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Vol. III, No. 11

NOAA’s charts for recreational boaters. Photo courtesy NOAA.

NOAA announced the launch of their new nautical chart app yesterday, a free product called MyNOAACharts that covers US coastal waters and the Great Lakes.  The only catch: It’s only on the Android platform, with no mention of plans for an iOS version.  Oh, and it’s also still in the ‘testing’ phase.  So Android users, download it and check it out!  What a great free tool–it may be a propsaver for recreational boaters who are not likely to unroll a paper chart during a summer afternoon on the water!

And iPad users don’t fret; there are some excellent nautical chart products in the App Store. You just might have to pay a few bucks.  I’ve been using the Navionics app, a $15 product, for years. It’s great for estimating distances for on-the-water trips, and apparently others think so too.  Navionics announced in April that more than 1,000,000 of their apps have been downloaded.

So maybe it’s time to put your tablet on your boating equipment checklist, if it isn’t already.

Read more about the NOAA app announcement and Navionics.

-DC

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Vol. III, No. 10

Navy Sailing at the start of last year’s Newport to Bermuda Race. Photo by Allen Clark / PhotoBoat.com

Type I PFDs are not the most comfortable, but they’re safe and inexpensive.

Which crew do you think is most likely to keep their PFDs on for the duration of their time on the water/on deck?

Safe Boating Week kicks off tomorrow with the message: Wear It!   These members of the Navy sailing team show how easy and comfortable wearing a Type V inflatable PFD can be.  The J105 sailors in the next photo look like they’re going to get tired of wearing their bulky Type I PFDs in no time.

This summer, consider comfort when selecting your PFDs…the more likely you are to wear your PFD, the more likely it will save your life. Having one neatly stowed on board won’t help you if you fall overboard!

-DC

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Vol. III, No. 9

A closer look at the Bridge Street swing bridge. Photo by John Kantor.

Anything with moving parts requires some occasional maintenance. The repair work on the Rte. 136 bridge over the Saugatuck River has been going on for months. It may seem like years to those who have been delayed more than once by closures. Lately the bridge has been completely closed for quite a few hours quite a few days each week causing traffic woes all over town. The Post Road bridge, which is very busy on a normal day, has been backing up with the extra traffic a mile or so upstream in downtown Westport.

If you do not have a boat, you may not be familiar with the Bridge Street Bridge’s underpinnings. So here is a look at it from beneath. It is a swing bridge. A swing bridge rotates on a turntable mechanism in order to open for transiting boat traffic. The entire bridge rotates a quarter turn to allow taller vessels to pass through. It then rotates back to its normal position to accept road traffic.  Smaller boats, of course, can pass right under anytime if the tide is not too high.

Traffic in the area, boat and automotive, picks up significantly starting on Memorial Day weekend and continues throughout the summer. Let’s hope the work is completed soon.

-JK

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Vol. III, No. 8

A sailor flying a hull on a Hobie Getaway. Photo by John Kantor.

Boating snob’s fact of the week: You can only fly a pontoon on a sea plane.  On a catamaran, it’s called a hull.

By the way, Longshore Sailing School opens for rentals in just two weeks!

-DC

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Vol. III, No. 7

A strong current rushes past a buoy near Woods Hole, MA. Photo by Allen Clark / PhotoBoat.com.

The rule of twelfths is one of the most useful laws in boating, yet too many recreational skippers don’t know this trick, which is helpful for powerboaters and kayakers alike. It’s a formula for estimating the tide height at any given point in the tide cycle.

Let’s say the tidal range is 6′, which is a bit on the moderate side for Westport waters, but it’s good for math. And let’s round off the tide cycle to an even 6 hours.  So if low tide is at 3pm, high tide will be at 9pm.  Now let’s pretend it’s 6pm and you plan to paddle up Gray’s Creek, which as locals know is dry at low tide.  The tide is going out, so the adverse current makes the trip take longer, and at 7pm, you’re all the way at the “top.” No problem, right? The tide will be with you on the way out.  And you’ve still got 2/6 or 1/3 of the water left?  Actually, no, and that’s where the rule of twelfths comes in.   Here it is:

1-2-3, 3-2-1  or  1/12, 2/12, 3/12, 3/12, 2/12, 1/12

During the first hour of tide change, 1/12 of the water goes out (or comes in if the tide is rising). During hour two, 2/12 (1/6), and in the third hour, 3/12 or 1/4 of the water goes out.  So basically, during the middle of a tide cycle, the water is flowing the fastest.  This is important for understanding and anticipating the magnitude of currents.  And it also means that if you find yourself all the way up Gray’s creek two hours before low tide, you may very well end up high and dry before you get to the mouth.  At 7 pm, only 1/4 of the tide change remains.

For power boaters, understanding the rule of twelfths means knowing that 1 hour after low tide, it’s still basically low tide, as only 1/12 of the tide rise has occurred.  It’s probably best to avoid that sand bar, or avoid going over Cockenoe Reef.

-DC

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Vol. III, No. 6

This green can must have been hit by something heavy! Photo by Allen Clark.

It would have taken quite a hull to displace the top half of this green can.  Chances are, the offender was a container ship, and no, this buoy doesn’t lie in Western Long Island Sound.  It lines the entrance channel to Charleston Harbor, a heavy commercial port.

-DC

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Vol. III, No. 5

Man’s best friend enjoys bow riding on the Saugatuck River. Photo by Allen Clark.

Happy 1st of May! The dog days of summer will be here before we know it…

-DC

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Vol. III, No. 4

Hurricane Sandy brought this boat to shore. Now the ruins remain on the coast along with an exceptionally large amount of other trash. Photos by John Kantor.

It is a WaterViews tradition on Earth Day to investigate a particular quarter mile stretch of beach surrounding Hendricks’s Point in Westport. The mission? To see how much flotsam and jetsam has washed up on the shore.

This year is extraordinary. Hurricane Sandy in October of 2012 brought some of the highest floodwaters we have seen in a very long time. Big coastal flooding dislodges unusual amounts of unusual debris and often transports it far from its point of origin. Because it washes up well above the normal high water mark, it doesn’t just float back out with the next high tide. Most of it is still there. The peak winds during the worst of Sandy were from the southeast. As you might suspect, the windward side of the point, facing the southeast, was densely filled with debris.  The leeward side, where the wind blew away from the shore, was swept clean. The most obvious litter item this year was an entire boat. It washed ashore and broke up on the rocks during the hurricane. The remains remain.

Debris along the shoreline in Westport.

Here is this year’s list:

Innumerable fragments of Styrofoam of every color and description.

A variety of shoes.

A plastic trash barrel. The lid was nearby.

Many golf balls. Most in perfect condition.

A Macy’s credit card owned by a woman from Darien.

A variety of planters and flower pots.

All manner of lumber and dock parts.

A green tarpaulin.

A file storage box dated 2005.

Every imaginable type and size of beverage container.

A ice bucket.

Countless plastic bags and plastic sheeting.

Dinghy rack with compartments marked 25A through 30A.

An entire finger pier.

An entire piling.

An assortment of balls (tennis, handballs, etc.)

A surprising number of window curtains.

A cluster of spent shot gun shells marked “Steel – waterfowl load.”

Evidence of trash deposited over the years.

Socks and hosiery.

A bar towel.

A knit sweater.

A wooden hand-painted directional sign reading “Kates Ave.”

A wooden finial.

A blue holiday light bulb.

Myriad scraps and pieces of unidentified plastic.

-JK