They Never Told Me!
Jann Burner
October 26, 2008
Like many others who live in Bayside communities, I have sat upon the dock of the bay watching with something bordering on religious awe as sailboats drift by powered by nothing except the breath of God and the steady hand of the captain on the tiller. Like close encounters with an old friend, I had come to rely upon my frequent aquatic rendezvous to satisfy a certain percentage of my life's daily dream quotient.
"Just imagine", I would say to myself, "to actually live on a boat! What a dream. What a goal!"
All the nautical magazines said that it was cheap, and they said that it was a buyer's market. They said "Now is the time to buy!" And then one day, it happened. Through a strange twist of fate my dream rather abruptly became manifest and I found myself the owner of a Westsail 32. Now a Westsail 32 is a real Blue Water cruiser. It isn't fast and it isn't light. It is a 20,000 pound double ended cutter…a real cruising boat. Suddenly I was one of those people I had been watching and reading about for all those years. Suddenly I became privy to all that stands behind the set and supports the dream.
Thus I became a participant in that rather strange obsession referred to euphemistically as the Boating Life. And along with that lifestyle came the realization that there were certain things that my observation and my reading never told me…
In my case, having never even owned a dingy before, the learning curve could best be described as…steep. Programming a DOS computer is child's play. In the early days I often felt like a defacto rock climber stranded and utterly isolated on a sheer wall in the midst of a thunderstorm. Every early sail became a mistake that should never be allowed to happen again. You can't drive a car without a certain amount of training and a driver's license. You certainly can't drive a "Big Rig" unless you have training and a special license. But any nimrod can cast off from a dock and take his boat around the bay or around the world without any sort of training or license. The theory seems to be that a sane person wouldn't risk an expensive toy out on the water without proper training. Nor would he risk his life. This isn't necessarily true. For me each day was a neural burn and West Marine became the rock I crawled to, cold and beaten, after each mis-reefed adventure.
And what about crew? Why do perfectly sane normal people volunteer to go out sailing in an aquatic environment like San Francisco Bay with a friend who just bought a boat the week before? On the East Coast this might work, but SF Bay is not a tropical idle in turquoise blue warm water. SF Bay can start out quite benign and by noon it can be a documentary for Victory At Sea! I have actually had crew members get on their knees and kiss the dock upon their arrival back at the slip.
The literature never told me that in order to own a sailboat on San Francisco Bay one had to be not only an expert sailor, but a master carpenter, certified plumber and union electrician. They never told me that for every sail there would be three days of heavy labor at the dock fixing all the things that had been added to the "fix-it" list during the sail.
And what is the deal with alcohol stoves? The cook stove in the belly of my beast had a serious attitude. It required the use of a bicycle pump to bring it to life. The tank lived in its own little fitted compartment with a pressure gauge and below it in as inaccessible a place as possible was the fitting from a bicycle tube. The drill was: you somehow managed to attach a bicycle pump to the fitting, pump until you got about ten pounds of pressure, opened the valve to the stove, and then (this was the touchy part), you "tweaked" the stove knob beneath the burner. They you touched this small amount of alcohol with a match and if you haven't "tweaked" it too much you got a nice comfortable little flame that would burn for about three minutes. This in turn heated the burner to about 600 degrees so that when the "little flame" burned out, you could turn the stove knob on and if lucky, were greeted with a stove burner sized flame that looked for all the world like a regular gas flame at home. There were two flaws in this sequence that tended to pop up with obscene regularity. First, if you "tweaked" the initial flame a touch too much then when you lit this flame you were greeted with a flare-up that would bring your neighbors to quick attention. And if you managed to pass through this gate, you still couldn't relax because if you "tweaked" too little and the burner wasn't preheated to 600 degrees, then when you opened the burner in preparation to cook you would be greeted with a really HUGE FLAME! So when I cooked I had to make room amongst the pots, pans and dishes for the fire extinguisher. And the worst thing is to actually have to use this fire extinguishing tool, for if you did, it would put out the fire in an instant, but you would spend days, if not weeks, cleaning the chemicals off the walls and the floor and the stove. Who invented these things? Ahhhh…the tranquility of life on a boat. Next time I'll describe why I didn't use the toilet! But then there were so many nice bathrooms in Sausalito and many of them came with restaurants attached!
