Captain!

[CPYOA]

Captain! by Jeffrey R. Schmoyer

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Chapter 1: Launch!


Looking back I was lucky. Of course, most people probably have a story like this about the first time they captained a boat of their own. Very lucky indeed.

The boat was a Com-Pac 23 which I had named Orion. She was a small, traditional looking fiberglass sloop with a reputation for toughness beyond her size. I purchased her two months before after a long and eager search. My very first boat. She was 15 years old- sail number 113, the 13th ever built, I think. She was neglected when I found her, and wearing her original sails, rigging, a cranky looking Johnson outboard engine, and scruffy gelcoat. But the past few weekends of painting and cleaning revealed only cosmetic problems. The hull was sound and blister free.

The Travelift diesel roared, it's movements much faster than I expected. A group of my friends and family all watched the boat get trundled toward the water, oblivious to my worries. I remember being surprised at how she teetered back and forth like a toy in the slings despite her 3000 pounds of displacement.

I scurried out over the fingerpier of the launching pit as she settled into the water. "What if the engine won't start?", I yelled to Martin, a friend who had clamber out the other finger pier.

But the noise made it impossible to discuss the contingency of wallowing in the water without power. Oblivious, the lift guy settled her into the water.

She was alive! Awake and floating for the first time since I had known her. Among other novice moves, I bought her without a sea trial.

With a lump in my throat, I leaped down into the cockpit. I had not known what to expect. Would she leak? I didn't even know how it would feel to stand on her, although my first thought was that she was more stable than I expected. Martin jumped aboard after me and helped the lift man slacked the straps while I busied myself with the engine.

I memorized the engine starting drill a week before. Bracket down, gas bulb squeezed, choke out, and a mighty pull on the outboard starter cord. Nothing. The thing had started a weeks ago in the test tank with a huge belching of smoke that the salesman assured me was due to 'winterization'.

A second pull.and it sputtered to life in a cloud of oily smoke. I looked around. Orion was adrift in the narrow channel of the marina. Fortunately it was early in the season, and most of the slips were vacant. The yard guy gestured that I could land temporarily at any of the berths. "Slowly".Martin counseled sagely as I put the engine in gear. It took me a second to think about the way tillers work in reverse.

"Need to get the feel of her" I thought, "wow, were moving!"

Somehow, with Martin's help aboard and a full chase crew on shore, I managed to get the boat into a slip (albeit a double wide berth meant for a catamaran with no other boats adjacent). Ah, the sweet feel of successful boating. The sweat slowly stopped trickling down my back. My boat was docked.

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There was a flurry of loading, and kisses goodbye to wives. The wiser sex had elected not to join us. This had relieved me a little, as I didn't know how things were going to go. They were to drive the chase car home instead, leaving the three of us men to the delights and pitfalls of the maiden voyage of Orion. My crew- Marc and Martin- and more food that we usually eat in a week were piled on board and ready.

I was really glad Martin was along. He was 10 years my senior, and infinitely wise in the ways of boats. He had been a commercial fisherman for a many years in the North Atlantic off the coast of Ireland, before 'retiring' to crew on Windjammer cruise boats in the Caribbean. He had an Irish brogue that seemed to magnify his nautical authority. Now, being in a more 'settled down' phase here in the New York metro, he relished any chance to go sailing.

Marc, in contrast, was a sailing neophyte. No blarney either. Instead Marc had a good wit, urban sophistication, and an immense appetite for both food and learning about boats. An architect by training, Marc had an intuitive grasp of the vectorization of forces that drive a sailboat and even more importantly, a lot of enthusiasm.

We waved goodbye to the onshore party as the Orion's 15 year old Johnson 7.5 horse outboard puttered us happily out of the marina. At the entrance of the marina, we turned to port into a broad channel that led out into open water of a broad channel full of boats leading to Barnegat Bay.


Chapter 2: Aground!


"Scrunch!" The boat came to a stop with a sudden sickly scraping sensation underfoot.

Aground not 100 yards from the marina. My pre-trip inspection of the chart revealed mud flats to starboard of the unbuoyed channel just outside the marina. But I really didn't know how to relate the channel width on a chart to a corresponding width of real live water. "What does 1/8 mile of open water look like?" I recalled wondering the winter before. Now I knew!

