.

Now, what can you do before you call in the surveyor? Well, for a start, try to persuade the owner of the boat to leave you alone on board. It’s very inhibiting to have him or her hanging around while you poke in all the private places of the object of his affection. It’s like asking if you can undress his wife and have a good look. Well, maybe not quite like that, but very similar, wouldn’t you say? In any case, try to be alone with the boat.

There are four elements you can employ to do your own pre-survey survey. The first two are your eyes and your nose. Use your eyes to look for cracks, uneven surfaces, water in the bilge, oil under the engine, and tell-tale dribbles down below, from where the hull joins the deck and underneath the portlights.

Use your nose to sniff in all the hidey-holes on board. Sniff for smells of mold and rot. Sniff for mud, dead baby crabs, and god knows what in the chain locker. Sniff for leaking gas and engine fuel. A good, clean-smelling boat is a sign that it is being looked after.

The third element is your feet. Stomp all over the deck, the cabin-top, and the cockpit floor. There should be no flexing anywhere, no sign of fiberglass “giving,”  no sign of fiberglass delaminating.  Jump up and down on the foredeck. Give extra stomps alongside stanchion bases and all deck fittings that are screwed or bolted in place. That’s where water can seep in and rot a wooden core.

The fourth element is a medium-sized screwdriver with a plastic handle. Hold it back to front, with the spindle in your hand, and tap the hull and superstructure with the plastic bit. Tap all over, and use your ears. A solid piece of fiberglass makes a sharp rap when you tap it firmly. Some people say it “rings” but I’ve never heard that. What you’re looking for, and listening for, is areas where the fiberglass has delaminated, so that it is no longer one cohesive, solid piece. When you find a “soft” area like that, the screwdriver will make a duller “thunk” rather than a nice sharp rap.  Sometime the difference isn’t much, but you should be able to detect it.

Use your discretion, of course, and rap as gently as you can, consistent with getting decent results. Once again, try to do this out of the sight and hearing of the owner, because nothing irritates a boat owner more than some stranger whacking the hell out of his nice gleaming topsides.  Nevertheless, you shouldn’t be intimidated, either. It might be torture for the seller, but this is a perfectly legitimate way to assess the structural integrity of a boat you are genuinely interested in buying.

I might also mention that surveyors often use a small hammer, rather than a screwdriver handle, to tap the fiberglass with, but I advocate a screwdriver for most buyers. The sight of an amateur attacking a boat with a hammer is likely to cause the seller to scream.

There’s not much you can do about the engine, except to ask to hear it running, and to check it visually for leaks, stray wires, and excessive vibration. You’ll need to engage a marine mechanic to check it properly at a later stage because most surveyors can’t, or won’t, assess its state of health.

Just looking at the running and standing rigging will tell you whether the boat has been decently maintained over the years and give you a feeling for how much of what the seller is telling you is the truth, and how much is hyperbole, added to furnish verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative.

If you carry out this cheap and informative pre-survey survey, you should get a very good idea of whether you want to go ahead and call in a professional surveyor.  You can show him all the places where you suspect trouble and he will be very grateful. Don’t expect to get a discount on his fee, though. Just doesn’t happen.

Today’s Thought

There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man’s lawful prey.

— John Ruskin

Tailpiece

Dick

Was sick.

In his delirium

He mentioned Miriam,

Which was an error

For his wife was a terror

With the name

Of Jane.

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

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Boat Plans At Mystic Seaport | How to club haul your square rigger

Boat Plans At Mystic Seaport

ANY SAILOR with an enquiring mind will probably know what it means to club haul a ship. I’m afraid I did not; not, that is, until my copy of The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea fell out of its bookcase. It lay there, stranded on its back on the floor, open to the Cs. The sidehead “Club Haul” stared me in the face.

Well, well, what do you know. To club haul a ship is a method of tacking a square-rigged ship in a narrow space, according to the battered Companion. You accomplish this by letting go the lee anchor from the bow. But you lead the anchor line aft and stop it on the quarter as soon as the wind is out of the foresails.

“As the ship gathered sternway, the pull of the anchor brought her head around on the other tack, and the anchor hawser was cut,” says the good book.

“This method was only used in an emergency in heavy weather and when the ship was embayed. The most famous example of club hauling a ship was in 1814 when Captain Hayes extricated HMS Magnificent, a ship of the line, from almost certain capture by the French at the Basque Roads.

“It was blowing a full gale and, with the lower yards and topmasts struck, Hayes found himself trapped between two reefs. He got to sea again by club hauling the ship, and was known as ‘Magnificent Hayes’ from that day on.”

The Companion seems compelled to point out that you shouldn’t try this at home. “It is not applicable to a fore-and-aft rigged vessel, which does not normally gather sternway when head to wind while tacking,” it says.

Well, I don’t know. It might be fun to try. If you can afford to kiss your anchor goodbye, that is.

Today’s Thought

Good seamanship involves recovering  from a dangerous incident at sea. Great seamanship consists of avoiding dangerous incidents at sea.

— Anon

Tailpiece

"Id like to see General Bloggs, please."
"Sorry, sir, but General Bloggs is ill today."
"What made him ill?"
"Oh, nothing in particular, sir, just things in General."

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