Dinghy Choices

Most people will quickly picture some kind of vessel when they think of a dinghy. The truth is, a dinghy can be anything as long as it can meet your needs! While some will splurge to purchase a RIB from Zodiak, this purchase should not hold you back from casting off the docklines and living your dream!

We have encountered many cruisers along our short voyage and seen a wide variety of dinghies. While almost all of them are inflatable dinghies with an outboard on the back, there are still many more options.  

A lot of people use kayaks, as they are light weight, easy to handle, and can carry a considerable payload in them. This is great if you just want to get to shore and return with groceries, which is what a dinghy is most often used for!  

Along these lines, we met one person who is using an inflatable kayak that he bought for $50! He needs no fuel, and it deflates to take up almost no space. At the same time, a new 9.5 inflatable from AB Inflatables would cost you $5,000, and this doesn't even include the outboard motor. 

Don't let the debate about what dinghy you need to have to go cruising because any dinghy that gets the job done is perfect! All you need to do is find something that is within your budget and you will be good to go. 

Sailing Wing on Wing

When sailing downwind, you might find that the main is stealing all of the wind form your jib. This will manifest itself as a jib that continually falls and can never remain full of air. This loss of sail area will translate into reduced speed through the water, which means it will take you longer to get to where you are going.

There are a few ways to rectify this situation:

• You could broad reach instead of run
• You could lower the main
• You could reef the main
• You could raise the topping lift
• You could sail wing on wing

Broad reaching will put your yacht at an angle to the wind, allowing clean air to reach your headsail and fill it. This will cause your yacht to sail faster, but it will also add additional distance to your destination. It is pretty much the equivalent of tacking downwind. If you do some math, you can find an angle where your Velocity Made Good is higher than if you were sailing on a run, making the extra work worthwhile. 

As stated, broad reaching would be more work than running. In the effort of keeping effort to a minimum, lets look at how we can run more efficiently. The headsail offers significant sail area, but it is hidden behind the mainsail. If wind could get around the main, the headsail would also fill, letting you sail faster while still on a run.

You could lower the main, allowing all of that wind to reach the headsail. This will move you along with a full headsail, but you are still suffering from lost sail area. If your headsail is massive, this might function better than the main, giving you a bit more speed, but there are other options.

If you reef the main, it will be smaller and wind can get around the top of it and past the leech, letting this wind reach the headsail. The fuller headsail will provide more power when combined with the main and will help pull you downwind at a faster pace.

Instead of lowering the top of your sail, you could always raise the bottom. Tightening the topping lift will raise your boom and let air scoot by under the main to reach the foot of the headsail. Sailing along with a twisted main and headsail will be better than sailing along with a main and fallen headsail, but there is still a better way.

Instead of trying to get the air around the main, why not place the headsail in its own clean wind? This is called sailing wing on wing.

When on a dead run, as in the wind is directly behind you, you can set the main on one side of the yacht and the headsail on the other side. Each sail can be set full and in its own clean air with no disturbances or compromises. Now you have all your sail area functioning to carry you straight downwind towards your destination with as little effort as possible. 

You must be wondering why more people don't like to set the sails in these manners? Well, to sum it up:

• Broad reading is more work than running
• Dropping your main and sailing under headsail alone is usually as fast as sailing under main alone
• Reefing the main is work, and when people are running, they don't want to work
• Raising the topping lift will induce twist into the main and cause it to chafe on the rigging
• Wing on wing is very prone to accidental jibes.

Accidental jibes are a real and present danger when sailing wing on wing. A preventer can be used to stop the main from slamming across the boat, but preventers can make a mess if you need to change directions quickly, so I prefer to not use one. Instead of using a preventer, I will sail along at a slight angle to the wind, so I am not truly on a dead run, but instead the slightest of broad reaches.

With the main set on the leeward side, this slight angle will protect against those accidental jibes. If I see that my angle to the wind is changing, I can correct it before the boom comes smashing across the cockpit. With the main set to leeward, the drifter will be set to windward. 

