Ships of the future

14.26 in a, automated, Boat Plans, disregard, future, nightmare, of, rumor, ship, ships, the, to

HERE’S A FOLLOW-UP to my last column about automated ships. It comes from a ship’s engineer called Ian who apparently (when he’s ashore) lives in Cornwall, England, with his wife Sue:

Hi John,
Dont worry, unmanned automated ships are not going to happen anytime soon — technically we are not far off, but legislatively . . .
What will happen is, (and has been happening for years already), that the number of crew on board will get ever smaller, so a lot of the hazards you mention (poor or absent lookout, reluctance or inability to communicate or assist, etc.) are here already.
Eventually they will be down to three watchkeepers (and a cook, perhaps!) monitoring the ship’s passage, cargo, engine, and vital systems from a control center on the bridge, together with mountains of checklists, form-filling and report-writing — already keeping the skipper’s eyes from the bridge window!
Navigation, weather routing, and bunkering will all be dictated from head office ashore, who will have live access to all data created on board, including video and audio, and be able to take control of vital systems if necessary. All cargo handling will be done by flying squads and maintenance by manufacturers’ and agency service teams put on board as the ship approaches port.
As a ship’s engineer who first went to sea in the seventies, when even a small cargo ship carried around 12-15 officers and 50 deck and engineroom crew, it took a whole trip to find out who was supposed to do what, and the ship was full of characters and traditions. I finished my career on a large car carrier with just five officers and six crew. Until shore-side management decided that we not allowed even a social beer together (total alcohol ban), life on board was still tolerable; I even had my wife travel with me.
Needless to say, the social and cultural life of the crew pictured above will be effectively zero, yet they will need to be intelligent and self-disciplined individuals to work at their allotted station for weeks or even months at a time; whilst knowing that their speech and every action is being monitored 24/7 by some bored office worker. I will not be signing up!
And yet . . . that young engineer remembers a tiny little water leak from a small-bore pipe to a pressure gauge, that ran down the pipe onto a girder, along the girder onto a cable tray, down a cable to a pressure switch, and eventually penetrated the gland on the pressure switch and filled it up with water . . . at which point the main engine stopped and refused to start again because it thought there was no oil pressure!
Find me a robot to spot and fix that one!

Today’s Thought

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

— G. B. Shaw, Maxims for Revolutionists

Tailpiece

“Any hint of a proposal yet, dear?”

“Yes, Mom, several. But so far he’s just ignoring them.”

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A rumor to disregard

10.29 in a, afloat, at, bliss, Boat Plans, disregard, for, loss, path, rumor, the, to, words

I DON’T KNOW who starts these things, but the rumor about sailing under jib only has been pretty persistent over the years. The rumor, of course, is that sailing under jib only will cause dismasting.

I have no idea why sailing under a jib only should cause dismasting. Like many others, I have sailed hundreds of deepsea miles under jib only.

One of the lovely things about the lone jib is that the center of effort is so far forward that a windvane, which normally struggles on a dead downwind course, is much better able to function properly. You can huddle down below in a gale, for example, nice and warm and dry, with your hands wrapped around a mug of coffee and rum, while your boat flies downwind like she’s on rails.

The only problem with this rig is that if your course is deeper than a reach, your boat will roll from gunwale to gunwale. But all dead downwind work is pretty rolly, anyway, unless you know how to fly twin jibs in a deep V forward, so they act like a cone and resist sideways movement.

Some sloops and cutters will reach wonderfully and even beat under jib only, making good progress to windward. But on the run you need to pole the jib out, of course, and there’s a clever way to do that. I learned it from the Pardeys. The trick is to have a track running up the front of the mast as high as your pole is long. The car that runs on this track accepts the inboard end of the pole. You then hoist the pole up alongside the mast and stow it there.

When you need to deploy the pole, you attach the jib clew, or the sheet nearby, to the bottom, outboard, end of the pole. Then you simply let the pole slide down the mast. As it comes down, the sheet, and the clew of the jib, automatically gets pushed out into position. You never have to handle the weight or awkwardness of the pole.

So don’t be put off. Fly that darn jib on its own if you like, and to heck with the rumor mongers.

Today’s Thought

Rumor travels faster but it don’t stay put as long as truth.

