Pilotage

Conning from aloft

When you're entering a small cove for which your chart is not detailed enough to show all the dangers or where there could be unmarked obstructions, it's often wise to climb the mast for a better view. The extra height lets you see the water beyond intervening rocks, sand spits, or anchored vessels. It also may allow you to gauge the water depth well ahead and to identify suitable anchoring spots.

On the other hand, reliance on visual conning under unsuitable light conditions has caused many strandings. This is particularly common among cruising boats in reef-strewn tropical waters, usually when they’re trying to make a crack-of-dawn departure or pressing on into unfamiliar anchorages in the late afternoon.

Generally, visibility is best when the sun is behind you and not too low in the sky. A light breeze ruffling the surface is better than a glassy calm. Wavelets refract and scatter the colors, and waves or swell may also give clues by breaking, or even just visibly "humping," over shoal areas. Polarized sunglasses are very useful because they reduce reflected glare and let you see farther ahead of the boat, but tinted lenses will alter coloration.

If the water is clear, color often gives a reasonable clue to depth, because water filters out the red end of the spectrum first. Over a shelving light-colored sandy bottom, there will be a gradual transition from, say, yellows or light grays through increasingly darker greens and maybe even to blues in very deep water.

Over darker-colored bottoms, the yellows in shoal areas tend to look brown, and the greens are darker. The difference may alert you to the presence of rocks or weed and, in warm seas, of coral. Even in depths well below the boat's draft, this can be valuable information for anchoring. In either case, a clear green usually indicates 7 feet of water or more, although differences in water color due to plankton and algae can confuse the issue, and at a distance the shadows of small puffy clouds may appear similar to shoal areas.

In turbid water, you can’t see deep enough for colors to warn of dangerous shoals. Overcast skies may also dull the shoal colors. In a channel with steep edges, changes in the surface appearance may be seen where the current in the channel sweeps past the slower-moving water over shoal banks. The deepest water is usually found near the outside of a river bend, but submerged reefs can make this a dangerous assumption, so proceed carefully if you don't have a chart.

Conning from aloft is easier and safer if you use hand signals to direct the helmsman. Voice commands often must compete with engine noise and may require the person aloft to turn aft and face the helmsman. The same signals can be used to communicate from the foredeck when dropping or weighing anchor. Short-range radio-communications headsets are increasingly in use on bigger boats.

Some cruisers, particularly those who frequent coral waters, construct a sort of conning perch by placing two mast steps at the same level, about 3 feet below a set of spreaders. The "spotter" can lean on the spreaders and is less likely to be dislodged if the boat does run aground. Conventional mast steps are awkward to use when the mainsail is set, so many tropical cruisers fit ratlines to their lower shrouds. By climbing the windward shrouds, an observer can then almost lie on the ratlines and even use binoculars in a seaway. If the mainsail obstructs the view, the leeward shrouds can be used. A.B.

Techniques

Give the crew a chance Always try to steer through a tack rather than just shoving the helm over and hoping for the best. If you go about too sharply, the crew will have a tough job bringing the genoa in. Life will be far easier if, after coming through the wind, you hold the boat 10 degrees or so above close-hauled while the crew brings in the sheet, then bear away onto your new course. The crew will love you, and the boat will tack more efficiently. T.C.

Anchoring

Are you dragging?

The time-honored way of checking whether your anchor is holding is to line up two prominent and fixed features and observe them for several minutes. At night, try to find a pair of lights in line with each other. This is not so easy in squally conditions when the boat will blow back on its anchor in the gusts and then move forward again during the lulls as the rode sags. It may also sheer about, further confusing the issue.

All of this will bring your marks out of line, making it easy to assume the anchor is dragging. You may be tempted to get the anchor up and try to set it again, but before going to that extreme, be patient and watch your shore marks steadily for 10 or 15 minutes. If the anchor actually is dragging, it may take that long to become obvious. Even then, before moving, try letting out more rode; often this is all that’s needed to help the anchor hold. P.N.

Clever Tricks

Lower your lead angle

Here's a simple trick that can significantly improve the efficiency of the ground tackle of any sailboat. The rode is traditionally led on board the boat at the highest point above the waterline, often via a bowsprit. This increases the lead angle by the distance from the waterline to the deck, thus decreasing the efficiency of ground tackle. The solution is simple. After the chain is let out, bend a stout length of nylon to the chain and lead it to a padeye bolted through the bow near the waterline of the boat. This provides a substantial decrease in the lead angle and also acts as a chain snubber. Some call this a "turtle," but by any name, it significantly decreases the strain on the bowsprit and other structures at the bow as well as moderating the movement of the boat. R.P.

Words From The Wise

"Our running rig on Whisper is an eased mainsail held out with a nylon preventer line led from the end of the boom to the stem to prevent, or at least ease, accidental gybes. We pull the main boom down vertically with a powerful vang tackle or kicking strap that leads from the boom to the genoa track to flatten the sail and to keep it from chafing on the shrouds and the end of a spreader. We balance the drive of the main by poling out a headsail of suitable size on the opposite side. This gives us more area than twin headsails—which are essentially square sails for running—and because we have some fore-and-aft canvas set (the main is never squared right off), the yacht doesn't roll as much. In very light going, we sometimes put up a second jib to leeward of the mainsail. The second jib adds nicely to the total headsail area and pulls nicely with a quartering wind. Like most short-handed cruising yachts, we don’t carry a spinnaker because of handling problems; nevertheless, we find that even in light airs we move along at 2 or 3 knots."
-Hal Roth, After 50,000 Miles (1977)

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