The drifter is a very safe sail to fly by the lee, as it is simply a nylon genoa with a very full cut. It will stay on the windward side and fill up like a kite. If I sail too far off angle the drifter will fall and lay against the rigging. There is no noise, bashing, or terror on board when this happens. I just alter course a little bit to fill the drifter with wind and continue on our way.

Sailing at a slight angle won't guarantee that accidental jibes won't happen, they just reduce the likelihood. Since they are still a very real and present issue, I don't recommend sailing wing on wing in strong winds. If I can't grab the mainsheet as it runs out to the boom and pull the whole boom towards me without any assistance, I won't sail wing on wing. If it were blowing harder, the pressure on the main were greater, I would not be able to pull the sail as easily and there would be more potential for damage if an accidental jibe did occur. 

Another issue with wing on wing sailing in strong winds is you are at higher risk of broaching. The sails are set on either side of the hull and the rolling waves could push the boat into a roll which could lead to a broach or worse, a Chinese jibe! Keeping this sailing technique restricted to light air days will ensure that running is as little work as possible, letting you reach your downwind destination in comfort and with ease.

Provisioning

When provisioning for a trip, don't make the same mistake we made. We went out to the grocery store and purchased a massive amount of food! 

We had two full carts of food with everything stuffed into them. We had cases of waters, chips, fruits, vegetables, and canned foods, as well as everything else you can think of. 

We ate what we normally do, and all this extra food simply began to rot! What's worse is the canned vegetables were disgusting, so aweful that they are still in the back of a locker, just waiting to be thrown out. All the money we spent on wasted food could have been used towards anything else on the boat, but instead was thrown out as rotten lettuce.

Thinking that we learned our lesson from this fiasco, we decided not to go overboard with food provisioning on our future trips. When we set off for a 2 week cruise, we once again bought what we thought would be an adequate amount of food for the trip. Once again, the extra food we purchased began to rot and had to be thrown out.

The moral of the story is, only buy the normal amount of food that you would consume on a regular basis. If you buy extra food, it will go bad and you will have wasted that money. Instead of "provisioning" for a trip, what we do now is cast off. If we find that we need more of something, we will pull into a port and pick it up. 

This is an easy approach for us since we liveaboard. Our regular grocery shopping is what we consume in a regular amount of time. We typically go shopping every other week, so we know that we have around two weeks worth of food on board at any given moment. Instead of wasting money on extra food, we simply shove off and provision along the way.

Another word of warning: Canned vegetables are disgusting and there is nothing you can do to make them better. I have tried everything like adding them to delicious dishes, but all they do is ruin everything. Canned string beans are the worst offenders, followed by canned carrots and canned peas. Canned corn isn't that bad, and can be hidden in chili, but fresh corn is a million times better. Canned beans on the other hand are wonderful and they will keep for years!

While we don't stock up on extra fresh foods or foods that need refrigerating, we do stock up on rice, beans, and canned meats (Vienna Sausages are amazing) as these foods won't go bad and make a great meal that can be eaten while on watch.

Prop Walk Test

Your yacht is floating in her slip, securely tied to the pier and ready to go sailing. You need to reverse you yacht out of the slip, but which way will she walk?

A very simple test to see which way and how severely your yacht will walk is to put the boat in reverse under full throttle and evaluate the prop wash. 

The side with more prop wash will be the side you walk away from. If you see prop wash on your port side, you will walk to starboard. If you see prop wash on your starboard side, you will walk to port.

While most of the factors that compound to create prop walk are beyond your control right before you go sailing, one key factor is: engine speed.

Hello, World!

With the engine off, there is no prop wash and the water around the boat will be still.

With a little bit of throttle, the engine is consuming 32.1 amps and the propeller is spinning at 697 RPM. There is very little prop wash on either side, as there is little thrust being produced. 

Hello, World!

With the engine drawing 61.2 amps, and the propeller spinning at 889 RPM, there is considerably more prop wash and prop walk. You can see from this picture looking at the bow how the docklines are holding the boat steady as well as the difference in the amounts of prop wash on each side of the boat. The port side is very disturbed, while the starboard side is very calm. This illustrates why the boat will walk to starboard.