The marina owners where I had bought the boat had not been pleased that I was not going to rent a slip from them for the summer. I suppose that they were showing their displeasure by failing to impart to me this bit of local knowledge, and also by looking the other way now that I ran aground.

In reality, this trip- a two day voyage over 75 miles of intracoastal and blue water- was of false urgency. The marina made it seem like I had to get my boat out of there THAT WEEKEND. At least the weather forecast was good. In retrospect, I should have demanded (and they should have offered) a grace period at their docks to learn the boat.

Now I understand how boats and land based concerns/schedules cause captains to take foolish risks. Suffice it to say that, although this makes for a good story, I learned from Martin's favorite saying: "you can't be to careful in boats". Safety before everything. Of course, I won't be returning to this particular establishment again either.

Would I now have to call on my brand new VHF for a tow? Dollar signs were already swimming across my eyes when I noticed Martin calmly heaving the anchor off the port side.

"Give her some reverse throttle."

Slowly, we kedged her back into the channel, with the Johnson growled louder than I had intended ."You're not really a sailor 'til you've run aground" assured Martin without missing a heave on the rode.

Marc watched this whole process with a big grin and commented "Schmoyer's first sailing disaster and I was there!". He then started doing what so many subsequent passengers and crew have done- hum the Gilligan's Island theme song. This must be a universal cultural phenomenon- and nothing I've found makes a skipper grimace more. Thankfully, Marc has since come to understand how un-cool it is to sing this song aboard a real boat.


Chapter 3: First Day


We motored the rest of the way out into Barnegat Bay without incident. Beams of sunlight split through the cloud cover, heralding what was to be a beautiful spring day. Weekends with warm sunny weather with perfect breezes are actually quite rare, especially in early May. But this time, only vaguely of my luck, I gazed out upon the seemingly vast expanse of water before us.

Almost any body of water appears vast from the deck of a small sailboat. Barnegat Bay is an embayed section of the Intracostal Waterway 2-3 miles wide and 25 miles long, tucked behind NJ's northernmost barrier beach islands. It's 10 feet at its deepest, and the eastern side is full of shoals. Still, to me that day it seemed huge. Or at least to the horizon 4 or so miles away I told myself. I had read a lot of boat books to prepare for this day, and I did know the distance to my horizon!

We planned to overnight at the northern terminus of the bay 20 miles north of here to await a fair tide through the Point Pleasant Canal and out the Manesquan inlet.

Then tomorrow the ocean! The Atlantic Ocean, with nary a shelter for 20 miles of open ocean until we rounded Sandy Hook, cross the bay and nestled her up to her new mooring on the Navesink river. My prayers for weeks had been for the fair West and South breezes of spring and summer. But for the weeks before while I prepared the boat, the North winds of winter had prevailed.

Today was fair and the wind was West- perfect. It soon picked up to a glorious 10-15 knots. Up went the sails for the first time (with the boat in water). She heeled over a little and squirted forward on a reach with singing rigging and crashing spray. Better than my wildest dreams, she sliced through the short chop of the bay like a puppy freed of a leash.

It was a sleigh ride! We literally cheered when spray flew up over the rail.

We all took turns steering and keeping binoculars trained for the next sea buoy marking deeper water. The odd man out relaxed, fooled with the jib sheets, or made pots of tea on our small propane stove.

A few hours later we arrived at the Seaside Heights bridge. The wind had eased some and we dropped sail. Martin called the bridge and reported we had 31 feet of mast. This was a slight exaggeration- we had 30- but he regaled us with tales about the Miami canal where you always had to exaggerate to get the bridges to open or risk a bent mast. We motored under in a minor parade of sailboats, each bearing a grinning crew who knew that this year their first trip out was truly a gift of Gods of Spring.

As the afternoon wore down, we motored toward the town called- appropriately enough- Bay Head. The number of powerboats in this northernmost section of the bay was astounding. We were buzzed by dueling cigarette boats. Until this I didn't fully appreciate what 70 knots of speed could mean on the water. These guys were weekend warriors with real death potential- mostly their own since the bay was full of shoals. Martin simply growled "now there's a reason for keeping a gun aboard".

