Tuesday, July 5, 2011

My Review of Scott SUB 10 Bike - 2011

Originally submitted at REI

Built for utility, Scott SUB 10 bike provides a sporty, fun ride that nimbly navigates urban and suburban roads and paths, plus the hydraulic disc brakes provide powerful braking in any weather.


Practical, handsome, high quality

By Chuck from Santa Cruz from Santa Cruz, CA on 7/5/2011

 

5out of 5

Pros: Simple, Versatile, Tough, Elegant

Best Uses: Heavy

Describe Yourself: Casual/ Recreational

Was this a gift?: No

I was looking for a bike that I could ride around town, possibly up into the mountains around Santa Cruz, and occasionally on trails. The Sub10 fits the bill perfectly. No derailleurs, no grease on the chain, no squealing brakes. Just quiet, reasonably efficient cycling. I am not convinced that the Shimano hub is ultimately efficient, but I really like the ability to shift a single lever and run through a 300% range of gears. It's also helpful, dare I say it, to be able to shift at a standstill. While I sort of wish I had waited until this bike had the 11 speed hub, I am actually quite satisfied.

The brakes are extremely powerful, and since I am a pretty big guy, I appreciate their stopping ability. They are virtually silent, and have a nice sold pull to the levers.

The wheels are also nice: not too tricked out to be practical, and 100psi tires that look like they can take some abuse without sacrificing efficiency.

So far I have added a simple combination lock, a bottle mount, and some plastic toe clips. I want to keep it simple, as light as possible, and elegant. Everyone who sees the bike comments on it's good looks. I highly recommend it.

(legalese)

Friday, March 11, 2011

Santa Cruz and the Tsunami of 2011

Foreward
Around 8:20. Notice the black mast on the
Express 37 which is leaning to the right,
having gone aground due to the low "tide".
I heard about the Japanese 8.9 earthquake shortly before turning in on 3/10/11 and wondered if a major earthquake in Japan could threaten the California coast. I remembered back to Easter weekend when I was nine years old, being awakened by my father who said we were under "mandatory evacuation". A major earthquake had hit Anchorage, Alaska, and most of the California coast was being asked to evacute prior to the antcipated tsunami. It was around 10:00 at night when we got out of bed, loaded the family into the car, and left sea level at Rio del Mar, and headed for higher ground. 
Fast forward to this morning. The news from Japan was grim: hundreds dead, a nuclear power plant threatening to release radiation, and a tsunami headed this way which had already inundated Japan but had done little damage in Hawaii. California was next, and the tsunami was predicted to arrive at 7:40am. Or was it 8:08am? Was Monterey going to be devastated, or Moss Landing, or Santa Cruz? Would Crescent City Harbor be destroyed, as it was in 1964, or would it be spared due to the different direction of the wave?
Morning at the Harbor

It's always hard to capture current in a still image, but the
speed of the current in the channel could have reached
10 knots.
At 7:40am, I drove the few blocks to the harbor. It was difficult to believe that anything of significance was going to transpire. There were perhaps 30 people lining the Murray St. bridge and looking out to sea, which was a little ominous, but the weather was calm, the sun was out,  and other than a few "Road Closed" signs, the harbor looked like it belonged to the Pacific (Peaceful) Ocean. I parked on Lake Ave. near the Kayak Connection and drank my coffee while waiting for what I suspected would be a non-event. Some commercial fishermen were on the wharf below me, nervously waiting for whatever was going to happen. Bill Lee, local boatbuilder/naval architect and Port Commissioner, wandered over and chatted with me about what we thought was about to happen. At 8:07am, I noticed that the far side of the harbor was indicating a tide of about 2.5 feet. You can figure out the height of the tide in Santa Cruz by realizing that the west side sea wall goes "under" at 6' of tide. As Bill and I watched, the freeboard of the seawall quickly diminished, until only a foot or so was showing. My guess is that the first wave into the harbor brought in 3' of water in a few minutes. While we could determine some current flowing north into the upper harbor, we had very little sensation of lots of water rushing in and out (that was to happen shortly thereafter.)


The dredge Seabright, around 8:30am. The steel dredge pipe
has capsised, and the dredge has dragged one or more
anchors. Each anchor weighs 750 lb.
To get a better perspective of the waves and water flow into the harbor, Bill and I drove down Lake Ave. to the harbor office. We walked over to the fuel dock, but were encouraged by the harbor police to get to higher ground. That seemed to set a pattern for the day; it was never clear just where you could go and where you couldn't.
From the second floor vantage point of the O'Neill building, it was obvious that a tremendous amount of water had ebbed from the harbor, creating a large, dirty swirl of water on the calm surface of Monterey Bay. The harbor dredge "Seabright" had dragged one or two of her five anchors, and was apparently heading out of the mouth of the harbor towards Monterey. Her steel dredge pipe had capsized, creating a hazard to navigation for anyone who tried to pass between the steel floats that would normally support the pipe.




Looking south out to sea, a large muddy eddy formed from
the water that had until recently been in the harbor.
Bill and I tried to estimate the speed of the water flow as it ripped by the Crow's Nest, gas dock, and Aldo's on the west side of the harbor. I think it's very possible that the current hit ten knots at times. After a while the current would start to diminish, and you could see the start of a flood current on one side of the channel or the other. It was sort of like looking at the Bay Model in Sausalito, where you can start to figure out why it can be flooding along the Cityfront in San Francisco, while it ebbs under the Golden Gate.










