Cruising Gear: Life Raft

If your yacht sinks, you can try to await rescue in your dinghy; but if the conditions are so bad that your yacht sank, how long do you think your dinghy will last? This is where a good life raft comes into play. They are purpose built to keep you afloat while you await your rescue. I do feel they are misused though, where people abandon ship and climb into the life raft which is being towed behind their still-floating yacht. 

This makes me think of kids camping in the back yard of their house. The yacht hasn't sunken, yet everyone is piled into the small life raft! What's worse is rescue crews typically find the abandoned boat still floating! The real tragedy is when people abandon ship and die in the life raft while their sailboat washes up onto an island, still floating.

Never abandon ship until it has actually sunk. If your boat is taking on water, stay in it and work to stop the ingress of water and also work on removing the water that has come inside. Your yacht has all your provisions and water available and ready for you, the life raft has a very limited "survival" supply. People fear that if they are in a sinking boat, that they will be drawn down to the bottom with their boat. The truth is, most boats sink very slowly, and if you stay aboard and work to keep it afloat, this slow process can be prolonged even further; hopefully long enough for the rescue crews to reach you and recover you.

Cruising Gear: What do you need?

When you set off cruising, you may be tempted to purchase every accessory that you think will make your life easier. The truth is, all these accessories will become a monstrous headache!

The gear that you do need to go cruising is a good rudder, steering, sails, and good rigging. This will make your boat move forward toward your destination. All other accessories are just that, accessories and not necessities. As long as you remember that these are accessories and not necessities, you will be much happier as you sail along and these accessories fail and break down along the way.

A sturdy rudder and steering system is crucial as it will give your yacht directional control. If you lose your rudder, you lose the ability to steer the vessel and reaching your destination will become a lot more complicated!

Be sure to inspect the rudder blade and the attachment of the rudder to the rudder post. Should the connection to the rudder post fail, the rudder will simply flow in the water behind the keel and not steer you along.

The next point of failure is the steering system. The simplest method to steer would be to use a tiller connected directly to the rudder. A tiller provides a direct and secure method to steer the boat that is as non-complex as possible. The other option for steering is to use a wheel which is connected to the rudder post via a system of linkages or cables. Wheels are considered more comfortable by some, but they do provide a place where failure could occur.

Sails are what give a sailboat its name. If you didn't have sails, your yacht would be called a powerboat! Sails will power you through the water indefinitely. There are no fuel levels or concerns with sails as they are powered by the wind, and wind exists everywhere on the water. Carrying the right sails and flying the appropriate sails will allow your yacht to sail through the seas to anywhere your hear desires. 

The final ingredient in the required gear to carry is the most important in my opinion: Good rigging. Rigging will hold the sails up so that they can power your vessel and move you along. If your rigging is bad, it will not be able to safely fly your sails, meaning that you won't be able to move along towards your destination.

This may sound overly simplistic when it is broken down to these four essential items, but the truth is that it is this simple! A sailboat only needs a rudder, steering, sails, and good rigging to sail. Everything else on the boat is an accessory and should never take priority over these four on the repair list. If you arrive somewhere with a torn sail and a dirty fuel filter, the sail repair should be addressed before the fuel filter. 

Keeping your priorities straight will allow you to keep sailing for longer and happier. If your refrigerator dies while sailing or your water heater stops working, you will still be able to sail as long as you have a sound rudder, steering, sails, and rigging.

Electronics You Need

While I am not a fan of electronic gizmos on a boat, there are two electronic items that I feel are indispensable: Radio and EPIRB.

The EPIRB is a distress beacon that will signal your position so that rescue ships can locate you. EPRIBs will greatly reduce the time to find and rescue you, which increases your chances of survival. EPRIBS are not perfect though, as they send a signal about where they are, not where you are. If you have to abandon ship, be sure to stay with the EPRIB as the rescue crews will come looking for it.

The second crucial piece of equipment to carry is a radio. Radios allow for you to communicate with other vessels in a very quick manner. Yes, Morse Code and flag signals can be used to communicate, but for communication to function, both parties need to be able to understand. If you hail a boat on the radio and they flash a search light at you, will you understand what they just said?

Modern radios also give weather warnings when severe weather is approaching and some have built in AIS receivers. This lets you spot commercial vessels that are far away and make sure you are not on a collision course with them. Another wonderful features of these radios is the ability to see the name of that ship on the horizon. This lets you hail a vessel by name so that you know you are in contact with the correct ship.

These two electronic devices are crucial to carry on board your vessel and maintained in proper working order.

Full Keels

A full keel sailboat is not known for high speed or performance, they are known for being sturdy. The full keel provides a lot of wetted surface area which leads to more drag through the water and slower speed. The low aspect ratio appendage extends out below the hull and provides little lift for its size which translates into less ability to point into the wind.

This may sound like a horrible keel design, but it does have some very promising attributes. A full keel offers a lot of strength to the bottom of the boat. The keel attaches to the full length of the bilge and the forces exerted on the keel are transferred to the hull over a very large area. 

