Inside Practical Sailor

Im pretty certain that when historians and economists look back on the 30-year-old, $20-billion tax break for turning corn into fuel, it will be seen for what it is: political pandering masquerading as clean energy policy. Practical Sailor has covered the effects of ethanol on marine fuel systems in depth over the last several years. Most of our focus has been on helping prevent the problems that ethanol causes in engines and fuel system. I bring up politics in this post only because it relates to an upcoming PS article on recently enacted federal regulations that require fuel-vent filters on new boats with gasoline inboards.

If you have not yet heard the name Nichole Rider, you will. A star athlete in high school and college, Rider was paralyzed in a car accident in 1995. Technically quadriplegic, the 39-year-old sailor has limited motion in her arms and hands and almost no ability to use her legs, but like her friend and sailing mentor, Kerry Gruson, she refuses to let her disability define her. Gruson, a former New York Times reporter, and another disabled sailor, Juan Carlos Gil, first introduced Rider to sailing in 2010. Two years later, Rider has a laser-beam focus on the 2016 Para-Olympics in Brazil.

Being stuck on the west coast of Florida, with two shoaling channels offering the easiest access out to the Gulf of Mexico, Ive suddenly become more interested in centerboard cruisers. Generally, Im not a huge proponent of adding moving parts to a cruising sailboat, but the attraction of being able to make reasonable progress to windward, feel secure in a blow, and explore skinny-water paradises that are off limits to conventional offshore designs is hard to resist. So this week, I started a short list of 35- to 45-foot boats that look promising. It's just a start, really, and Id be interested in hearing thoughts from other sailors regarding their favorite centerboard cruisers. (No, Finisterre does not count.)

In an extensive and carefully worded report, a US Sailing investigative panel cited inadequate lookout as a key factor that likely contributed to the fatal April 28, 2012 accident involving the Aegean, a Hunter 376 participating in the 125-mile race from Newport Beach, Calif., to Ensenada, Mexico. The panel also found it likely that the Aegean inadvertently motored beyond a waypoint set near North Coronado Island.As the report states: Based on all factors, the panel concludes that the skipper set a waypoint that took Aegean on a path that intersected North Coronado Island, that Aegean was motoring under autopilot as she approached the island, and there is no evidence of any intervention to prevent Aegeans running into the island.The report also indicates a need for better safety practices, improved race management, and points out weaknesses in the SPOT tracking system, calling the portable GPS tracking device "unreliable in transmission of position fixes on a timely basis.

By now, most every Practical Sailor reader is probably aware of the fate of The Bounty, the tall ship of Hollywood movie fame. It sunk in stormy seas off Cape Hatteras on Oct. 29, as Hurricane Sandy bore down on the Northeast. At the time of this writing, the ships captain, 63-year-old Robin Walbridge of St. Petersburg, Fla., was still missing at sea. Crewmember Claudene Christian, 42, was pulled from the water, taken ashore, but pronounced dead in the hospital. In all, Coast Guard helicopters airlifted 14 crewmembers from two life rafts. The rescuers arrived on the scene quickly, not long after the famous ship sank below the waves. Some dramatic video footage of the U.S. Coast Guard rescue swimmers and helicopter crew at work is posted here.

We made an unpleasant, although not surprising, discovery this week as we revisited the topic of ground tackle. Many readers will recall that we began a series of mooring chain tests back in 2006, with corrosion reports in 2007 and in 2008. As one Practical Sailor tester put it, the test could be described as an attempt to determine how long it took our hard-earned money to turn into a pile of rust. (As it turned out, this happened a lot faster than we expected.) At the end of 2.5 years in the water, when we decided that no one in their right mind would trust their boat to any of the seven badly corroded 5/16-inch chains, we pulled them out for the final inspection.

Ralph Naranjo, Technical Editor of Practical Sailor, will be the moderating a US SAILING Sanctioned Safety-at-Sea Seminar at Strictly Sail Long Beach, Southern Californias only all-sail boat show on October 20, during the show. Topics for the full-day seminar include rendering first aid, damage control and predicting weather at sea-essential skills for any offshore sailor or racer. The course also qualifies graduates to sail in long-distance sailing races - US SAILING certification is becoming a mandatory practice for many races across the country.

Practical Sailor owes a debt of gratitude to Sarasota, Fla., sailor Mike Collins, who offered his Cape Dory 25 Skimmer as a test platform for a new environmentally friendly bottom paint earlier this year. The paint had done well early in our panel testing, and Collins, who oversees the health of the aquariums at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, was as curious as we were to see how it might perform on a hull. So how did it do? This photo of Skimmers bottom, taken just six months after the bottom was painted, says it all.

Practical Sailor recently examined how the introduction of devices like the SPOT was blurring the line between multifunction satellite communication devices and those designed exclusively for distress signaling. In the October issue of Practical Sailor we will take a look at the design implications when a 406-MHz Personal Locator Beacon (PLB) enables expanded services for paid subscribers, including a very SPOT-like ability to send canned text messages and location maps to multiple cell phone or email addresses.

Should boaters who travel more than three miles offshore in the U.S. or Great Lakes be required to carry a to carry an EPIRB, a personal locator beacon, some other form of emergency locator beacon? That is the question a National Boating Safety Advisory Council task force is asking as it formulates new safety recommendations for the U.S. Coast Guard.