After U1-Dock had broken apart, only the pilings and a few
hardy boats were left. Many were pushed up-harbor to the
next finder of U1-Dock, while others were on the bottom.
Note the current; this was taken around 2:00pm.
Slack water was, inevitably, followed by a current reversal and a gradual acceleration of the speed of the current until it was flowing at full speed into the harbor. From slack water to full flood to slack water to full ebb to slack probably took 25 minutes or so.
While the deck of the O'Neill building provided a clear view of the mouth of the harbor, we were unaware of the damage that was unfolding in the area around the Murray St. bridge and the upper harbor. Rather than reach a gentle equilibrium as the water flowed into the upper harbor, it began to back up against the far reaches of the harbor, causing boats and docks to be twisted and jostled around. At one point, the UCSC floating kayak docks was torn free and began to travel up and down the channel with each current reversal. Loaded on top of the dock were dozens of kayaks and rowing shells, pieces of which littered the edges of the harbor on the following day.

For a map of the harbor, click here.


From what I can remember, the Anchorage earthquake in 1964 caused two big waves to travel down the California Coast. Santa Cruz Small craft harbor, which had been finished only recently, was generally undamaged, and Rio Del Mar beach suffered no damage where my family's beach house was located. The water receded hundreds of feet from it's normal height, then returned, then receded, then returned, and that was that.


Boats that were sideways to the current created additional
strain on the pilings and docks. This shot is from the
Murray St.bridge looking toward Aquarius Boat Works.
The tsunami caused by the 2011 Japanese earthquake was dramatically different in that it continued to cause current reversals for the entire day and into the night and the following day. About ever half hour, another cycle would start as the harbor would quickly fill up with water, then pause, and them empty back into Monterey Bay. Some cycles were more dramatic than others, but just when you thought that you'd seen the last one, it would start up again. The current reversals began working on the increasingly weak docks and dock lines and pilings, and the entire harbor, but specifically the docks near Aquarius Boat Works and U1 began coming apart.


Pilings began to tear through the docks
as the current ebbed and flowed.


Around 10:00am, two waves entered the harbor and began ripping northward. There are several good videos of the waves, some taken by amateurs and one which appeared on Fox News. They are dramatic, and you will wonder how any boat, or any dock, in the upper harbor survived. However, the next day, that section of dock looked remarkably intact, perhaps due to it's relatively new construction and plastic buidling materials.
This is the best overall video, which shows that there was more than one wave.
Video #2, taken approximately 100 yards north of the Murray St. bridge, west side.
Video #3, taken approximately 300 years north of the Murrat St. bridge, west side.

You'll undoubtedly be able to see more amateur videos on YouTube in the coming days.



Southern Pacific railroad trestle over the mid-point of the
harbor. Built in 1967, it replaced an old wooden trestle
when the upper harbor was constructed.
As the day unfolded, more and more interested residents began arriving at the harbor. The Murray St.  and the Southern Pacific railroad bridges became ideal places to see the mayhem in the lower and upper harbors. Suspended 20-30 feet above the water's surface, the bridges allowed people to see the event unfold without being told to move and without fear of injury or drowning.








Alan's Monterey Bay 30 around 3:00 in the afternoon.
U1-Dock began to disintegrate around mid-morning. The current appeared to be especially fast, perhaps due to the narrow channel in the vicinity, or possibly due to the turn that the harbor takes at that point. Some boat owners, seeing the deterioration of the docks, offered to move their boats but were turned down by members of the harbor patrol. One of the casualties was a Monterey Bay 30 owned by Alan Wirtenen, which ended up capsizing and being dragged by the current into the lower harbor, where it was finally lassoed and tied up near the launch ramp.


Saturday

To add insult to injury, this portion of G-Dock ended up
on top of this center cockpit sailboat. This same boat is visible
in the videos that are linked to above.
The day after the Santa Cruz Tsunami dawned bright and clear. Over a hundred harbor locals showed up at the Santa Cruz Yacht Club for a memorial for Joel Verutti, a Moore 24 sailor and wonderful father and husband. The harbor had a subdued buzz as people walked along the shores, checking in on friend's boats, and wondering how an event 5,000 miles away could create such a mess in our lovely harbor.

This poor Santana 22 sank in her slip. Efforts were being madethe next day to raise her and allow her to sail again.

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Preparing for an Offshore Race, Introduction

Introduction
Preparing for an offshore race can be a daunting challenge, with hundreds of tasks involving boat preparation, crew training, sail selection, last minute haulouts, and so forth. For most of the world's sailboat races, the document that determines what gear you must carry is the ISAF Offshore Special Regulations Governing Offshore Racing for Monohulls & Multihulls, frequently referred to as the Special Regs. The National Governing Organization for sailing in the U.S., U.S. Sailing, adds prescriptions (modifications) to the ISAF version of the Special Regulations.

While you can buy the booklet containing the Special Regs from US Sailing for about $25.00, it’s now possible to download either the complete book or an extract directly from the US Sailing website. Select “Offshore”, then “Safety at Sea”, then “ISAF Special Regulations.” An extract is a portion of the Special Regs that contains only the information that pertains to your race. In the case of the Pacific Cup or Transpac, it’s a Category 1 race for monohulls, one of the ten extracts listed on the site. The extract is a PDF document which can be saved or printed.

Oh, if only it was that simple! The challenge is that well-meaning race organizers, safety at sea committees, and board members are reluctant to leave the ISAF or US Sailing version of the Special Regs intact. Inevitably, the Notice of Race will contain a list of modifications to the Special Regs that adapt them for the special conditions present in the race you are entering. Common modifications include:
1.                  Minimum water requirements
2.                  Height of lifelines
3.                  Number and type of flares (pyrotechnics)
4.                  Carriage of a SSB, Inmarsat C, or Iridium phone
5.                  Inboard engine requirement
6.                  Amount of fuel to be carried
7.                  Etc., etc.
Many of the changes to the Special Regs will be justifiable based on the duration, course, or conditions that are likely to be experienced during the race, and some are based on personal biases. Regardless of the origin, you need to abide by the modified Special Regs, so make sure that you are aware of the changes present in the Notice of Race and the subsequent Amendments.