Without too much fanfare, we located a marina and negotiated an overnight slip over the VHF. Shucks- these guys were calling me 'Captain' over the air! Notwithstanding, my docking technique still needed improvement. I came in a little too fast and nosed the bow into the dock with a loud "thonk" that attracted the attention of the marina layabouts, and another advisement from Martin that "you can't be in a hurry on a boat". I see now that Martin meant this to apply both specifically, and to the general situation of me buying and captaining a boat on this kind of voyage with so little experience. I didn't quite get it then- just thanked him and vowed to do it better tomorrow.

The marina- Dale Yacht Basin- was pretty upscale. My little Com-Pac 23 was the smallest boat there, but I was too new to the scene to care about Yacht vs. Boat distinctions. All that mattered was that the clubhouse and shower facilities were first rate. After cleaning the bay salt off, we fired up a propane gas stove and heated a huge pan of soup. Incredible appetites! We inhaled every bit as we watched the sun go down across the bay from the cockpit.

After dark, the temperature dropped rapidly. We took to our bunks in sleeping bags and left the cabin hatch cracked a little. We were surprisingly comfortable in the boat's small cabin. Marc and Martin made like we were going to read books, but soon snored deeply.

By the light in the forepeak, I re-studied a copy Eldridge's Tides and Currents. The book issued a warning that was repeated on the chart itself: the Point Pleasant Canal's waters were EXTREMELY TURBULENT at maximum flow. We had to be underway tomorrow by 7:00 AM, as this was the hour of slack water in the canal.

Eventually, the gentle rocking of the boat brought me a restless sleep.


Chapter 4 - Turbulence


Just before dawn I awoke, climbed out into the cockpit and stood for a moment in silence. There was one of those moments of pure beauty as the sun's first rosy fingers caught the clouds and water of the bay. The only sound was the lapping water on the dock and a gull's cry from afar. I knew then that boating- crazy though the high costs and troubles seemed- was really worth it.

I urged Marc and Martin awake. They were groggy and I wanted them to move quickly through the morning routine. Nervous, I abstained from breakfast and instead busied myself with a full boat inspection. The bilge was dry, the sails were still intact, and no real blemish on the bow from yesterday's collision with the dock.

At 6:30AM, the Johnson was fired up, our lines cast, and soon our little wake was rocking the other boats still sleeping at the marina. I was really starting to like the feeling of leaving the dock (entering was another story). The marine forecast for the day was again perfect: clear, sunny, 70F, winds west, 15-20 knots.

The canal entrance was close and we soon were within sight. Other craft joined us- mostly small center console powerboats.. The channel suggested single file, but the powerboats passed us on both sides anyway, eager to get out to the ocean for a morning of fishing.

Now we were committed! The Point Pleasant canal is a fairly narrow body of water maybe 150 feet across and lined with stone walls 10 feet high. Slack water here is apparently something of a myth, as we immediately detected the remains of a definite ebb. The current was boosting our speed over ground considerably- well kept homes and streets on the banks sped by.

We called the first bridge as soon as we sighted it. Martin told the bridgekeeper that we had 33 feet above the water. We needed, and the bridge had, 30 feet of clearance. I noticed Martin had my mast growing with each bridge! But she cheerily said "happy to open for you boys, just hold on a minute for the boat behind you". Behind us?

We heard it before we saw it. The low wubb-wubb-wubb of a really powerful boat engine at its lowest idle. A cruiser came into view looking like a full office building on the water. I made the unsettling discovery that it took over half throttle reverse just to cancel the effect of the current dragging us down onto the bridge. Control was, of course, difficult, and I've since learned not to do this except for in docking as 'brakes'. I finally intuited that it would be better to spin around 180, and come in behind the behemoth power boat. A smart decision. The bridge opened soon, and the wave from both powerboat skipper and the bridge tender suggested that we appeared more seamanly that we really were. Of course, I started thinking about how bad it would have been if that engine failed.

The next stretch really was turbulent. Visible whirlpools shifted the boat through dramatic 45 degree course swings. This was made worse by the fact that I didn't want to keep to much throttle on since another bridge was approaching and I had not that much distance behind the powerboat. Even Martin was impressed- he hadn't seen anything quite like this before.