And how was I to know that a Genoa with 1/4 inch hanks wouldn't fit on a 9/32 inch forestay! "What do you mean?" I would yell at my (also very inexperienced) crew, "Of course it will fit! It came with the boat didn´t it?"
"You mean a ten horse Saab diesel is not powerful enough to push a 20,000 pound Westsail through a four knot flood against thirty knots of wind? But it came with the boat didn't it?"
And what is the deal with parking a heavy, full keel boat with a long bowsprit and no reverse gear, in a tight slip. Is this something you can actually learn or is it just a gift that some people are born with? It is not at all like berthing a Santana 22.
And who knew that those tankers moved so awfully fast through The Gate and across San Francisco Bay. In light winds it is truly dangerous to let one get between you and your wind source. And I don't care what anyone says, Alcatraz is not an island: it moves! I swear it has actually tried to run me down. On more than one occasion I have been happily sailing from Sausalito towards Gas House Cove in San Francisco and yep, here comes the good ship Alcatraz boldly trying to cross in front of me and with me on a starboard tack!
And nobody told me that when a buyer gets a survey he should not be too pleased at the many defects found by his surveyor because although these might help secure a lower initial purchase price, these little, ah, problems will all have to be addressed in order to secure adequate insurance.
And why is it that the boat owner and the buyer never really get to sit down face to face and "objectively" discuss the boat: it's good points, it's bad points and the strange aberrant behavior of some of its systems?
Why is it that some things which should be aboard are always missing while other rather nautical looking items are often found aboard which divulge not a clue as to their probable purpose.
Why is it that the systems manuals and wiring/plumbing diagrams are seldom present? This essentially turns a boat into a grab bag of arcane rituals passed on word of mouth from seller to broker to buyer (sometimes). Usually the buyer simply takes delivery with hopes of figuring it all out…somehow…someday.
Each boat, especially a cruising boat, should come complete with a Boat Book, which includes not only all manuals and diagrams of wiring, plumbing, stowage etc, but also all the repairs, improvements, idiosyncratic discoveries and observations of the boat´s behavior jotted down by all the previous owners. I mean these things, these "Dream of Freedom" machines are not mere…toys! These are vessels in which one will bet his/her life and those of family and friends. A previous owner's knowledge could be crucial and might even save the new owner countless hours of frustration. Might even save a life.
A cruising sailboat is not, as I discovered, an aquatic RV. It is much closer in design and intention to a space shuttle. They never told me!
"Just imagine", I would say to myself, "to actually live on a boat! What a dream. What a goal!"
All the nautical magazines said that it was cheap, and they said that it was a buyer's market. They said "Now is the time to buy!" And then one day, it happened. Through a strange twist of fate my dream rather abruptly became manifest and I found myself the owner of a Westsail 32. Now a Westsail 32 is a real Blue Water cruiser. It isn't fast and it isn't light. It is a 20,000 pound double ended cutter…a real cruising boat. Suddenly I was one of those people I had been watching and reading about for all those years. Suddenly I became privy to all that stands behind the set and supports the dream.
Thus I became a participant in that rather strange obsession referred to euphemistically as the Boating Life. And along with that lifestyle came the realization that there were certain things that my observation and my reading never told me…
In my case, having never even owned a dingy before, the learning curve could best be described as…steep. Programming a DOS computer is child's play. In the early days I often felt like a defacto rock climber stranded and utterly isolated on a sheer wall in the midst of a thunderstorm. Every early sail became a mistake that should never be allowed to happen again. You can't drive a car without a certain amount of training and a driver's license. You certainly can't drive a "Big Rig" unless you have training and a special license. But any nimrod can cast off from a dock and take his boat around the bay or around the world without any sort of training or license. The theory seems to be that a sane person wouldn't risk an expensive toy out on the water without proper training. Nor would he risk his life. This isn't necessarily true. For me each day was a neural burn and West Marine became the rock I crawled to, cold and beaten, after each mis-reefed adventure.
And what about crew? Why do perfectly sane normal people volunteer to go out sailing in an aquatic environment like San Francisco Bay with a friend who just bought a boat the week before? On the East Coast this might work, but SF Bay is not a tropical idle in turquoise blue warm water. SF Bay can start out quite benign and by noon it can be a documentary for Victory At Sea! I have actually had crew members get on their knees and kiss the dock upon their arrival back at the slip.