Generally, the person responsible for preparing a race boat and passing the Category 1 inspection will be the boat owner, owner's representative or a boat captain. The process of preparing a boat for the inspection can be very time consuming, especially if the boat is either new or has never gone on an extended passage before. Even owners of well-found cruising boats will find that there are construction details and required gear that will not be found on board, and will either have to be bought, borrowed, or rented for the race (and quite possibly the delivery home).

Should I rent (or borrow) the gear?
The cost of buying all of the required gear for a Category 1 race can easily exceed $20,000, and many owners will elect to do a single race every year or possibly two years. It’s challenging to justify the purchase of some of the required items if you’re going to be storing it in your garage for the following 23 months. So what items might make sense to either borrow or rent, and what are the challenges in doing this?

Life Rafts: Safety experts are divided on this one. The argument for renting a life raft is that they are very costly ($3,000 to $6,000), require maintenance every few years, and have a very small chance of ever being put to use. The argument for buying a raft is that there have been documented instances of rental rafts which have been sabotaged at some point in their history, rendering them completely ineffective had they been needed. If you’re tempted to rent a raft, get in contact with your local life raft repacker early in the process (like as soon as you decide to race) and see if s/he rents rafts. If so, make sure that s/he understands the requirements of your race so that you rent a raft that is “legal”.

If you decide to rent a raft from a friend or a guy on Craig’s List, you must have the raft repacked early in the process by a factory-authorized repacker who will then certify the raft for another 1, 2, or 3 years. If, for some reason, the raft fails inspection, you need to have sufficient time to find an alternate solution.
EPIRBs: Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons have to be registered with information about your vessel and how to get in touch with your emergency contacts. Any organization that rents EPIRBs knows this (like BoatU.S.) and will arrange to let NOAA and the Coast Guard know who’s actually in trouble. Therefore, if you’re going to borrow someone else’s EPIRB, it must be re-registered through NOAA while you’re using it. Note that you’ll need the beacon ID and the password for the beacon to change the information online.

INMARSAT and Iridium Phones: While these are incredibly handy devices, it’s hard to justify the purchase for a single race. Make sure you calculate the entire cost of rental, shipment to and from the renter, and the cost of a SIM card for the duration of the race and the return.

The six sections of the Special Regulations
You should read the entire extract that applies to your race (again, generally Category 1 Monohulls), whether or not it actually addresses items that you’ll be responsible for carrying. There’s some really good content in the Fundamentals and Definitions (Section 1) as well as the definitions of what each Category means (Section 2). The “gear”sections are 3-5, with a final section on training (Section 6). Also, read the appendices that apply to your race, especially Appendix C, which describes one method of inspecting a boat for offshore racing.

Preparing for an Offshore Race, Section 1 and 2

Section 1 - Fundamentals and Definitions


This section describes, much like the first few rules in the Racing Rules of Sailing, what the purpose of the Special Regs is, and who is responsible for carrying them out (generally you.) It also contains a lengthy list of abbreviations in Table 1 which are helpful in unlocking the secrets in the following sections.

Pay special attention to 1.02, which deals with who's responsible when a yacht participates in a race. While it doesn't specify the owner or captain, it does use the term "person in charge" which is generally the owner or charterer. The "person in charge" is ultimately responsible for the condition of the yacht, the preparedness of the crew, and the fact that all of the gear called for in the Special Regs is on the boat and ready to be put to use. There have been some instances (they are relatively rare, thankfully) where yachts have been found to be deficient in some regard. The deficiency could be a the accuracy of a rating certificate, or whether or not the crew moved ballast during a race, or whether or not a particular piece of safety gear was carried aboard. It's embarrassing to note that on some occasions, the "person in charge" abdicates his or her responsibility by blaming someone else for that deficiency. Common scapegoats include the crew, the boatyard manager, the pre-race inspector, the measurer, someone at US Sailing, the race committee, etc. 


Participating in a sailboat race is one of the relatively few remaining situations in life where you take full responsibility for something; in this case the preparation of a sailboat to go to sea, to race according to the rules, and to operate the boat in a seaman-like manner. It's not to be taken lightly, which is one of the reasons that racing a sailboat offshore has such a dedicated group of participants.


Section 2 - Application and General Requirements

Section 2 defines the various Categories from Category 0 (circumnavigations in completely inhospitable areas) to Category 6 (inland, daytime races). Since Category 1 races are "adjacent" to the most strict, most regulated races, it should serve as a gentle warning to the prospective participant that s/he is about to embark on a challenging endeavor. Category 1 races, using the US Sailing prescription definition are "of long distance, well offshore, in large unprotected bays, and in waters where large waves, strong currents, or conditions leading to the rapid onset of hypothermia are possible, where yachts must be completely self-sufficient for extended periods of time, capable of withstanding heavy storms and prepared to meet serious emergencies without the expectation of outside assistance."


Of course, this is intended to put the fear of God in you so that you don't enter a Category 1 race with the presumption that you can buffalo your way through the inspection, preparation, or selection of crew that is required.


One frequently quoted fact is that when you are half way from the West Coast of California to Hawaii, you are as far from land as any place on the Earth's surface. 1100 nautical miles to Hawaii, and 1100 miles to either Southern or Northern California (oh, and 12,000 feet to the bottom of the Pacific.) You are in the oceanic equivalent of the Sahara Desert, or the Northwest Territories, or the Southern Ocean. It's entirely up to you as to whether you'll be able to complete the second 1100 miles, based on your boat selection, boat preparation, crew selection, and ability to jury rig that which breaks along the way. There are no awards for fixing an inadequately prepared boat and limping into Honolulu or Kaneohe Bay or Hilo. It's expected that you'll have a successful voyage without outside assistance, and without theatrics.