The next bridge opened well in advance, having heard our request for the first. But nothings comes easy. Just as it was my turn to shoot through, a little outboard attempted the opposite heading, and their upstream wake created a 4 foot standing wave under the bridge. Marc stood by with a boat hook. I gunned the engine, and we barely avoided a scrape with the pilings. Martin yelled a salty curse at them for their lack of patience (and disregard of the rules of the road) and again made reference to the usefulness of weaponry aboard a boat.

But the canal soon ended in the peaceful Manasquan river- its banks lined with large party boats which made year-round trips out the inlet to fish the bountiful Atlantic. We turned our bow due east and followed the last few buoys of the Intercoastal Waterway. The smell of commercial fish docks and marsh filled the air.

Two bridges lay between us and the open sea. A railway bridge was already tilted up and told us by VHF that the next train wasn't due for another hour. But the busy Route 35 bridge was down. Chart said it yielded 30 feet at high tide. Martin told the tender 34 feet of mast, and he called back "stay to the center captain, and you'll have 35 feet for sure!" With the current still at our backs we had little time to argue. I bullseyed the center, but we all swore up and down that the clearance between our masthead and the beams of the bridge amounted to inches! 35 feet indeed!

The stone jetties of Manasquan inlet came into view. With an outbound current and inbound wind or wave, any Atlantic coast inlet can be hairy. This morning the wind was dead calm, but waves still rolled in against the remnants of the ebb current. Plus, right at the mouth of the inlet a fleet of party boats jockeyed for position, their wakes amplifying the waves, while outboard skiffs throttled up to skim across the tops of these big confused swell. It was a mob scene! We threaded through the boats, tilting to the rail at times on the swell. I was glad for the shallow draft of my Com-Pac, as deeper keels can hit bottom in these conditions.

But this didn't last long. Soon it was just a matter of keeping an eye on the traffic and not making any sudden course changes. We headed due east- straight out to sea!


Chapter 5 - Blue Water!


"Well there she is!" exclaimed Martin. Marc and I looked with real awe at the ocean. True, the bay had seemed 'big' from the deck of our little boat, but this was different. You just sensed the enormity..

Tangibly, the waves had a completely different feel. They moved with a definite direction and a slower period, westward toward land. Spawned, no doubt, from some distant storm. But on this calm day the swells were only about two feet, coming about every 10 seconds or so. The sun beat down and warmed us. A beautiful day on the open ocean seemed ours for the taking.

Beautiful it was indeed, but I quickly learned about an unpleasant condition aboard a sailboat: waves but no wind at all. Hadn't thought of that before. With the engine off, the sails hung limp, and the boom slammed from one side to the other. Made us feel a little.well..queasy.

After some experimentation, we hit on a sheeted in mainsail and turning the engine back on with enough throttle to provide way. The sail eased the roll, and pressed on slowly up the coast.

I would have allowed more throttle- Marc urged full power!- but I worried about the engine, and the 6 gallon tank of gas, as at the time I had know idea of the mileage of an outboard. We listened to the marine weather again: clear, sunny, 70F, winds west, 15-20 knots. We begged to differ, although now I know that the coastal winds are usually calm in the morning, and often exceed the prediction in the afternoon.

With the exception of the 'local knowledge' only Shark River inlet, there is no place to go for 25 miles along the coast of Northern New Jersey. Navigation is easy enough, as there are no shoals and conspicuous buildings and water towers to tick off on the chart. We made slow but steady progress. I was planning on rounding Sandy Hook at 1:00 PM. Again this was the time of slack water, the time that all the guides advised we should transit the channel, due to something called The Sandy Hook Rip, which sounded nasty.

But this would be a slack preceding an ebbing tide. I didn't yet realize the consequences of this, but I was to learn.

The morning wore on as we made slow northward progress. We ate a large lunch, our appetites even larger than yesterday. About 12:00 noon we sighted the Atlantic Highlands and the World Trade Center. At this same time a few cats paws of a southwesterly breeze played with the sails. Marc and I eased out the mainsheet, hoisted the jib, and felt the boat pick up speed. Gleefully we killed the droning engine. Martin came up from a nap and began to scan the horizon for the sea buoys of New York Harbor.

