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 CARE
AND CONTROL by
Dusty Miller
It's
that special time of year again - at times I thought we would never
make it. It's wonderful to see the ground again and the boaters
head for the storage sheds and marinas.
With ownership,
comes concern, and this starts the moment the vessel gets back into
the water. I've boated all my life and I still wonder and worry
about the boat sitting at the dock in my absence. This goes on all
summer until the boat is pulled out again in the fall.
A boat is like
a big baby;it relies totally upon you. At the dock it constantly
moves like a little one in a playpen and if you don't remove the
sharp objects something is going to get hurt or damaged. When you
want to go for a pleasant carefree ride, you soon find the big baby
has a mind of it's own as it heads out to play a scratch-and-dent
game in tub town with with the other boats. When you finally get
your boat under control, you realize the boat depends completely
on your judgment and skill at the dock or underway.
Many times
I've seen boaters tie their boat up on a Sunday night and head for
home, thinking it will be fine on it's own. But it probably won't
be. The fenders are in the wrong position and and the vessel is
without any spring lines, with the bow and stern lines holding the
vessel so tight against the fenders that the lines are chaffing
on the fiberglass. These problems cause the lines to gnaw away at
the fiberglass when the winds get up. Whatever the angle or position
of your lines, make sure they don't touch any part of the boat except
the chalk or the cleat. If there is no alternative, the part of
the line that is exposed to the fiberglass should be covered with
either a chamois secured to the line, a piece of a garden hose split
down the middle and wrapped around the line. If these precautions
aren't made, the result is side decks and toe rails with gouged
out troughs worked into the fiberglass. Given enough time this can
result in a very costly and dangerous problem as the lines themselves
become worn through. (Top)
Another popular
mistake is tying a line directly to shore above or below the deck
line. The boat needs slack to be able to rock at the dock and if
it can't, something is going to be damaged. One time in the Toronto
I witnessed a new vessel being tied up to the dock with tight bow
and stern lines. All of a sudden the stern line rose up from the
deck level about three feet. Now if you are familiar with the Toronto
harbor you will know that it is a rather active arena with good
size rollers that seem to resound around the docks forever. In this
case the first wave caught the boat making it rise about 3 1/2 feet
on the tight line. Then it quickly dropped. The lines tightened
even more and after a brief pause the through-bolted cleat was ripped
clean out of the deck as the boat fell another couple of feet.
By the time
anybody was able to secure the boat the stern had drifted out and
the bow continued to smash against the dock. Needless to say, this
was a very costly lesson.
When you are
about to leave your vessel for any amount of time it is a good idea
to step back and examine how the vessel is positioned -- Murphy's
law applies. If the winds get up what's going to happen? If the
lines tighten? If they slack off?
Boating is
a reciprocal action if you look after the boat, it will look after
you and if you prepare for the worst, it won't happen. So, enjoy
the spring launch and we'll see you on the water. (Top)
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