This professionally prepared boat will pass inspection easily.
Pay special attention to 2.02. It says that a yacht must be be prepared to be inspected at any time. In general, yachts are inspected prior to the race as part of the preparation process and they may be inspected at the finish line to insure compliance. Some race organizers inspect random boats as they finish (like every fifth boat) while others inspect boats that are likely to do well, while others inspect 100% of the finishers. What gets inspected also varies. In some instances, the race committee will inspect a predetermined list of 5-10 items which (possibly) have a likelihood of non-compliance. In other cases, they will look for items noted on the pre-departure inspection as being deficient. The point is that you should never embark on a race hoping that no one will notice that you're missing required items and, more importantly, that you should never blame the race committee, your shoreside inspector, or the finish line inspector for discovering that you drank your emergency water or forgot your trysail. Buck up! Take responsibility for the seaworthiness of your vessel, or don't compete.

Those who value fairness and seamanship also value Section 2.03. The Special Regs are not there to cause you to buy a bunch of equipment you'll never use, nor are they intended to make your boat uncompetitive. They exist to allow you to leverage the accumulated wisdom of tens of thousands of sailors in hundreds of races. Section 2.03 says that if you're going to put all this gear on your boat, make sure it's going to work as intended. The gear has to be accessible, sized correctly, and in working order. That means that if it says to have "an anchor with suitable combination of chain and rope", that you shouldn't show up with an undersized aluminum anchor with a cut-down anchor stock (which happens to fit between your stringers), 10' of 1/4" of chain and 150' of rode. Plus, that anchor and rode has to be stored securely so that if the boat inverts, the anchor and rode will not become a source of headaches to the crew.

Preparing for an Offshore Race, Section 3

Section 3 - Structural Features, Stability, Fixed Equipment

We think of Section 3 as being the "naval architect's" section, since it involves so many aspects of the boat's construction or dimensions which were decided at the time that the boat was built. If you own a Crab Crusher 35, and you don't know if your boat meets the requirements of Section 3, engage a naval architect to help you decide. 


Inside-outside latching mechanism.
Regulation 3.08.4 is a challenge to many owners of production boats who wish to race. It says that you can't lock someone down below, or lock someone from coming below, using the companionway latch. The thought is that either party (below decks or on deck) should be able to gain passage to the other location. We've seen solutions with a single rotating latch that can be operated from either side of the drop boards as well as securing pins which could be pushed out from above and below decks. Your boat may require a slightly customized solution, so look at some other veteran boats to see how they have solved the problem.


Drop boards with lanyards to prevent their loss in heavy seas.
Regulation 3.09.3 says that a bilge pump cannot share a cockpit drain as a means to rid the boat of water. Some ULDB designs have large, properly located cockpit drains which can rapidly empty the cockpit if a wave boards from astern, but also have a bilge pump connection to the drain. In that case, reroute the bilge pump discharge to a separate though hull.


Regulation 3.09.8 describes the number and size of cockpit drains so that a flooded cockpit will drain in a reasonable amount of time. It's just not that easy to understand, and some older production boats may have inadequate scuppers/drains. Boats under 28' must have 2 x 25mm drains, while larger boats much have 4 x 20mm drains or the equivalent. Heavens, who can figure this out? On the other hand, draining any cockpit expeditiously is a virtue that will aid in the boat's ability to survive a storm, so by all means upgrade your drains if you are close to the margin.


Two of the Morning Light crew attempt to start a Coast Guard
Damage Control Pump. This, unfortunately, may be what saves
you if you cannot find the source of a leak in your boat.
Regulation 3.10 says that, with a few exceptions, you need to have sea cocks or valves on through-hull openings below the waterline. Is that the heeled waterline or the static waterline? The Regs are conspiculously silent, but the point is that you need to be able to close off holes your hull with either valves or tapered plugs. 

In the vast majority of situations, gravity and your standing rigging provide a force which is more than adequate to keep your mast on its step. But in extreme conditions, or when there is an unexpected reduction in shroud tension, masts can shift or jump and end up as a potent source of hull leaks. That's the reasoning behind regulation 3.12, which requires that masts be attached to their mast step. We've seen stainless steel bolts, pieces of 1x19 wire with wire clamps, Spectra lashings, and other solutions to this challenge. You never, ever want to be on a boat with a mast butt that is jumping around, so make sure your solution immobilizes it.


Regulation 3.14 goes on and on about lifelines and stanchions. Small boats (less than 28') need to have either single or double lifelines of 1/8" diameter, depending on their age. Medium length boats (28-43') need to have double lifelines of 5/32" diameter, while boats larger than 43' need to have double 3/16" lifelines. Due to the corrosion that may occur undetected in vinyl-coated wire, it's now required to use uncoated 1x19 wire or the same diameter of Dyneema single braid. Note that Spectra is the same as Dyneema, and both lines are very strong, low stretch, and abrasion resistant. Read all of Reguation 3.14, because it goes into detail about openings in the lifelines, as well as the distance between stanchions (2.2m maximum). 
While the original concept was to allow one LPG cylinder
below decks, larger yachts have stretched the original
intent by have three burner, self contained stoves.