The Highlands are a set of cliffs visible far off to sea on the southern side of this large harbor. An old lighthouse sits nearly on top, making for an easy landmark. But below and stretching 5 miles to the north is Sandy Hook itself. So when approaching from the south a mariner can see the Highlands a ways off, but he still has to make considerable Northing before turning into the great bay. But still it is at this point we turned from a Northeast course, to a Northwest to bring us closer inland and obliquely into the Sandy Hook entrance channel.

Fortunately, the wind freshened a bit, and we enjoyed a glorious hour of sail as the boat reached northwest with a following sea on the starboard quarter. The motion this gave to the boat was so pleasing that we all fought to take turns at the tiller. The sun shined, we smiled, and last few miles up the coast disappeared.


Chapter 6: Time and Tide


Even landlubbers use the phrase 'a sea change', but have really experienced how rapidly and dramatically the personality of a large body of water can morph. I felt my first sea change that afternoon, at about 1:30 PM. I was up on the bow, confirming that indeed the first of the Sandy Hook channel buoys guiding us into the harbor was upon us and that we could begin our due westward march without fear of hitting the shoals.

The light south breeze that had glided us up the coast suddenly died. The calm lasted about 30 seconds, then a puff of air hit me square on the face. I remember noticing that it smelled of oil, pollution and earth, before it began to roar in my ears and in the rigging. HERE was the 15-20 knots west wind the weatherman had predicted. Right on our nose!

"Thar she blows!" yelled Marc as he white knuckled the tiller. Orion heeled over some, but she's a well found boat, and can handle this level wind fine even without reefing. Now we were tacking Northwest across a suddenly spray filled channel leading into the New York Harbor.

The vast New York waterways lay brimming with a high tide that had been filling for the 6 hours we were working our way up the coast to her mouth. The slack before ebb was at 1:00PM, so few gallons here and there had perhaps began to trickle out. Now, under the force of the sudden west wind, it quickly began to rush seaward from every corner of the bay. There was, of course, only one for it to get out: to sluice directly under the small sailing vessel Orion.

Later, when we recounted the tail, one of our wives mentioned that she had noticed the sudden wind increase well inland while working in her garden. I've since learned that the sudden 'burst' of west wind in the mid to late afternoon is a common summer weather pattern in our area. And I've also since learned that the local currents, and particularly their direction, force, and time of slack, are highly dependent on the wind. But I didn't know that then.

At first, I thought this must be 'leeway' I had read about that can plague sailboats with shoal draft keels when they go to windward with too much canvas up. An hour later, after about four vigorous tacks, Martin had called from the bow called "we're not making way". There are a great clustering of aids to navigation at the entrance to New York Harbor with several major shipping channels leading in, a series of turning basins and ranges. Indeed, Martin pointed out ranges with buoys that said we were where we were an hour ago.

Then, as we edged up to a buoy, we saw that it was being dragged nearly horizontal by a tremendous surging foul current.

We pressed on. For the next hour and a half we made less than 200 yards of westward gain as the water rushed on out to sea. Every time the boat slipped out of the 'grove' or headed off the wind, the boat actually moved backwards. Indeed, we were stuck at the entrance, where the current rushed the fastest.

There were a few other sailboats caught in the same trap. A 50 footer, with its higher hull speed, made it slowly through and around Sandy Hook. We watched enviously as it slipped around the low sandy spit of land, the sailtops still visible for several miles. One by one the smaller boats dropped all sail and fired up their inboard engines. They too slowly pulled away from us, eventually into the harbor. We watched a local towing service boat circled us and the few remaining, circling like a vulture waiting for the inevitable mechanical failure (or impatient skipper).


Chapter 7: Long Road Home


It grew to be late afternoon. We still had to thread our way , across the 5 miles of Sandy Hook Bay, and then 5 miles up the winding Navesink river. And it was Sunday- we had to be at work the next morning. Still the wind and current raged on. Martin and Marc looked at me for a decision. If I fired up the engine now, would it move us forward? Would it last all the way up the river? Did we have enough gas?

I chose to risk the engine. I pulled once and nothing. The second pull brought the engine to life and also brought and end to the starter cord. Frayed off inside the engine, out of site.

I held up the cord and we all stared- there would be no stopping the engine now!

I gunned the engine. At half throttle, the boat moved neither forward or backward over ground. At full throttle she was making just a little way against the buoys!

