The Boat Ballet

Bow thrusters? We don't need no stinkin' bow thrusters!




Don't try this with your twin outboards, or even your twin inboards! Single screw guys can only dream.

If you don't see the YouTube screen, click here to watch.

North Reef at Night

A few loyal readers have commented that they would like to see more video of my work out here at Block Island. Much of the footage I have isn't very dramatic, and frankly would bore most of the subscribers to RedRightReturning. But, they don't call me Captain Hollywood for nothing. I did find some video of a job I had last month. Before you watch this clip, let me set the stage so you'll understand what you are seeing.

The north end of Block Island tapers to a point, understandably named Sandy Point, and extending quite far out from there is the Block Island North Reef, which might have been more correctly name the Block Island Deadly, Narrow and Particularly Nasty Long Sand Bar. I guess North Reef fits better on the charts.

This sandbar is very narrow, and the west side is really almost an underwater cliff: it drops from ankle deep to twelve feet in less than a boat length. The east side is more like a traditional beach, with the depths gradually decreasing from ten feet deep about 200 yards to the east to the ankle deep bar itself. (This geography makes for some very strange seas, and even on this very calm night, you will notice some small breakers that look like they are coming towards my vessel, as if I was on the beach, when actually I'm in deeper water to the west the strand.) That long bar on the chart never really drys even at low tide. It lurks down there below the surface, waiting for the unwary boater or lazy navigator.

About 2100hrs one night, a sailboat calls Mayday and reports himself aground at the north end of Block Island. There was a bunch of thunderstorms rolling down Long Island Sound, but otherwise it was calm and clear. I was underway lickity-split, while the USCG directed all their rescue efforts to playing 20 questions with the mariner on the radio (they never did launch any physical assets to the area that I know of).

From the time I got underway to the time I arrived on scene was probably less than 10 minutes. When I had visual contact, I asked the boater if he had gone aground coming from the east or the west - the answer would make a difference to my approach and which direction I might pull him off. He thought he had come from the west, and as you will see, he was wrong. A boater who has run into an island at night is generally not your best source of reliable navigational information - but you gotta start somewhere...(look again at the chart, he was between the 9' and the 4' depths that straddle the reef just north of Sandy Point)

The video begins as I approach from the west (deeper and steeper side) of the reef, and I spin around in preparation to toss him a bridle. As you watch the video, you can actually see the reef just under my swim platform. In the backgound, the Block Island North Light blinks mockingly just behind the grounded boat.

I heard a few shells and stones rattling around in the jet, which is the boat's way of telling me it's time for Plan B. Fortunately, with the jet boat, running over hard shell and sand isn't the end of the world; it doesn't even really slow the job down.

I quickly zipped around to the other side of the reef. This eastern approach presents a few problems of its own. The depths on that side are very shallow, and when the current is running, it will set you towards the reef. As you can see, conditions were calm on this night, and I had no trouble backing up to his stern and practically handing him my bridle. The look on the faces of his family huddled in the cockpit tells a story about their experience.

As you will see, everything turns out fine, and we even beat those thunderstorms back to the harbor.

When Good Jobs Go Bad, Part 2

File Part 2 of this story under "I'd rather be lucky than good any day."

Here is a single frame of my video of the 3 boat raft-up adventure, just as I attempt to implement Modified Plan A. If you remember, this was the plan that sucked wind, and the guy's chain was just reeling out of the chain locker.

This little video clip begins just before the the towline gets sucked up into the port jet.





You can listen to me and the Harbormaster discuss the situation, and towards the end of the clip, my luck changes. Somehow, the anchor line that was fouled from the 4th boat magically get un-fouled, and I was able to tow the whole mess across the channel and grab a mooring. WHEW!

I pulled the 3 boats over to me, and then jumped in the water to access the damage. The guy's anchor was hanging about 8" below the grate of my port jet, still clipped in my snap hook! The chain had all run through the snap hook, and lifted the anchor right up to the bottom of my boat. (the launch boat with the fenders all around is the Harbormaster's boat)
The owners of the sailboats all showed up about this time, and they secured their boats on separate moorings.

I learned a long time ago that a job isn't finished until the boat is ready for the next job, so once I had the 3 boats secured on moorings, I still had to get the line out of my jet. Fortunately, a good friend and colleague of ours has a mooring service boat with a 2 Ton A-Frame crane. I had Ben from Edwards Marine meet me over at the mooring boat.

We had to lift the back of the towboat up about 15" to get the jet access plate above the water line, which was easily accomplished with a bridle attached to the D rings welded to my transom.

Once up in the air, we had the tedious task of cutting and hacking countless wraps of Amsteel and 3/4" nylon from the jet drive shaft. The Amsteel we use for towline is really cool stuff, until you have to cut it. We used 3 brand new knives making about 10 slices. Here is a picture of Ben taking a turn with the knife. And here is the remains of what we cut out.














So, this adventure began as a routine job and turned to total monkey dung, but the guardian angel of tow captains was on duty, my luck turned faster than a roulette wheel, and I made it to dinner before the kitchen closed.

The Flying Hungarians

Years ago, we had some crazy Hungarians show up at Catalina Island....well, actually, they sort of crash landed in the water near Catalina Island. My good friend Greeno was on duty and towed this thing to the beach, where some patching, some sawing and some inflating took place. And then...well, watch the video:



This is my first attempt at putting video on YouTube, and my first attempt at embedding it in a blog post. I guess I'll see what happens.

California tower getting some press

Channel Watch Marine (aka Vessel Assist Ventura) launched a new web site called www.Oceanrescue.tv, which will carry video footage of marine rescues. Channal Watch Marine owner Paul Amaral hopes to host plenty of dramatic video from many sources around the industry, but for now I suppose most of the content comes from his own cameras.

Last week, a nice article appeared in the a Calif. regional marine newspaper [click here to read The Log article], and today I saw that article was picked up by the USCG email news feed. The nature of that kind of internet exposure will drive a lot of traffic to Oceanrescue.tv. I sure hope Paul is set up to sell some ad space.

If you have some good footage, click here to email Paul about getting your 15 minutes of fame.