Racing boats take widely varying approaches to preparing and cooking meals at sea. Some Transpac and Pacific Cup skippers will have prepared meals from fine mainland restaurants or caterers which are popped into the oven and served with fine wines. Other crews suffer mightily, eating three meals a day of "salty green slurry" in the words of Stan Honey. Cook stoves are now allowed to use small LPG containers which exist inside the hull, but which contain so little gas that if they were to empty into the cabin, the resulting atmosphere would not be explosive.

Regulation 3.21 deals with potable water. This is where various races really vary in their requirements for several reasons:
  1. The race organizers don't want you to run out of water.
  2. The race organizers don't want you to use potable water for movable ballast.
  3. The race organizers understand you may have a watermaker. 
Seal it, label it, and don't use it.
Transpacific races have frequently required 15 gallons per person at the start, and two gallons (total) at the finish. Check your NOR to make sure you understand the amount of water you need to start with, and the amount of water you can make and move. If you're dumping water on one gybe, and making water into a non-centerline tank on the opposite gybe, you're likely cheating.

Many wonderful, seaworthy boats have bilge pumps which discharge into a scupper, and therefore violate 3.23.2. You'll need to reroute the discharge so that it either discharges through the hull, and not directly into the cockpit unless you have a open-transom boat. You may question the wisdom of discharging your bilge water into your cockpit, but that's up to you.

You need two manual bilge pumps; one operable from above decks and one operable from below decks (3.25.5). Boats with segmented bilges often show up at inspection with a movable intake line that can be moved to wherever the bilge water accumulates. It's debatable whether a permanently installed pump can have a movable intake hose, but we leave this to you to debate with your inspector. 


LED side lights above the sheerline.
Ocean-going yachts need to show navigation lights just as ocean-going ships need to. Sails present a challenge, since they are variable in size and aspect, and can obscure the most professionally installed navigation lights. For maximum visibility, the Special Regulations require that lights be no lower than the sheerline, and preferably at the height of the lifelines (3.27.2). Realistically, if your boat is under 20m (65') in length, the best way to meet the navigation light requirements is with a masthead tricolor light, which is visible over long distances due to its height, and seldom masked by sails. 


In addition to a set of navigation lights, the Special Regs require a second set of "reserve navigation lights" (3.27.4) which also meet the COLREGS visibility requirements. Since your boat has an engine, and since you cannot use a tricolor light for motoring, it's presumed that you also have deck-level sidelights and a stern light, so those can be used for your "reserve" lights. What's not acceptable is to conjure up a loose set of wires and lights and alligator clips with duct tape to present to your inspector as a reserve set. Nor is it acceptable to have a trio of small boat flashlight-style lights that are unacceptable for a panga in Nicaragua, let along a Crabcrusher 35. Have two sets of "real" lights that work independently, so that if a single system on your boat is incapacitated, you won't render boat light systems inoperable.


Category 1 boats generally have to have inboard engines, although the Pacific Cup has allowed outboard-powered boats in the past, and the Singlehanded Transpac didn't require any engine at all. Race organizers are concerned with two situations: first, that an engine is only useful if it's immediately available to propel the boat, and second that a fuel or exhaust system that is not permanently installed may pose a danger to the crew.


Good seamanship and practicality dictate that you need two batteries, especially if you are reliant on your batteries to start your engine to charge your batteries (3.28.4). Again, this varies from race to race. Some races allow a "greener" alternative to using the propulsion engine to charge batteries, but regardless of your charging source, there will be a time in every sailor's life when s/he tries to use a battery which is dead as a doornail. A second battery, fully charged and easily accessible, is vital.


This extremely well-maintained yacht has a "rubber duck"
antenna at the masthead, compromising the crew's safety in
exchange for a reduction in weight aloft. Pretty embarrassing.
Finally, you need to be able to communicate with your race committee, the Coast Guard, and (possibly) your family. This generally means that you have to have a 25W VHF radio with a masthead antenna (please, not some rubber-duck antenna with no gain that's strapped to your mast), and a waterproof handheld VHF radio, and either a single sideband radio or a satellite phone for long distance communications. If you want to have a long-winded debate, walk into a yacht club bar and express a preference for satellite communications Vs. single sideband. While it might be an interesting debate (or not!), it only really matters what your race committee requires. Everything else is just a personal opinion, and an option that you can add if you like.


Tall masts require lots of coax to reach the masthead, and that coax has loss along every foot. Helpful sailors have calculated just how large the coax has to be to reach the antenna with less than a 40% loss in signal strength. (Hint: you're required to have larger coax than you actually want.)

Preparing for an Offshore Race, Section 4

Section 4 - Portable Equipment and Supplies
Example of a "cassette" emergency steering rudder.
Courtesy of Jim Antrim, Naval Architect.
Of all of the items required for taking a racing sailboat offshore, the least technologically sophisticated may be found in Section 4.03. Through hulls and hoses may fail at sea and when they do they let in a prodigious amount of water. A simple tapered wooden plug does wonders for stemming the flow from holes in plumbing, and if it's dry when inserted, can swell to form a watertight plug. Tie one tapered plug to each through hull, and suspend it away from bilge water to keep it relatively dry. A small brass screw eye can be used as a lanyard attachment point.


Jackstays, trolley lines, or jacklines: whatever you call them, they are an integral part of staying onboard in rough conditions. They can be made of webbing or wire; many prefer webbing since it is less of a tripping hazard on deck. Jacklines do not have to run to the transom, but should run within 2m of the bow and stern. Don't use standard flat webbing of the kind that might be used to reinforce the corners of sails. Use heavy nylon, or preferably polyester webbing with a strength of at least 6000#. You can use a luggage hitch on the forward anchor point (something strong, like a pad eye, toe rail, or mooring cleat) and then lash the aft eye to another strong point using small Spectra line. By taking several passes of Spectra single braid through the sewn eye and the fixed point, you can create a turnbuckle of sorts that can exert lots of tension and be as strong as the line you're attaching.