— Will Rogers, The Illiterate Digest

Tailpiece

Our local school officials recently gave eighth-graders a test to see what they were best suited for.

It was found that they were best suited for the seventh grade.

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Design flaw in small boats

00.40 in a, at, Boat Plans, boats, design, disregard, earning, flaw, in, luck, rumor, sea, small, to

I HAVE TO ADMIT that in this column we don’t often talk about sex in small boats. Regrettably, the subject is also much neglected by the yachting media in general. It was obviously also neglected by yacht designers in the past. Aboard those narrow-gutted, full-keeled little cruisers there was never room to swing even half a cat, never mind roger a woman. The priority in those days was to make boats efficient at sailing, rather than reproducing the human race. Go figure.

Nevertheless, to get back to the original point, if we intend to live in a democracy that defends our constitutional right to free speech and plentiful sex, then sex on small boats needs to be discussed with openness, frankness, dignity, and as few blushes as I can manage. If the kids are offended (as they should be if you brought them up properly) just send them off in the dinghy to play on the beach somewhere until we’re through.

It is perhaps not irrelevant to this discussion to note that Lin and Larry Pardey’s long-running book, The Capable Cruiser, shows Lin topless on the dust-jacket cover. She is perched on the main boom at the mast, pointing to something on the horizon, dressed only in a long wrap-around skirt, the kind known as a Polynesian pareu.

It was all very well for the Pardeys, of course. They don’t have any kids. How do couples with kids manage on a small boat, I wonder, the kind that doesn’t have a double stateroom aft. You can’t send them off in the dinghy everytime you feel the urge. 

Traditionally, and in the absence of passion-killing ankle-biters, the V-berth was the passion pit. But most V-berths on small yachts are difficult to get into. You have to back in and fold yourself in half like a pocket knife. By the time you’ve got your limbs sorted out you’ve sprained two sacroiliac tendons, you’re exhausted, and the last thing on your mind is a bit of nookies. When people who live on small boats talk about safe sex, it’s not disease they’re thinking of, it’s broken bones, pulled muscles, and strained backs.

I suppose that if you’ve ever made love in the back of a car, you’ll probably find a V-berth roomy enough. Maybe. I’m not sure. To tell you the truth, I grew up in a country where the back seat of a car had room only for a large grocery bag, so I have never had the pleasure, if it is a pleasure. I now do have a car with a large back seat, but I’m not as flexible as I used to be and my bones are more brittle. I can’t do the athletic contortions that I’m told are necessary. So I guess I’ll never know.

When I was much younger and more flexible I fantasized about those lascivious blonde Swedish girls who (rumor had it) were always cunningly letting themselves be chased through the woods by young men waving birch branches. Coincidentally, a male friend with similar dreams bought a 17-foot dinghy in England. It had a small cabin on it. So I met him over there, and we set sail for the woods of Sweden via the English Channel and the continental canals.

But, alas, because of too much non-sexual dallying on the way, it took us three months to get from France to Holland, and the onset of winter drove us back to England, broke and very frustrated. We never did pause to wonder where we would make love if we actually did catch a couple of those lovely Swedish nymphs. There wasn’t room on our boat for the birch branches, never mind the nymphs.

On really small boats you may have to do it standing up with your head out of the hatch. In a crowded anchorage, that means you have to assume a look of calm nonchalance while you ostensibly scan the horizon for signs of storm clouds or something. In the interests of maintaining this little deception, you should not scream or roll your eyeballs too far back in your head. Other nearby sailors, the crafty devils, are very quick to notice things like that and make their own deductions.

In these modern times, while the hoi polloi are concentrating on safer sex, small-boat sailors are still searching for better sex. It’s a sad reflection on the state of yacht design. The naval architects have failed us. Maybe WE should go ashore in the dinghy, find some friendly bushes, and strand the kids on the boat while we think about the solution.

Today’s Thought

Sex, a great and mysterious motive force in human life, has indisputably been a subject of absorbing interest to mankind through the ages.

— William J. Brennan, Associate Justice, U.S. Supreme Court, 24 Jun 57

Tailpiece

“Sorry lady, bad news. I just ran over one of your roosters in the road out there. I feel real bad about it and I’d like to replace him.”

“Well sure, just as you wish, mister. You’ll find the henhouse next to the barn.”

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