Boat Handling

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...”

― Dr. Seuss, Oh, The Places You'll Go!

Steering the boat is a learned skill.  My boat handling class teacher suggested going to Home Depot and loading up a cart with long boards and then steering it up and down the aisles without hitting anything.  Just like a boat, the Home Depot cart’s backend does the steering. For instance steering away from a dock will cause the back end of the boat to hit the dock. That is why you will see people pushing the boat away from the dock before leaving. Or you can steer the front of the boat into the dock and that will kick the back end out and then you can safely steer away from the dock.

Controlling the boat in choppy seas is another skill to learn.  I read something last summer about opposing winds in the Chesapeake. At the time I was clueless to what the author was speaking about but on our way to Norfolk I got first hand experience.

Before leaving the dock on your trip you must think about the tides, wind speed and direction and wave heights. Fortunately NOAA puts out a daily bulletin for a given area every day. It is up to you to interpret the report and decide if you want to go out that day.

Being newbies we were making decisions based on wave height alone.

There are sections of the Chesapeake that are very wide. There are sections where rivers such as the Potomac enter the bay. In these sections tide and wind direction are important. If the tide is coming in the Chesapeake Bay the tide will be travelling pretty much north. If the wind is coming from the north we now have the wind pushing the water into the incoming tide making for very uncomfortable seas.

If you are traveling south and the winds are from the east or west and the waves are big then you will have trouble being pushed on the side of the boat and rolling from side to side.

We experienced all of those conditions while traveling to Norfolk, VA for the Spring Rendevous of the Great Loop Association.

Our first mistake was to have a schedule. Because we needed to be in Norfolk in time for the start of the Rendevous we didn’t have the luxury of waiting out weather. Don’t get me wrong, we didn’t take unnecessary risks – there were no small craft warnings. But our inexperience combined with having a deadline put us into uncomfortable waters.

Trial by fire is often the best teacher. We quickly learned to read the waves and pick a path that would be smoothest. Once we were rolling so badly because the winds were from the east and we were going south that I suggested we act like a sailboat and tack. It worked. We smoothed out our path by working with the waves instead of against them.

Entering the Norfolk area brought its own challenges. We were concerned about the commercial and military ships in the area but that wasn’t a problem.  Two things caused us trouble. First the waves were high; the tides were changing and pushing the side of the boat causing much rolling side to side. There really was no way to mitigate that problem in the narrow area we were in.  Secondly for an unknown reason I was suddenly unable to steer the boat. Thinking something had happened to the steering gear, Mike went down to the lower helm to check things out. Very quickly I could steer again. We have a big plastic bin that our dog Millie uses to get on and off the boat. We had put that bin on a chair near the lower helm wheel.  The rough conditions pushed that bucket under the steering wheel where it got stuck and caused us to loose the ability to steer. Lesson learned. Put the bucket in a secure place away from the lower helm.

Next up – Biking around on shore