Galley fires can spread quickly. Photo courtesy of BoatUS.
Fire extinguishers (always a good idea when at sea) are only mentioned in passing in Section 4.05.2, but they turn out to be larger (2kg or 4.4#) than the standard B-I extinguisher in the U.S. plus you're required to have two. Good idea, but if you're sailing in a Cat 1 race in a small boat (Mini 6.5, Moore 24), it's unlikely that you'll be thinking of anything other than the 2.5# Coast Guard-approved requirement. It's a shame; this rule should take into consideration the LOA of the vessel, but apparently doesn't. 


Under the sole, but why is the stock cut off?
Of all of the requirements in the Special Regs, the one which has the least detail, but upon which volumes have been written, is the lowly anchor and rode. Boat over 28' (why 28'?) are required to have two anchor set-ups, while smaller boats need one. Since anchors and chain are generally made of steel, and since weight conscious racers abhor steel, there's a natural tension between having a suitably-sized anchor and rode and trying to save weight.

If your boat is equipped with an aluminum anchor, like the Fortress, Guardian, or some of the European anchors, there's generally a "steel equivalent" number on the anchor to give you an idea of what it would weigh if made from steel. For example, a Fortress FX-23 weighs about 14#, but has approximately the same size as a 23# steel Danforth anchor. So, one way to get the performance of a larger anchor is to buy a premium aluminum anchor. Regardless of the material, race boats should have legitimate anchors with high holding power, like Rocna, Manson Supreme, Fortress, or Danforth Hi-Tensile.


Chain size should be related to the anchor size (no need having a high holding power anchor with a chain that will fail), although the need to have a boat length is debatable, and the Special Regs are silent on the size and length of chain and line used.  A rule that has worked well is to select line diameter is 1/8" of line diameter for each 9' of boat length (36' boat could use a 1/2" nylon line). A related rule is to use chain that is half the line diameter (1/4" in this case.)


MD, call home! One of the best reasons to
have a satellite telephone may be to call
a tele-medicine service like WorldClinic.
You'll need to have a first aid kit and first aid manual, and there are many good ones based on the demands of wilderness medicine. A good idea is to have the kit separated by the nature of the injury, and to have a manual that is written with the first aid kit's contents in mind. It doesn't do you any good to have a manual that recommends equipment or drugs which you don't have. It's also a good idea, but not required, to get an extensive medical history from each of your crew members so that if they have allergic reactions to drugs or chronic heart issues, don't take them (just kidding).

Section 4.10 requires that you have a passive (non-transmitting) radar reflector. Radar reflectors are remarkably hard to measure and to state their performance in a concise manner. (See the 1995 test of radar reflectors on the US Sailing web site.) Octahedral reflectors (those that have three planes intersecting at 90 degree angles) are required to be 18" across according to ISAF and 12" across according to US Sailing. That includes models like the Davis Echomaster reflectors.

Akela's storage diagram is among the best.
Safety gear and through-hull shut-offs are useless if they cannot be found in an emergency. That's the thinking behind Section 4.12, which requires a chart showing the locations on the boat where safety gear and be found. Adding through-hulls to this chart is an excellent idea. This needs to be posted in a conspicuous position.

Emergency Steering

Depending on the nature of the race you're entering, and the instructions given to the inspector, the requirement for emergency steering can be anything from a general discussion of using a spinnaker pole and floorboards off the stern, to having to demonstrate a replacement rudder and sail upwind and down. The Pacific races have had a long history of steering and rudder failures, so it's not without cause that Transpac and Pacific Cup inspectors look upon explanations of how racers will sail 1500 miles downwind by moving drogues from side to side with a certain amount of incredulity.

Beautifully made, but can it take the strain of a 77' boat?
The best rudder, of course, is generally the one your boat came with originally, and not some contraption bolted to your transom. A thorough steering and rudder inspection, prior to departure, is the first line of defense against losing your rudder. It's not just the rudder: commonly it's the steering chain, or cables, or sheaves, or quadrant, or bolt holding the quadrant to the rudder shaft, or the bearings upon which the rudder turns. All of these are potential sources of failure, and fail they will.

For want of a bolt, the race was lost. On a SC52, this single
bolt required lots of jury rigging, but the boat made it safely
to Kaneohe YC due to the skill of the crew.
There are some production (and possibly custom) boats which are built in such a way that the rudder shaft and quadrant are entirely inaccessible. The lazarette and cockpit seem to have been installed after the rudder, and no boatyard worker, no matter how small, can prep the rudder to have it dropped out for inspection. Obviously, you don't want to take such a boat to Hawaii or Bermuda, since you can't inspect it ahead of time. Jim Antrim, a local and respected naval architect, has some excellent information on his web site about rudder inspection and emergency rudder considerations.

