Safety & Seamanship

A safety tether keeps you safely on board, but it also comes with its own risks. Previously, we investigated jackline materials (Jackline Materials Evaluation, Practical Sailor, November 2016), testing both common materials and commercial products. When redesigning a new tether, tester Drew Frye wanted something that fit his boat-very short for the side decks, but long for the broad decks and cockpit of his catamaran.

Driven by World Sailing standards, the sailing tether market is dominated by single 6-foot tethers and two-leg 3-foot/6-foot tethers. In fact, if you intend to race your boat in a World Sailing event, you will have to choose one of these tethers to be compliant with race rules.

Recent fatal accidents in the Clipper Around the World Race inspired a closer look at sailing safety tethers. Seeking a racer's view of gear that racing rules engendered, we spoke with Sailing Hall of Fame navigator Stan Honey (a past PS contributor) and Casey Smith, skipper of Comanche, the 100-foot racing yacht that crushed the trans-Atlantic record in 2016. We were not surprised to hear that these racers made their own tethers, although their low-stretch Dyneema tethers are very different from the climbing ropes we advocate.

Depending on the collection area and the sailing, salt can be a primary problem. Spray falls and dries, layer after layer, until the decks hold enough salt to foul a considerable flow of water. The solution? Wash the deck with seawater before the rain comes. Squeegee off as much as practical or towel dry, and common sense dictates this is best done when at sea and must be done away from red tides. We tested the run-off from the top after scrubbing with seawater, allowing to dry, and then spraying with tap water equivalent to 1/10-inch of rain (see results in table below). In addition to taste, seawater contains significant sulfate levels, which combined with bacteria in the tank under anaerobic conditions, can lead to sulfurous water; sailors notice this when a seawater flush is used for the head, but allowed to become stagnant for a few days; the first flush will smell.

Each winter sailors must tackle the project of winterizing their potable water system. Our preferred method is to dry the system completely (see PS September 2014, Step-by-Step Winterizing tips. If thats not possible we completely empty the tank and then treat the plumbing with the correct concentration of anti-freeze. The online version of this article provides all the details you need to carry out this process, as does the recent Inside Practical Sailor blog post, The (Cold) Case of the Frozen Anti-freeze.

Every storm is a learning experience, but sometimes it takes time to deconstruct the events and recognize what worked and what didnt-and what can be done to prepare for the next storm. Two lessons, in particular, stand out from this years hurricane season.

For most sailors the off-season begins on Labor Day, which is a shame because fall brings the best sailing of the year in many of parts of the country. Of course, extending the season also brings the risk of snow and ice on deck.

In the process of our ongoing investigation on the effect of time and wind gusts on anchor setting and holding capacity, we performed limited testing at short scope and couldnt help but notice that holding capacity at short scope varied greatly. When recovering the test anchors, some anchors would lift out of the bottom while we were pulling the dinghy over to them, while others required heroic efforts even when the rode was nearly vertical.

When an anchored boat spins, the anchor chain twists, and the anchor can come up backward. One solution is an anchor swivel, but failures with some poor designs are a concern-a lovely stainless swivel on one of our test boats had an interior crack that became visible only when disassembled. And as we found in our most recent test, many swivels arent very effective at reducing twist due to the inherent friction in the swivel.(see How Well Do Swivels Reduce Twist, Practical Sailor March 2016 online).

In our ongoing study of ways to compare, and hopefully improve the way our anchors set, weve learned that it takes time and slow, delayed setting to make best advantage of very soft mud. However, firm sand and weeds can have the opposite character-making it hard for the anchor to penetrate.