NUTS & BOATS

 The twice monthly newsletter for to-be and already-are cruisers

Issue #4 - August 15, 2003
Publisher: Trish Lambert
www.takehersailing.com
(C) P. Lambert 2003

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IN THIS ISSUE

• A Little Controversy:  Sailing Superstitions

• Cruising Strategy: Back in the ITCZ, Part 2
  Feedback from subscribers on this article

 THIS ISSUE'S COOL CRUISING QUOTE

It is not the going out of the port, but the coming in,
that determines the success of a voyage.
Henry Ward Beecher

(Note: Send me your cool cruising quotes and I will include them in future issues!)

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A LITTLE CONTROVERSY
Sailing Superstitions                                                                  By Trish Lambert

At a San Diego Padres baseball game some years back, I remember being amazed at how superstitious the players were. The game was a crucial one for the team, and it was touch and go. In the eighth inning all the pitchers in the bullpen turned their caps inside out in an effort to give the guy on the mound the luck he needed to save the game. The gesture made me laugh, and I wondered out loud that grown men would do something like that to bid for a win.

Now I have to admit to having superstitions of my own. I never begin a voyage on a Friday, and when Skip and I changed the name on the transom of our boat, we had a ceremony where we asked Neptune (our yacht broker in a very creative costume) for permission and his blessing. And when Skip unstepped our mast prior to shipping the boat across country, he found not one but three Chinese coins there -- which he made sure to replace when the mast went back up!

The sailing life has been full of superstitions since the first human fashioned a vessel to float on the waves, and as a cruising sailor, I've acquired a few "policies" to ensure a safe and successful voyage.

Here are just a few of the superstitions that have been in force on the oceans of the world over past centuries:

-- Do not start a voyage on the thirteenth of the month, nor on any Friday, as this will doom the boat.

-- Avoid black cats and overturned washbasins before boarding the boat for the final departure, since both are bringers of bad events.

-- Offer a gift to Neptune before starting a voyage by tossing a shot of rum (or glass of wine) overboard to ensure that he will protect you.

--Speaking of Neptune, some say that you should NEVER rename your boat or you will incur his wrath. Others (like us) say it's alright as long as you get his blessing.

-- Piercing an ear will improve the sight in the opposite eye, so pierce the ear opposite the eye used for the telescope. (In these days of binoculars, does this mean both ears must be pierced?)

-- Having a woman on board is unlucky. (For some reason, this does not apply to a half-naked woman in wood carved on the prow of the boat!)

-- Whistling on board is not good, as this often raises a storm. Ditto cutting your hair.

-- If you need wind, sticking a knife in the mast on the side from which you want the wind to start blowing. This is a challenge for boats with aluminum masts.

-- Coins under your mast bring luck and favorable winds for the voyage.

-- Dolphins are always a lucky sign.

-- And, of course, avoid the dreaded Bermuda Triangle, from which no ship returns.

There are many more longstanding "dos and don'ts" in the sailing fraternity. And today's cruisers, myself included, have adopted a few. Hey, I figure why take chances?

Oh, and by the way, the Padres DID win that baseball game!

ANNOUNCING!

PUBLICATION OF BOOKLET #2 OF THE TAKE HER SAILING CRUISING SERIES!

The second booklet in the THS series is now on sale!

"Messing About With Boats, Part 1: Choosing a Cruising Boat" covers my "Seven S-Factors of Any Cruising Boat." Downloadable within minutes of purchase, the booklet is in Adobe Acrobat PDF format.

Check it out at www.takehersailing.com/booklets.htm.

CRUISING STRATEGY
Back in the ITCZ, Part 2: Lightning                                          By Trish Lambert

Jim and I were sailing Ciao Bella from Cocos Island to the mainland of Costa Rica. The day started like every other since we'd been in the ITCZ. A beautiful sunrise with itsy bitsy clouds on the horizon, then increasing heat and light with those baby clouds turning into towering teenagers. By the afternoon, the towers grew anvil tops and turned gray, old giants getting ready to pour their contents onto the ocean accompanied by lightning and thunder. The rain was not an issue for us-it cooled us off. The lightning, though, was another matter.

We had rigged what we hoped would be the most attractive path for a bolt that decided to hit us: mast to rigging to a length of chain dangling overboard and into the water. We had also made a policy of disconnecting all antenna connections from radio units whenever a squall was imminent.

I was on watch when we sailed into the squall. Everything got gray and the rain began to pour. Reflexively, Jim disconnected the antennas and went back to his off-watch activities. I sat back and eyed the disk of ocean in all directions, enjoying the rain and spotting strobes of light from time to time up in the clouds.