What are some possible solutions to emergency steering?
  1. A separate rudder and tiller, attached with pintles and gudgeons to the transom of the boat. If you build a second rudder, it's recommended that it extend far enough into the water to be effective, not be too large so the loads don't overwhelm its strength, and be able to be installed  at sea. The shape should be fat, and the rudder does not have to be smooth to be effective. 
  2. An improvement to to a rudder hung on pintles is a rudder which slides inside a "cassette". The cassette is above the waterline and pivots on pintles and gudgeons. The rudder blade slides down inside the cassette, which makes it dramatically easier to install at sea.
  3. Several boats have demonstrated their ability to be steered upwind and down with a spinnaker pole which is attached to a universal fitting at lowest extremity of the transom. Using a line to pull the pole down into the water, plus lines which allow the pole to be swung from side to side, the pole/rudder has enough force to swing the stern from side to side. "Commodore" Warrick Tompkins developed this method in the late 90s.
    John Jourdane and crew sailed Brooke Ann for hundreds of
    miles using this sweep. Impressive, but next time use a rudder?
  4. Spinnaker poles can also be used with floorboards or other flat materials to create a "sweep". This is what sailors generally think they can do, but relatively few boats have made this work. John Jourdane has a picture of his crew sailing Brooke Ann in the Caribbean using this method.
  5. Finally, and it's sort of unrealistic to say "finally" since I suspect there are a hundred other possibilities, several boats have been successfully sailed using a drogue off the stern which can be pulled to one side of the transom or the other. By moving the attachment point of the drogue, the boat can be forced to point in the intended direction. This is generally a method of last resort, and when your landfall is downwind.
You can't fix your Honda with these tools; they're intended
to allow you to get back to port after something has broken.
Everyone who has used a Band-It tool at sea becomes the best
salesman possible. Band-Its allow you to compress things
together so they can be put back to use. Examples are boat
structure, booms, spinnaker poles, masts, goosenecks, etc.
Section 4.16 requires tools and spare parts, and you can buy some DC (Damage Control) kits from suppliers if you don't know what to put into one. The Navy has created a DC kit for their Navy 44s which comes in a large plastic tackle box, and it has items which are not exactly "yachty" including giant hose clamps, a 2# sledge, a pruning saw, tapered plugs, wooden wedges, underwater epoxy, drywall screws, and a variety of other items which solve many problems. You're not making furniture; you're likely tearing apart the interior so that you can stop the inflow of water, or shoring up some compromised section of the hull. Neatness doesn't count nearly as much as getting to shore with all of your crew intact.

If your boat sinks, you want your rescuers to know that it was you and not someone else. That's why it's required that you put your vessel name on stuff that is likely to float away in case of a sinking.

Section 4.18 requires that floating items that begin with the letters L-I-F-E need to have retro-reflective tape on them. Life rafts, life buoys, life slings, and other safety gear will be dramatically easier to see at night when it has "SOLAS" tape on it. Note that this only works for the person with the searchlight; it's retro-reflective after all, which means that it reflects in the direction opposite from the incoming light. Those with the light get an immediate brilliant return, while everyone else wonders what all the excitement is about.

4.19 requires that you have an EPIRB. Few marine safety items have made as great an impact as Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons to sailors who sail in Category 1 races. Buy one with a built-in GPS receiver, register it, and make sure everyone on board knows where it's stored and how to operate it.

Life rafts: expensive, infrequently used, and absolutely
necessary when crossing oceans. Note orange bottom
in case your rescuers are looking for an upside down raft...
The topic of life rafts is complicated due to the overlapping and similar sounding regulations that rafts meet. ISO (International Standards Organization) and ISAF (International Sailing Federation) came up with very similar life raft standards about 10 years ago and eventually acknowledged each other's standards. Older style rafts built to the ORC (Offshore Racing Council) standard are grandfathered in if they were built prior to 2006. You'll notice that this section of the Special Regulations have more clauses than all the Macy's in December, due to the obvious challenge of upgrading a standard while not obsoleting every raft that's in use on racing boats. If you have an older raft, make sure it meets older ORC requirements, which are detailed in Appendix A, Part 1. If you're buying or renting a life raft, make sure it complies with Appendix A, Part 2.

Everyone seems to agree that insulated floors on rafts are a good idea, and yet most of the longest examples of survival have happened on rafts with uninsulated floors. To convince yourself of the desirability of an insulated floor, sit in a raft in relatively balmy conditions without one (say, in Newport Harbor with 60 degree water). In less than an hour, you'll wish that you had something between you and the ocean to keep your heat loss to a minimum. The colder the water, the sooner this will occur to you.

Charter boat in Tortola. While the raft is sort of in the way,
it's a hell of a lot easier to launch it when it is above decks.
It used to be permissible to store smaller life rafts below decks, but now all rafts have to be either mounted on deck in a cradle, or stored in a locker designed for life raft storage. This makes a lot of sense, as rafts stored below have two failure modes: they can either be inflated below which can tear a boat's deck off, or they cannot be got to the working deck prior to the boat sinking. Either is to be avoided. Store rafts where they have a chance of doing their jobs.

This pint of water was inside the author's own
raft, complete empty, having rusted through.
Section 4.20.5 deals with the frequency of inspecting and repacking life rafts. Generally, the manufacturer of the raft is the best judge of this, but ISAF has arrived at the conclusion that ISAF-spec rafts should be inspected no less often than every three years, then two years, then one year thereafter. There are good reasons for life raft inspections: some items deteriorate, rafts tend to abrade on the hard folds inside their containers, and water can seep in and wreck havoc with sensitive inflators and high pressure cylinders. It's odd that ISAF prescribes the inspection interval; one can imagine that an ISAF member had a bad experience and is trying to keep other sailors from experiencing the same fate.

The Lifesling really works. See the US Sailing web site for a
write-up on the 2005 Crew Overboard Symposium on San
Francisco Bay by John Rousmaniere.
Lifebuoys (Man Overboard Gear) are required, and due to the popularity of the Lifesling in the US, the U.S. Sailing prescription requires that one of the two required devices be a Lifesling. It must have a self-igniting light, and there are a variety of water-activated lights that can be attached to the straps of the sling. Earlier versions of the Lifesling had a purpose-built pocket at the back of the sling, but tests indicated that it would be more effective is mounted on the straps. In addition to the light, you should also attach squares of retroreflective tape to the tops and bottoms of the Lifesling so it is visible at night.

