Staying with the boat

Yet another gale bent the boat cover in new and exciting ways recently. Before...

I've given my opinions on the somewhat dubious odds of self-rescue, in my opinion, at sea before, and while we've invested in items both expected and slightly exotic, including the EPIRB route, the best way to not drown, as better sailors than us contend, is to stick with the boat.

...and after. The red tape of shame is doing a fine job, despite the abuse.

The best way to do that is not to fall off. Sounds obvious, doesn't it? It takes, however, some planning and, more importantly, the habit of clipping on. Even then, one has to be careful in assuring that if you do "stay with the boat", it isn't in an attitude of potential drowning.

Irises in Toronto on St. David's Day (March 2) suggest both spring and our departure are coming on fast.

There's no secret here. All crew must, in all but the most benign, all hands on deck situations, wear fully functional tethers that hold them to the boat, either at a padeye or on a jackline. Now, there's plenty of ideas about jacklines; a typical setup can be found here. But best practices of running them port and starboard with sufficiently strong webbing suit us; the existence of the pilothouse means we want them to run from the aft end of the pilothouse to the forward bollards, The tethers come in three-foot and six-foot (1 and 2 m., respectively) lengths, which will allow us to go forward to the nearest padeye or other suitable anchor point to safely work on the foredeck for anchoring or sail adjustment purposes, even in heavy weather. Which will likely be neither comfortable nor dry, but if there's one thing I've learned at sea, uncomfortable and wet beat waving at a rapidly shrinking stern every time.

The super-beefy Wichard folding padeyes, through-bolted and backed to the aft part of the pilothouse. And yes, those shavings and drill dross have been removed.

I put in two pretty massive Wichard folding padeyes for where our webbing will start. These feature breaking loads of 9000 kgs, so I can't imagine a force that would break them without killing anyone attached to the jacklines they carry. These will be lashed as tight as I can make the to offer as little deflection (and therefore a chance to pick up speed or add to the tether's length) as we can manage.

The tethers we have include strong and simple webbing ones, and these double ones.

In the above photo is seen the elements of getting out on the aft "sailing" deck at, for instance, watch change. The tether's smaller silver hook goes on the D-ring of the PFDs we have. Ascending the companionway, we clip on the shorter tether to the

That propane tank will be better secured shortly, I know.

Once on deck, the longer tether will be clipped onto one of two stainless-steel U-bolts, backed with 1/2" SS plate, around the solar arch at its strongest point.

Obviously, that plastic shrinkwrap will soon go, too.

The U-bolt isn't pretty, but that's not that kind of boat. Being capable of rotation, it can follow the tether into the footwell in which the watchstander/helmsperson stands. Once clipped on, the short tether is released, the crew moves into position, clips onto one of the two U-bolts and releases the longer tether which can hang from the PFD. Reverse order to get back into the pilothouse.

The starboard U-bolt. Despite the inelegant look, they aren't going anywhere. They have Nylok nuts and threadlocking.

I'll put the jacklines on once the boat cover is off in a couple of weeks. There's a bit more to do in bolting on padeyes to either side of the mast tabernacle to allow safe working at the mast, and perhaps the addition of further carbiners and Spectra loops instead of hard points to make everything run smoothly, but this is, I hope, a prudent start to a complex topic.

I also rewired the foredeck battery pair, but that's for another post.