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Old 04-22-2010, 02:42 PM   #14
Marin
Scraping Paint
 
City: -
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 13,745
Getting Used to Fear

Fear is a healthy thing. It makes life worth living if you look at fear as a "control" on taking on a new challenge. The alternatives are being foolhardy or not doing anything risky at all. The former is stupid, the latter is boring.

With regards to shallow water, the solution is dead simple. Be careful. Use charts. Go real slow. Obtain local knowledge if you can. If you don't trust the electronics (which I don't) use a lead line as Carey points out. Both of us*have have them and we're not shy about using them. And get a good one. A big bolt on a string is better than nothing but spend the relatively small amount of money to get a*purpose-built lead line.

Around here the shallow water is generally a rock or a ledge. So the consequences of going aground are often much more serious than simply backing off. Add to this an eight to fifteen foot tide range (more up north) and you can see that if you park on a rock in a falling tide your boat may become a permanent part of the scenery. So we pay real close attention to the charts, paper and elecronic, we review the couple of excellent guidebooks for this region even if we're going to a place we've been before, we take note of the state of the tide, the wind, and the current.

And don't overlook local knowledge. About a year after we started boating with the GB we met Carey and his wife. They'd been boating these waters for years and both of them were active with the USCG Auxilliary. So if we were going someplace and Carey said, "Watch out for the ledge that runs halfway across the entrance from the west side," we damn well watched out for it. In my opinion there's no such thing as too much information when boating in these waters.

My wife and I have a rule that we stole from Bob Hale, the publisher of one of the best cruising guides for this area. I read about it in his guidebook and later Bob himself filled me in on the details of how the rule came about. Basically, it says that if my wife and I do not agree on where we are and what we are about to do with the boat, we stop the boat until we do agree. In our case this can be very advantageous because my wife was taught about charts and basic navigation skills by the US Navy. So while neither one of us is right every time, she is right as often or more than I am.

Anchoring is like everything else. The way you learn to do it is to do it. There are no guarantees-- if the wind and waves crank up you might drag. So set up a plan to deal with it. You don't want to be figuring things out from scratch at 0300 when everything goes to hell. Have a plan, and then modify that plan if necessary.

Managing elecricity on a boat is, in my opinion, simply common sense. Understand your boat's electrical system. Make sure it's set up so that you have one battery that will always be in a condition to start the engine(s) no matter how you mess up the handling of your house power. Have your batteries load tested to make sure they're up to snuff.

Until last week our boat had it's stock elecrical system. Two 8Ds and a 4D for the generator. That was it. So we had 200 amp hours (one 8D) at best for house power. So we were frugal with the power. At night we used only one or two reading lights. We didn't run the inverter unless the engines or the generator was on. After I ran the 8D we were using for house power flat one night by forgetting to turn off the engine room lights we had a telltale light put in the DC panel that comes on when the engine room lights are turned on. Never made that mistake again.

If you don't have much house power that doesn't mean you cant go boating, it just means that you have to be conscientious with the power. We have a big voltmeter on the side of the control console with a selector switch that connects it to the battery selector switch in one position and the generator battery in the other (with off in the middle). So it's a simple matter to see how each of the batteries is doing.

We now have a new battery setup that increases the available house power to 400 amp hours although the boat's electrical system, wiring, and battery box arrangement is unchanged. So we have more power to play with but we'll still monitor it and be frugal with it.

The best way to regard fear is it is what will keep you safe. But it should not be something that prevents you adding to your experience. I believe that all you need to operate a boat safely is common sense. Everything else just makes it easier.




-- Edited by Marin on Thursday 22nd of April 2010 04:12:39 PM
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