When you deploy a "MOM", what are you actually providing
to the victim? Here's one in use on San Francisco Bay.
MOMs need to be inspected on a two year interval.
The second "lifebuoy" is generally a MOM 8, or Man Overboard Module. This device was invented about 30 years ago to solve the issue have having a pole, drogue, life ring, and light in a small package.  By making most of these components inflatable, the MOM 8 allows a lot of gear to be deployed in a short period of time by pulling a single pin. Without going into a lot of detail, it's common to have "deployable" gear deployed a good distance away from the victim's location, and it's accepted that even the most motivated crewmember cannot swim worth a damn when wearing foul weather gear and a PFD. The MOM will provide a point of reference for the boat as she returns for to find the victim. In some instances, the MOM can be deployed so quickly (well-trained crew, observed overboard event) that it practically hits the victim on the head as he passes by the hull. The MOM 8 requires biennial servicing, generally by the same company that serviced your life raft.

Generally, signals will have the date of manufacture, and
then a date 42 months after wards which is when the it's
no longer legal. It may actually work for a decade...
Rescue swimmer demonstrating a small smoke flare in Hawaii.
Section 4.23 concerns pyrotechnic and light signals, commonly known as visual distress signals or flares. Racing sailboats are required to have SOLAS grade signals, which are dramatically more waterproof and brighter than conventional recreational signals. This is an example of where adhering to a commercial standard (SOLAS governs what ships have to carry) adds dramatically to the effectiveness of the device. You much have 6 red parachute flares ($55 ea.), 4 red hand flares ($20 ea.), and two smoke signals ($55 ea.) The flares must also be within their expiration date, which is 42 months from the date of manufacture. SOLAS signals are one of the expenses of going on ocean races: they cost about $170 per year for the three years that they are likely to be on your boat. On the other hand, they are extremely good signals, and if you're in trouble, especially at night, they make your boat stand out against the very dark sea and sky. One piece of advice would be for Transpac sailors to consider selling their SOLAS signals to Pacific Cup sailors at the end of the signals' useful life, since the races are on opposite years. That way, it might be possible to get four races out of each purchased set of signals, e.g. races in the summer of 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015. It might take more cooperation than is justified, but it's possible to get four races our of a product with a 3.5 year useful life.

4.23.2 also requires a flashlight (with spare bulb and batteries) and a white spotlight for collision avoidance. These two devices are not well defined. We suggest having a compact LED flashlight for every sailor onboard, and consider having a supply of quality headlamps (again, LEDs work well) for at least half the crew and preferably all of them.

The heaving line requirement is best met by a heaving line in a bag, sometimes called a (Rescue) Throw Rope. This should have a permanent place at the helm or pushpit, and should be 70' long. The one doesn't have to be particularly strong (perhaps 1,000# is sufficient), since you can use it to pull a larger line to a vessel that is going to be towed or going to do the towing. Heaving lines are a great way to get a line to a person in the water without maneuvering the vessel too close by. (4.24)

What's wrong with this picture?
The knife that's required in 4.25 can be a diver's knife, with a blunt tip, sharp serrated blade on one side, and a straight blade on the other. The sheath can be strapped to the pedestal, and a second knife can be strapped to the mast (and a third knife can be strapped to the pulpit.)

Rather than try to figure out what you need in the way of storm sails, you are probably better of going to your sailmaker and asking him/her to make you a set. Storm sails are tiny, flat, and extremely strong. In survival conditions, very few sailors argue that their sails were too small. Some races have allowed boats to sail offshore without storm trysails on the grounds that, historically, the races had not been run when storms were likely. We hope that this false economy has been put to rest.

You can't be sure that your boom will still be in one piece, so
it cannot be counted on to help in trimming the trysail. Photo credit:
John Jourdane, who has lost more rudders and masts than any
other living sailor, or so it seems.
Some pointers:
  1. Trysails are commonly at odds with batten car systems on modern mainsails because the external track does not allow the trysail to share the track with the main. IN that case, a secondary track, parallel and offset to one side of the main track, is virtually the only answer. Some new masts have actually come with gates that allow the two sails to share a common track, but it's generally built into the boat at the factory. 
  2. Trysails should not sheet to the end of the boom, or require that a boom be present. A trysail sheets like a jib, with two jib sheets and no interaction with the boom. One of the common reasons to use a trysail is because your boom is in pieces after a round-down.
  3. Furling headsails create a challenge for bending on a storm jib. You either have to unroll your furling jib entirely and tack it off the furler (which can be difficult to do on a windless day at your slip), or you have to use a different stay, or you have to use a sail that goes over your furling jib. ATN makes a storm jib called the Gale Sail which attempts to solve this issue by allowing the luff of the storm jib to be zipped around the furled jib while it's in place. 
Originally, I thought that Section 4.27 required that the vessel have a "Drogue, Sea Anchor". I realize now that I misread the Special Regulations due to the number of well-meaning, but toothless "recommendations" that are interspersed in the document. After a well-meaning Boat Captain from Santa Barbara pointed out my error, I now realize that 4.27 is not mandatory, but rather an ISAF recommendation.

Here's my take on drag devices, since many sailors swear by them. These two items are completely different in construction and use.  A sea anchor is a very large drag device shaped like a parachute, which is deployed off the bow and designed to reduce the sternway of a boat to less than a knot. It must be used with a long nylon line, which can be the anchor rode, to absorb the shock of waves hitting the boat. A drogue is deployed off the stern, is far smaller (perhaps 5' in diameter), and is used to keep a boat from accelerating to surfing speeds on the face of a wave. Properly sized drogues roughly halve the speed of the boat. Para-Tech and Fiorentino are two popular brands of drag devices.