With the engine drawing 89.4 amps, and the propeller spinning at 1012 RPM, the prop wash is considerably strong on the port side and only beginning to disturb the water on the starboard side.

Hello, World!

With the engine drawing 178 amps, and the propeller spinning at 1255 RPM, we are creating considerable trust and prop wash on the port side.There is a very slight amount of prop wash showing up on the starboard side.

The final test was performed at full throttle, with the electric motor drawing 302 amps, and spinning the propeller 1480 RPM. At this pace, our very small battery bank will only last for 0.4 hours, or 24 minutes, which illustrates why we sail everywhere instead of motoring everywhere. With a larger battery bank and a generator, we could have a significantly longer range under power, but we chose a simpler and less costly installation and opted for a small battery bank with a full suit of sails.

Hello, World!

At full throttle astern, the prop wash on the starboard side is starting to be more evident, but nowhere near the level of disturbed water on the port side. Under full throttle, the boat will walk to starboard as all of the thrust is being directed towards the port side of the hull.

As the RPMs increase so does the bias in the in thrust, leading to an increase in prop walk to one side while moving astern.

Light Throttle

Full Throttle

The prop wash on the side the boat walks towards in reverse is about the same under light and full throttle.

Light Throttle

Full Throttle

On the contrary, the prop wash on the side the boat walks away from in reverse is vastly different. Under light throttle, the prop wash is very light and can be somewhat combated by the opposing sides prop wash. Under full throttle, the prop is very powerful and will push the boat over, causing the phenomenon known as prop walk.

Next time you need to reverse into a slip, try using a light amount of throttle. If you are reversing out of the slip and have significant prop walk, maybe you should consider walking the boat out of the slip by hand and then motoring away once clear of the slip.

Ditch Bag

A ditch bag is a bag that you grab as you ditch your ship. This bag is supposed to contain important items that are crucial to your survival and recovery. The time to collect all of these important items is not when your boat is sinking and panic is setting in. The idea of a ditch bag is it offers you a place to store all of your important items in an easy to grab bag that can be set aside and ready to be taken with you in the event of an emergency.

A ditch bag is a great place to store your coast guard required equipment for two reasons. 

1. If you get boarded by the Coast Guard or Marine Police and they ask for you to present your flares, horn, whistle, etc., that is not the time to begin searching your boat for the place you stored them.
2. If you need to jump ship, having everything in one bag makes it easy to grab and go, without the risk of forgetting something important.

If you have to look around for a while to find your flares, the boarding party sometimes will give you a citation because "taking too long to find it means you couldn't find it in an emergency". Secondly, if you are jumping ship, you don't want to be searching around the boat to find everything you need as the yacht is sinking.

Having everything in one bag stowed in a safe and secure location will make it easy to retrieve all of your needed items in the event of an emergency and also make you look prepared in the event of a boarding. If you look prepared, the boarding officials tend to be less particular when going through your vessel. Why search the heck out of an orderly and organized boat? They can see that everything is as it should be. The sailboat that looks like a disaster needs a more investigative eye to make sure that the captain can manage the chaos in a safe manner.

On Wisdom, we keep our ditch bag stocked with the basics while in port. 

• Flare gun
• Un-expired flares
• EPIRB
• Electronic flare (flare substitute)
• Batteries
• Daytime distress signal (distress flag)
• Noise device (whistle and air horn)
• Floating smoke

When we are leaving port, we always add 2 liters of water in plastic bottles to the bag. Instead of carrying a water maker, we simply carry 1L of water per person on board. This will provide us enough water for 1 day in the life raft which is in accordance with the average recovery time of near shore rescues.

If we were sailing further offshore, we would stock the ditch bag with more water bottles since the recovery times are a bit longer when we are farther from land. 

The ditch bag is stored with the life raft in Wisdom, being how if you need one, you also need the other. It is stowed safely and hopefully will only be used to organize our emergency supplies.