This extensive contact between the keel and hull means that the keel will be better able to withstand the normal and the extraordinary forces that can be applied to it. If you are sailing along in a storm, the forces on the keel are going to be tremendous and well distributed to the rest of the hull. If you aground, your biggest concern will be getting off the shoal and not getting a haul out to check for damages.

When a fin keel runs aground, the forces can lead to cracks in the keel and hull from the amplification of these forces. When a full keel runs aground, it sits on the bottom awaiting the captain to kedge off. The yacht will rest on the bottom on the long edge of the keel. Forces will be well distributed and subsequent damages will be minimal.

While full keel vessels tend to be slow and unable to outrun a storm like a high performance fin keel yacht could, they are very capable of comfortably riding out the storm. The large keel will produce a significant slick to windward as the yacht drifts laterally while hove to. This slick is comprised of disturbed water that will act to calm breaking waves into simple rollers. Heaving to with a full keel will produce a powerful slick that will magically calm large breaking waves well before they reach your yacht, keeping you safe and dry as you wait for the storm to blow past.

The last issue with full keels is they love to go straight. They will track in a straight direction all day long without little input from the helm, no matter the winds or sea state. If the seas are rough and pounding into the bow or stern quarter, a full keel yacht will hold a straight course. This does make it very easy to balance the sails and lock the helm, as the keel will keep you on a straight track for quite some time with no input from the captain. The problem with a full keel shows up when you want to turn and the keel wants to continue straight. You will find that you need to move the rudder much more to get a reaction on a yacht with a full keel as opposed to a yacht with a fin keel.

A fin keel yacht will turn with the slightest twitch of the helm, a full keel yacht will require you to turn the helm quite a bit and then wait for the yacht to respond to the new rudder position. Tacking really exemplifies these issues, as full turns through the wind are desired and expected. A fin keel will turn through the wind and continue moving quickly in the new direction without losing speed. A full keel yacht will slowly turn through the wind and then come to a complete stop. 

The full keel is now laying perpendicular to the direction that the yacht wants to travel and the yacht will come to a stop. The large keel will act as a large wall in the water that will stop all forward progress of the yacht. The rudder is useless as there is no speed and no water moving over it to provide steerage. The yacht will then lose forward momentum and the wind blowing on the headsails will cause the yacht to be pulled downwind. The wind will push your yacht to leeward as it begins to gain speed. Once you have enough speed, the rudder will become effective again and you will be sailing on your new tack. This slow tacking makes short tacking very difficult and each tack will cause you to lose some ground that you have fought for while working to windward. Combining these facts with less ability to point to windward and you can quickly see why it is so important to plan your tacks ahead of time to minimize your losses and get you to your windward destination.

While full keels are by far the least efficient design, they do offer incredible strength and versatility on a sailing yacht. If you want to explore new waters where you may run aground and wish to travel across large open waters, a full keel will keep you safe and on course.

Fin Keels

Fin keels are the epitome of performance! They project out of the hull as a high aspect ratio appendage with a long leading edge to generate as much lift as possible with as little drag as possible. The narrow fin slices through the water with ease and its airfoil shape adds to its efficiency.  

The long fin keel locates the mass of the ballast far from the hull, providing a long lever arm to aid in righting moment. This added leverage uses the ballast more efficiently which means that less ballast is needed. Less ballast also means less weight which directly relates to the yacht having a lighter displacement. Lighter displacement gives the sailboat greater speeds in light airs, and much greater speeds overall. Fin keels truly are the ideal underwater appendage from a performance standpoint! 

If your dream yacht is a high performance machine that will zip through the water toward your destination, be sure that you size your keel accordingly to the waters you intend to navigate. The longer the keel, the better the yachts ability to point, but the yacht will also have a deeper draft. 

If you plan to cruise in waters that average around 6 feet deep, then a 10 foot keel may be problematic. Your cruising grounds will be severely restricted and limited to only the deeper areas. If you went with a shorter fin keel, you will still have the performance benefits of a fin keel with the increased cruising realm of shallower waters. 

It would behave you to look over the charts of your intended navigable waters and examine the charted depths. Identify the creeks and rivers you wish to sail into and record their water depths. By compiling the data by depth, you can see how different drafts will remove potential cruising waters.  

For example:

Creek A, Creek B, and Creek C have depths of 4 feet;
Creek D, River E, and Bay F have depths 5 feet;
River G, Bay H, and Creek I have depths of 6 feet.  

If you choose a boat with a draft less than 4 feet, you could cruise all the bodies of water that you have identified.
If you choose a boat with a draft less than 5 feet, you can no longer enter Creek A, B, or C. 
If you choose a boat with a draft less than 6 feel, you can only cruise in River G, Bay H, and Creek I.

If you did not look at your local charts before you purchased your yacht with a 10 foot draft, you would be disappointed when you can not enter any of the cruising waters you wanted to explore! 

While fin keels are excellent performers, be sure to size your keel accordingly to the waters you wish to cruise instead of solely focusing on the performance aspects of the keel length.