I was bending over the autopilot controls when I heard a loud click. My first thought was, Why on earth would Jim decide to take a picture just now? I straightened up and looked down into the salon at the same time that Jim charged up the steps.

"What the hell is going on?" he asked urgently. "Did you drop something?"

I stared at him, at a loss to understand what he was talking about.

Turns out that what I had heard as a click he had heard as a loud thud, as if something large and heavy had hit the deck. It took us less than 30 seconds to figure it out: the mast top had been struck by lightning. Jim immediately started checking the electronics. Radios seemed to work, GPS was working, as was the autopilot. We heaved a sigh of relief, and went back to our on-watch, off-watch status. Then I looked at the anemometer. The needle was revolving around the dial in a random way, and the digital wind speed readout was spitting out all kinds of numbers in sequence.

"Uh, we didn't get away completely unscathed," I called down below. "We've lost the wind indicator."

Jim and I agreed that, all things considered, we got off pretty cheap in our first encounter with a giant spark of static electricity. If we had to sacrifice a piece of equipment to the sky gods, the anemometer was a good choice. We never did replace the unit while I was on the boat.

About a year later we were moored at the Balboa Yacht Club on the Pacific side of the Panama Canal, once again in the wet season with afternoon thundershowers we could practically set our watches by.  The threat of lightning had receded somewhat in our minds, probably because we were part of a forest of lightning targets, and there were many boats with much higher masts than ours. In fact, a 50-foot steel schooner was parked right behind us, so we weren't particularly worried.

Sure enough, one afternoon the schooner got hit. I was alone on the boat and heard the noise of the strike. Sticking my head out the companionway, I saw some of the schooner's crew running around on deck checking her out. I returned to my book, thanking my lucky stars that we were shielded by a more attractive target.

I paid for my uncharitable thoughts. The next morning, when we switched on our main VHF to hail the club's launch for a pick up, we discovered

that the radio was dead. It had been working fine the previous morning-the only thing we could think of was that somehow the lightning striking the schooner had also affected us by knocking out the radio.

Jim, the electronics wizard, didn't have a scientific explanation. "Lightning is unpredictable," he said, shrugging. Great words of comfort.

Later, we met a couple in the San Blas Islands who had lost every single piece of electronics gear in a lightning strike. Jim helped them replace the goods, and he showed me the zapped units. The plastic casings on several had literally melted and were now hardened gray blobs. Jeesh.

Skip and I are now back in the ITCZ, aboard Nehalennia on the Gulf coast of Florida. As on Ciao, we have the mast-to-chain-to-water set up and the ham radio is disconnected from the antenna. We wear rubber-soled shoes when the clouds go gray, and we look up at the mast and worry. So far so good, but I've learned my lesson. I'm not going to stay ashore just because of lightning, but I'm not going to dismiss it as a non-issue, or think that our precautions provide immunity from calamity. The only thing I can do to ease my mind is to concentrate on the odds...and I choose to believe that I have a better chance of winning the state lottery than I have of getting zapped!

Here are some "thunderstorm season" recommendations from the Boat U.S. web site:

--  Monitor the weather (including the VHF weather channel) to hear any storm warnings for your area. Get in early if you can; if you're on open water, it may be possible to maneuver around the storm.

--  A properly installed and maintained lightning protection system is the best defense against personal and boat damage from lightning, but it is not infallible.

--  In the event of a storm, stay inside the cabin. If it's necessary to go on deck, stay away from the mast, stays, metal railings, etc. Down below, avoid chainplates and large metal appliances like refrigerators and stoves.

--  Unless it's an emergency, boaters should not use VHF radios during a storm.

--  In an open boat with no cabin, stay low in the boat and remove all metal jewelry.

--  Stay out of the water and don't fish during a thunderstorm.

--  Disconnect power leads and antenna leads on electronics.

--  Unless it's serving as the lightning rod in a boat's lighting protection system, lower the antenna if possible.

FEEDBACK FROM SUBSCRIBERS
I received some feedback from this article and want to share it. Thanks to Wally, Marilyn, and Jeff for providing some more insight into lightning and boats.

From Wally, S/V Gypsy Wind
One of the most important steps to take for lighting is to put portable electronics (handheld units, laptops, etc.) inside a faraday box. Onboard, that will generally be your oven! Also, disconnect any antennae and move them away from the vhf/ssb/stereo; otherwise, a spark from the antenna may still fry the unit.

There is an excellent lightning website associated with the university of Florida. I interviewed the prof, Ewan Thompson, for an article in "Georgian Bay Sailing." The site is http://www.thomson.ece.ufl.edu/lightning/

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