On Yachts and Yacht Handling

by Thomas Fleming Day

If she is not leaking, get all your beef on the hawser and heave away. Here is where a handy-billy or watch-tackle comes in. Sometimes you can use the windlass, but this is not as good as a tackle, because the hands have to stand forward to work it, and you want all the weight aft. If she refuses to budge under the pull, go below, and if you have inside weight shift it aft. If she still refuses to start, get out everything weighty, and either lighter it or heave it over-side.

Sometimes you can start a boat off a rock by broadening off the main-boom, and sending a man out on it to roll her. Before you do this be sure and set up the topping lift, and weather preventer if one is fitted. The principal thing is to keep a constant and firm strain on the hawser.

If there is any roll on, get the hawser set up fiddle-string taut with the tackle, then place all hands so as to surge it sideways every time she lifts on the sea. If the boat is one with a deep false keel you can gain a few inches off the draught by careening her. This is done by taking an anchor off at right angles to her lay and setting up the hawser by any of the mast-head tackles, either jib or peak halyards. Never do this if there is any sea on, as it is liable to strain the hull or break the false keel. I don't believe it is much good, and do not recommend its practice except as a last call.

Another plan which I found to work well when a boat is stranded on a shelving bank of either mud or sand is to overhaul the throat halyards, and bend the gaff-block to a bight in the hawser, letting a tail of the hawser drop down from the block. Then set up hard on the halyard, using the windlass or watch-tackle. This done, let a man hang on the tail of the hawser, throwing his weight up and down so as to surge it, the rest taking in the slack. This makes the mast a lever to lift her, and if there is water under the stern she will surely start.

In a boat with a deep sternpost and sloping keel you can sometimes do better by swinging it on its heel, and heaving off bow first, getting all your spare live weight out on the bowsprit to bring her by the head; but it depends on where she is hardest fast, and how much weight you have to trim with. If she is fast aft of midships this plan will work, but if forward of that point it will not.

The most frequent strandings are when trying to enter the mouths of creeks or rivers; places beset with bars and flats. If the wind and tide are ahead you can easily get off, but if either is astern you are liable to be in a fix. If you strike carrying the tide and wind with you, down all sail instantly, lash the helm amidships, and get out the anchor and long warp.

The minute a vessel strikes under these conditions she will swing broadside-to, and drive up higher, at the same time the tide will pile the sand or silt round her. If you can hold her stern to the tide, the current will cut the sand away, and the swell will help you to pull her off.

Now comes the only exception to the rule of taking in sail: If you are going into an inlet with a fair wind and head-tide, and take ground on a soft bar, keep your sails full and hold the boat's nose to the current. If you can keep her steady, which you can best do by getting all your spare life weight forward, the current will cut a passage for you. The most dangerous stranding is with a strong in-running tide and a stern swell. A boat under these conditions is liable to be hove over on her side and flooded. A small steamship was lost last winter in the Bristol Channel by an accident of this kind; she struck on a shoal, swung beam to the tide, and rolled completely over.

Several power boats have been wrecked in the same manner, as from the narrowness of their beam they are very liable to roll over when caught broadside-to by a current. Another thing that often damages launches is leaving them where, when the tide falls, they are broadside on a shelving bank. The water leaves them and they fall over; the tide returns, and not having sufficient buoyancy to lift before it rises to their coamings they are flooded and sunk.