TOO MUCH POWER, NOT ENOUGH RUDDER

(From Magic Harbor by Don Berry)

 

 

 

 

You make your living from successes, but you get your education from failures. You don't learn much from a success because you seldom ask "Why?" You scrutinize failure more carefully.

The most fertile ground for learning, though, is a failure that you somehow manage to bring off in spite of everything. I think living on the water tends to spawn events like that. This story is about one of those times.

I've written fairly often here about the scow schooner OBLIO, current home of the poker game, and her skipper Dale, last of the Absolute Anarchists.

After two and a half years of building, the time had finally come when OBLIO had to touch shore. Most vessels are built on land and are eventually introduced to the water; Dale, naturally, did it backwards. OBLIO's keel was laid inside a floating ba rge he got from Russ Trask for work in Russ's shipyard, and the lumber, hardware and other stuff came from the same source.

By the time Dale and Russell came to the inevitable parting of the ways, Dale had only gotten as far as the bottom and a few hull planks. Suddenly one day, the barge disappeared. It was no longer floating at Russ's dock, and at first I couldn't figu re out where it had gone. Then I discovered it moored alongside the derelict freighter OCEAN CHAMPION, which had been forced out to anchor in the harbor because of unpaid debts of numerous kinds, mostly moorage fees. Dale had made a deal with Prince Oie to moor alongside, in exchange for which the Prince would get the barge itself when Dale was finished building OBLIO in it.

This arrangment only lasted for a couple of months, during which Dale sealed the broad, flat scow bottom, and got the hull planking a couple of planks above water line.

Then word got around that, after numerous warnings and paper servings and threats of various kinds, Kitsap County had gotten really serious about getting rid of OCEAN CHAMPION. As I heard it, they had given Prince Oie about two choices -- get out of the county or get out of the county. They were about to send a task force of Sheriff's deputies to serve the final papers and seize OCEAN CHAMPION as a public nuisance.

What they were going to do with this vessel, more than 150' long and in constant danger of foundering, no one knew, including, I imagine, the county. But they were going to do it, and Dale was caught in the middle. He had to get his barge and the ha lf-built OBLIO out of there in a hurry.

At the time this crisis came up, the State ferry system was doing some large scale construction on the ferry docks at the head of the harbor. Manson Construction had their big Number Two crane on the job. Dale made a deal to have Manson Number Two p luck OBLIO out of the barge and put the half finished hull in the water on its own.

With the skeletal OBLIO precariously afloat, but only a couple of planks above the waterline, Dale signed over the papers on the barge to OCEAN CHAMP's skipper and got the hell out of there just ahead of the Sheriff.

Somehow or other, Prince Oie got a tow and actually sneaked away with OCEAN CHAMPION the day after the county had officially seized her and tied her up at an empty dock. She wound up ninety miles north at Port Angeles. The county was probably gratefu l, but they still ended up with the barge and eventually made a breakwater of it.

OBLIO went back to the middle harbor, where Dale moored her in five different directions. This was serious overkill on anchoring, but everybody appreciated it. The thought of this massive scow loose in a winter storm was enough to make anybody's spi ne tingle.

Over the next year he worked with OBLIO afloat, planking up to deck level, building the cabin and laying the deck. But now he had to get at the bottom to fit a cutwater forward, and a skeg aft. He also needed a more stable platform for putting on th e small tree he was going to use as a bowsprit.

He decided to careen the scow on a gently sloping beach near the head of the harbor to do the work, and that was where I came in. We were going to use my boat, recently restored to power, to put him on the beach.

One of the things Dale and I share is a liking for a certain pace. We both like to have things go slow. In waterborne matters we like to think about a move, and then think about it again, until we know exactly what we intend to do if the wind comes up, or a flaky current grabs us, or we can't get around the corner, or whatever. People who rely on engines don't think this way. It is the mentality of wind sailors who are usually dealing with forces much stronger than they, and have a substantial his tory of getting into trouble. I have such a history, and so has Dale.

The night before the move I took my boat down to OBLIO and rafted up. We had a good supper and good wine, and took our time setting up spring lines for the tow. With my newly running engine there was at least no question that there was plenty of pow er available. Control was a different question.

My choice was to lash my boat far aft on OBLIO's starboard quarter, with my stern projecting out beyond the hull. The reason I chose this configuration was because it had worked for me the last time.

The last time I'd had a dubious tow had been in the Lesser Antilles, when I was trying to get a 55' ketch out of the doldrums off Dominica with a little dinghy. When I tried to tow from forward, the dinghy just swung around wildly and I had no contro l at all. But when I made the dinghy off to the quarter of the big boat, I could move it.

Well, this time it didn't work. It only took about fifty feet to realize that my little postage stamp rudder, made for turning a boat at high speed, was hopelessly inadequate to control the bulk of OBLIO at low speeds. No matter how far I cranked th e rudder to starboard, we swung off to port from the drag, and making a turn to starboard was out of the question. Even going straight was out of the question. The only thing I could do was turn left. To get OBLIO in to the beach I knew I had to make o ne full right angle turn and maneuver between a set of dolphins and a dock.

There was one thing I could do to change direction, but it had to be done in reverse. If OBLIO was not dragging through the water, I could pivot my stern around to port with the propeller in reverse and start off again in a different direction. It w as not a turn, exactly, but it got me headed off to starboard until OBLIO's drag took over again.

And that was what I did. We took off down the harbor in a series of left-turning semi-circles. After about a hundred feet, I'd go into reverse, kick my stern around, and take off again in another semi-circle.

It was plainly ridiculous; a clown parade. As the sun came up I prayed the other water rats would oversleep on this morning of all mornings, so there would be no witnesses to my incompetence in a simple tow.

However, as we traveled down the harbor, I got pretty good at this bizarre technique. It seemed vaguely Oriental to me, like a strategy from an ancient, devious military manual; a mysterious marine koan. Perhaps it would even seem inscrutable to an observer, rather than idiotic. Then again, probably not.

By the time we'd gotten opposite the beach I actually felt in control of the operation. It was a most peculiar crab-wise course, but I could, in fact, get where I wanted to go -- as long as I did it all in left turning semi-circles. Heading off to s tarboard was just a matter of waiting longer in reverse until my bow came all the way around.

Maneuvering in the narrow passage between the dolphins and the dock was almost an anti-climax. I didn't come anywhere close to hitting anything, or driving the great bulk of OBLIO into the dock. I just slipped her in and deposited her on the beach, turning left in semi-circles the whole way. Slick as a bean.

Now the morals I derive from this failure-that-worked-out, are simple, but useful:

(1) The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. But it isn't the only way to get there.

(2) What worked for you last time may not work this time.

(3) Power ain't everything.

I didn't say they were profound. I just said they were useful.

 

 

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Too Much Power, Not Enough Rudder
©1995 Don Berry