The literature never told me that in order to own a sailboat on San Francisco Bay one had to be not only an expert sailor, but a master carpenter, certified plumber and union electrician. They never told me that for every sail there would be three days of heavy labor at the dock fixing all the things that had been added to the "fix-it" list during the sail.
And what is the deal with alcohol stoves? The cook stove in the belly of my beast had a serious attitude. It required the use of a bicycle pump to bring it to life. The tank lived in its own little fitted compartment with a pressure gauge and below it in as inaccessible a place as possible was the fitting from a bicycle tube. The drill was: you somehow managed to attach a bicycle pump to the fitting, pump until you got about ten pounds of pressure, opened the valve to the stove, and then (this was the touchy part), you "tweaked" the stove knob beneath the burner. They you touched this small amount of alcohol with a match and if you haven't "tweaked" it too much you got a nice comfortable little flame that would burn for about three minutes. This in turn heated the burner to about 600 degrees so that when the "little flame" burned out, you could turn the stove knob on and if lucky, were greeted with a stove burner sized flame that looked for all the world like a regular gas flame at home. There were two flaws in this sequence that tended to pop up with obscene regularity. First, if you "tweaked" the initial flame a touch too much then when you lit this flame you were greeted with a flare-up that would bring your neighbors to quick attention. And if you managed to pass through this gate, you still couldn't relax because if you "tweaked" too little and the burner wasn't preheated to 600 degrees, then when you opened the burner in preparation to cook you would be greeted with a really HUGE FLAME! So when I cooked I had to make room amongst the pots, pans and dishes for the fire extinguisher. And the worst thing is to actually have to use this fire extinguishing tool, for if you did, it would put out the fire in an instant, but you would spend days, if not weeks, cleaning the chemicals off the walls and the floor and the stove. Who invented these things? Ahhhh…the tranquility of life on a boat. Next time I'll describe why I didn't use the toilet! But then there were so many nice bathrooms in Sausalito and many of them came with restaurants attached!
And how was I to know that a Genoa with 1/4 inch hanks wouldn't fit on a 9/32 inch forestay! "What do you mean?" I would yell at my (also very inexperienced) crew, "Of course it will fit! It came with the boat didn´t it?"
"You mean a ten horse Saab diesel is not powerful enough to push a 20,000 pound Westsail through a four knot flood against thirty knots of wind? But it came with the boat didn't it?"
And what is the deal with parking a heavy, full keel boat with a long bowsprit and no reverse gear, in a tight slip. Is this something you can actually learn or is it just a gift that some people are born with? It is not at all like berthing a Santana 22.
And who knew that those tankers moved so awfully fast through The Gate and across San Francisco Bay. In light winds it is truly dangerous to let one get between you and your wind source. And I don't care what anyone says, Alcatraz is not an island: it moves! I swear it has actually tried to run me down. On more than one occasion I have been happily sailing from Sausalito towards Gas House Cove in San Francisco and yep, here comes the good ship Alcatraz boldly trying to cross in front of me and with me on a starboard tack!
And nobody told me that when a buyer gets a survey he should not be too pleased at the many defects found by his surveyor because although these might help secure a lower initial purchase price, these little, ah, problems will all have to be addressed in order to secure adequate insurance.
And why is it that the boat owner and the buyer never really get to sit down face to face and "objectively" discuss the boat: it's good points, it's bad points and the strange aberrant behavior of some of its systems?
Why is it that some things which should be aboard are always missing while other rather nautical looking items are often found aboard which divulge not a clue as to their probable purpose.
Why is it that the systems manuals and wiring/plumbing diagrams are seldom present? This essentially turns a boat into a grab bag of arcane rituals passed on word of mouth from seller to broker to buyer (sometimes). Usually the buyer simply takes delivery with hopes of figuring it all out…somehow…someday.
Each boat, especially a cruising boat, should come complete with a Boat Book, which includes not only all manuals and diagrams of wiring, plumbing, stowage etc, but also all the repairs, improvements, idiosyncratic discoveries and observations of the boat´s behavior jotted down by all the previous owners. I mean these things, these "Dream of Freedom" machines are not mere…toys! These are vessels in which one will bet his/her life and those of family and friends. A previous owner's knowledge could be crucial and might even save the new owner countless hours of frustration. Might even save a life.
A cruising sailboat is not, as I discovered, an aquatic RV. It is much closer in design and intention to a space shuttle. They never told me!
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