Boat Plans Catamaran | Is there mutiny on your boat

Boat Plans Catamaran

I SOMETIMES WONDER how many acts of mutiny take place on small sailboats. How many times has a crewmember refused to follow the orders of the skipper? And, dare I say it, how often has a wife or girlfriend declined to do what her man has asked her to? Quite often, I suspect.

The definition of mutiny, among other things, is the refusal to obey the order of a legal authority such as a superior officer. But it is not necessarily restricted to naval and military forces. Mutiny applies to crews of merchant vessels, too, although such cases are heard by a civil court instead of a court martial.

I would like to know, then, that if I ask (order) my wife to varnish the cockpit coamings, or if I simply request her to bring me another beer from the cool box, and if she just laughs and says, “In your dreams, Captain Bligh,” is she guilty of mutiny?

I ask because this is a very serious business. Aboard a boat, there can be only one boss. During the days of the sailing navies, the penalty for mutiny was invariably hanging at the yardarm. Now I don’t have a yardarm; well not exactly, although I suppose I could rig up a spinnaker pole to serve the purpose.

In these enlightened days I suppose it would be frowned upon to hang one’s crew from a spinnaker pole, and I would guess that a case of mutiny would have to be handled by third parties in an admiralty court. I would further suppose that the penalty would consist of a fine and/or a number of years behind bars, rather than death by hanging.

What we all need to know is whether the skipper of a sailboat qualifies under the law as a “legal authority,” whose edicts must be carried out at all costs. And in order to know that, we first have to know what constitutes a skipper, a legal master of a vessel. (Or mistress.) It’s not necessarily the owner, we all know that, so if the skipper has no papers to prove his legality, who is legally in charge?  Can there be a mutiny, in fact, if the skipper can’t legally prove he’s the skipper? (Or she, of course, he or she.)

I have been faced in the past with what must be close to mutiny when my dear wife refused to sail across an ocean with me unless I provided a door to the head compartment. Unfortunately, I had no proof that I was the legal master of the yacht. I was, of course; I just didn’t have the proof. So, rather than confront her before an admiralty court, I bought a sheet of plywood and built her a loo door.

I don’t doubt that many similar acts of mutiny have been dealt with in the same namby-pamby manner since we lost the use of yardarms. I’m not saying that it’s a good thing or a bad thing. Just pointing it out in case you hadn’t noticed. Just sayin’.

Today’s Thought

The ship of democracy, which has weathered all storms, may sink through the mutiny of those on board.

-- Grover Cleveland

Tailpiece

“Why did your algebra teacher confiscate your rubber-band pistol?”
"She said it was a weapon of math disruption."

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Pontoon Boat Plans | A simple pawl for your windlass

Pontoon Boat Plans

I WAS LOOKING through some pictures in one of Hiscock’s old books the other days when I noticed that he had a rudimentary chain pawl on his bow anchor roller. It’s not a thing you see much of these days, not on ordinary daysailers or weekenders, anyway. But a chain pawl, or chain stopper as it’s also known, could save you from serious back injury. It could also save your boat from the rocks.

Back in the days when I was working slave on a yachting magazine, I received an anguished letter from the owner of a Hans Christian 38 who almost lost his boat on a lee shore because his anchor chain kept slipping on the windlass.

It was blowing 50 knots and high seas were breaking in 50 feet of water off Isla Isabella, in Mexicos Gulf of California. A reef lay dangerously close aft.

When the skipper tried to raise his 45-pound anchor, and motor out of there, the chain just kept flying off the gypsy when the strain came on it, and even more chain would run out.

Eventually, in appalling conditions, submerged by waves sweeping over the bows, he managed to sever the chain with bolt cutters and power away to safety offshore.

What went wrong? Well, he shouldnt have been there in the first place, of course, with only his wife to help. He had had time to weigh anchor and put to sea when the wind first started blowing onshore. But it was nighttime and he procrastinated, as most of us would have done, until the situation became pretty desperate.

In the second place, he shouldnt have expected his windlass to take the strain of a heavy boat plunging in rough seas. Windlasses are designed to lift the anchor and chain. Period. They’re not designed to drag the boat forcibly to windward in tough conditions.

But besides that, most anchor chains contact only one quarter of the circumference of most windlasses, so no matter how well the chain and gypsy are matched, excessive tension will strip the chain off the windlass.

The answer is a simple chain pawl or stopper. Theyre designed to take the enormous strain an anchor rode experiences when a boat is rearing and plunging in an unprotected anchorage. The pawl is a one-way valve, allowing chain to come inboard but not fly out again. Some pawls, like Hiscock’s, will fit right on the jaws of your bow roller and simply flip over when you want the chain to run out.

Chain stoppers are heavily bolted down to the foredeck in a straight line between the bow roller and the windlass.

As a matter of interest, a chain pawl can often make a windlass redundant on a boat of 30 feet in length or less. You haul in the chain only when it goes slack. You dont have to bust a gut (or crush some vertebrae) trying to hang onto it when the bow rises.

This way, a reasonably fit person should be able to handle a 35-pound anchor with 5/16th inch chain in 90 feet of water without a winch.

PS: It will also work with a rope anchor line in a pinch, but repeated use will damage the line.

Todays Thought

Oh hark! what means these yells and cries?

His chain some furious madman breaks

—Matthew Gregory Lewis, The Maniac

Tailpiece

“How was the movie?”

“Didn’t see it. There was a notice that said Under 14 not admitted.”

“But you’re 35.”

“Yeah, I know, but I couldn’t find 13 others to go in with me.”

(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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