Slowly we buffeted through the strange current shaped waves and howling wind. Finally, with engine still screaming and feeling very hot to the touch, we rounded the tip of the hook. Instantly, the water calmed. Our speed with respect to land marks visibly increased.

I turned down the throttle to half and looked around. We were slowly completing the 90 degree turn back to the South that would allow the use of sails. I ordered the mainsail up despite the motor, because I wanted to conserve gas.

I noticed that Martin had been very quiet through all of this. Later realized that he was letting me taste the responsibilities of command for the first time. Orion heeled over on the port tack and made good speed south toward the Navesink river entrance in the cradle of Sandy Hook Bay. The Sea Tow boat made one last circle, the crew waved to us with a grin and we waved back that we were OK.

At this point, the adrenaline rush died down. I, the 'captain', became withdrawn and worried even as my crew began to smile again. The sun was setting. The current was still ebbing out of the river and bay until 7:30PMm so we would still be out here a while. I thought about all that could go wrong: running out of gas, the engine failing, navigation at night.

The sunset was beautiful, and Marc and Martin reclined and ate the last of our food. I was not hungry, and I scanned the horizon and charts for the entrance buoy to the river. We found it, although difficult to see against the lights that were coming on in the town of Atlantic highlands. Powerboats roared by us, in from a day of fishing. But all the other sailboats had made it into port already.

By the time we came upon the river, it was dark. The marinas that sold gas were closed (it was still early in the season and a Sunday night). The river wound around the base of the Highlands, and we watched the castle-like lighthouse winked on and off. Million dollar mansions lined the banks of the river, and we could see families inside eating dinner. The last of the day's winds trickled cooly over our sunburned bodies.

Soon complete darkness. Martin stood at the bow with a lantern sighting the unlit buoys, Marc on the cabin trunk with the chart, and I at the tiller. The river has one very shoal portion near Barley point where the channel makes two S shaped curves. Very tricky. We could smell the low tide shoals on either side, and when Martin turned the flashlight on them, birds resting on the mud stared back at us.

Once through the turns, there was one last bridge ahead, and then the river broadens a bit near the terminus at Red Bank. It took a while to get the bridge keepers attention- he clearly had been sleeping.

As he finally got the bridge up he asked us where we were headed and wished us luck and,
"mind the shoal to starboard after the bridge, Captain".

It was eerily quiet after the day long rush of wind and wave. Not even any cars on the road as we sluiced through the bridge, and no other boats out. My watch read 9:00 PM.

Soon we saw the marina ahead- its sign illuminated by a single traffic light (like on farm).

A car waited on the banks, its headlights pointed directly out across the river. My wife. Worried and angry to be sure. We had told her 'late afternoon', and although I stressed that the timing with this sort of thing could be 'a little variable' she had been waiting there since 1 PM. Later she told me that she was very close to calling the coast guard when she saw our little boat's lights coming through the bridge. At the time, I didn't know that the VHF could be used to make a phone call.

I eased the boat along side a dock guided by flashlight and the words of my crew. Flawless this time. I shut off the engine and patted its hot cowling. Later I would find about a half of a gallon of gas left out of the 6 gallon tank.

Like professionals, we made her fast and closed her up. My wife Patty stared at the crazy sight of us- it must have made her choke back the choice, angry words she had been saving up. We were unshaven, sunburned, with wind blown salty hair, and scampering around the boat like we'd been born there. We were very very tired. As we got into the car, moving like zombies, my wife just shook her head.

As Patty started the car, story fragments tumbled out of our mouths. But, although the lights of land seemed to be swishing by far too fast, and when we closed our eyes our inner ears still rocked to the a dizzy sensations of the sea. Patty tells me we were all asleep within minutes.

Our first adventure was over. Looking back, I was tremendously lucky to have had great crew, a great mentor, and a great boat. But I also sense that the sea erected just the right sort of trials for me; because of this I was well on my way to learning important lessons of leadership, respect for unseen danger, working together, seamanship, and knowledge.

There would be more trials, some far worse, and rewards as well. But by the grace of the sea, I had survived to continue my apprenticeship. And now I didn't have to feel embarrassed when the bridgekeepers called me 'captain' the next time out.

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This article was last updated on August 01, 2003.