Overboard Boater

Photo courtesy of www.chaparralboats.com

One of the worst feelings in boating is the one you get when you realize, after running around all day, that you don’t have enough fuel to get home. It happens.

The general rule of thumb when you leave the slip or launch at the ramp is to abide by the rule of thirds: use one third of your tank to get out, one third to get home, and keep one third in reserve. Why that extra third? Changing sea conditions could mean you’ll need to burn more fuel to cover the same distance going one way versus the other.

Watching the fuel gauge is important, but how many fuel gauges out there are accurate enough to fully trust?

A far more reliable gauge would be an in-dash digital fuel flow monitor. Many new boats today come standard with electronic fuel management systems such as Mercury’s SmartCraft gauges. If not, it’s worth the upgrade. Some brands have both miles per gallon (mpg) and gallons per hour (gph) settings; others have just one or the other.

Toggle through the modes on the gauge. Using SmartCraft as an example, you can get an instant digital readout of a lot of vital material–fuel to waypoint, fuel level, low fuel level warning, fuel used, fuel flow, and fuel range. You can also look at instant and average mpg.

SmartCraft can display instant and average mpg.

If you are so inclined, you can calculate your boat’s estimated range on your own with the same formulas that magazines use for performance data charts. For gasoline inboards and outboards, record the speed and gph burn at 1000 rpm, then proceed through the rpm band at 500 increments until you reach wide-open throttle.

Builders and magazines typically estimate range based on 90 percent of the fuel capacity, with the following quick formulas:

Miles Per Gallon = MPH/GPH.

Range = .9(Fuel Capacity) x MPG

So if you record 3 mpg at 3500 rpm, and you have a 100 gallon tank, your range–if you cruised the whole time at that speed–would be around 270 miles.

There are a lot of other variables involved–tide, current, wind, sea state, added weight from fuel, gear, and people–but if you tried to keep the throttle close to 3500 rpm and follow the rule of thirds, you know you could head out around 90 miles before turning back.

Or, if you have them, you could let  the algorithms in your fuel management gauges do the work. Or you could hope there’s an easily reached fuel dock between you and home. Or you could bring aboard a sturdy tow rope and a membership card to Sea Tow.

My dad’s center console is as easy to maintain as any boat in existence. It still has an old carburated 125-hp two stroke outboard, and virtually no gadgets on board to break or go on the fritz. Every spring we pull it from the boat shed, re-attach the battery cables, fire up the engine, and go.

So it was a cause of concern when, after a morning of fishing on the first trip of the season, the engine wouldn’t turn over. Like a driver in an empty parking lot hoping it would miraculously catch, we kept goosing the throttle and turning the key. Then someone said to me, in a smart-ass way, “You’re the boating writer, you figure it out.”

I instructed we take off the cowling. I had my dad turn the key once more. “I see the problem,” I declared. “It’s the Bendix drive.” The drive wasn’t fully engaging, and I’d seen it before in the field, so I of course KNEW it had to be that. A major repair; we’d have to wait for a replacement part. Our fishing weekend was over.

We guided the boat on the trailer and towed it to the nearest marine mechanic, about 30 miles away. I brought up the Bendix drive, knowingly. He took one look at it, then looked at me slightly askew.

He opened a hatch in the back of the boat and looked at the batteries. “You didn’t tighten the wing nuts enough,” he said. “The battery’s arcing.” In our hurry to get on the water, we affixed the cables to the posts and tightened the nuts by hand. He reached into his pocket for some pliers, gave each nut a twist and had my Dad turn the key. It started right up.

He looked at me with a there you go Mr. Boating writer smile and said with a wink, “No charge.”

The point here is, when something goes wrong on your boat, always start with the obvious. It could save you hours of aggravation and, m0re importantly, embarrassment.

Boating is a healthy pastime, right? You’re outdoors, breathing in fresh air, and–if you’re on my boat–eating your weight in processed junk food. I’m usually on a boat for one of two reasons, fishing or otherwise getting recreational. Fiddling around with cooking or food prep is a colossal waste of time. Rip open a bag, pop a top, chomp it down, and be done with it.

Here are the best scientifically proven food products to bring aboard.

PRINGLES: Is there a better boat food? The chips are protected in an ingenious tube so they don’t get smashed beyond edibility when crammed under the console. It keeps the chips from getting soggy and disgusting. If the inventor of the Pringle’s tube found it suitable to be buried in, it’s good enough for my boat.

GOGURTS: No need for bowls, spoons, or napkins to ingest breakfast. Fellow Boatermouth writer Lenny Rudow used to raid his kids’ lunch-food and bring stacks of them on offshore tuna trips to the canyons. [Lenny also invented the famed "boat sandwich," wherein you roll a cold cut in a piece of cheese.] Your hunger is satiated, rather healthily, in seconds.

HARD PRETZELS: The choice of Kevin Falvey, another boating writer, for mako shark trips. Or any trip. You can just throw a box in a locker at the beginning of the season and if they go stale, how can you tell?

BEEF JERKY: Would be the A-One top choice but for the inconsistency between brands and batches. Some come out just right, others worse than shoe leather. But if you get a quality bag of jerky, it hits the spot and fills the protein void left by the other snacks. It takes a long time to chew and can distract from the tedium of trolling.

DRIED MANGO SLICES: They have the veneer of being healthy; they’re derived from one of the three most awesome fresh fruits in existence. But when you read the bag on a lot of packaged mango slices, you’ll see they’re processed with incredible amounts of sugar. And, possibly, sulphur dioxide. Eat a bag and you’ll have boundless energy, I guess because it combines the magic of fruit with the sugar of Mountain Dew and the calories of a Big Mac.

People boated on Crete 130,000 years ago.

Scientists found stone tools on Crete dating back 130,000 years. As this article from the New York Times points out, Crete’s been an island for 5 million years. That means they were dropped from the excrement of very large prehistoric dino-birds that ate some pre-humans, or, more logically, some pre-humans got there by boat.

Potter designed SeaCraft, maybe?

BoatU.S. released its list of Top Ten Boat Names for 2009. Not surprisingly, Bailout ranked high. Get it? The clever word play on the economic meltdown and actually bailing out a boat?

I much prefer the Seinfeldian Serenity Now. Though if you’re going to go that route, might be best to name your boat Festivus.

Here’s something you can bring onboard to break out when you’re anchored or beached and want to cut the boredom. The Waboba ball bounces on the water. This Swedish guy created it and made a beach game around it. My source in Florida tells me that Ron Jon’s Surf Shop moves about 4,800 of them a month. I got a tester coming my way so I’ll see if those cats are on to something.

The Boating Magazine offshoot Fishboat Mag is no more, but this video remnant remains from our web efforts. So, too, do the frustrations of trying to hold steady a handheld on a boat. Here are a few things we learned while shooting stuff ourselves for the web.

1. Never zoom. Using the zoom function on a moving platform only amplifies the shakiness. On playback, you’ll get nausea faster than if you’re adrift in a beam sea while eating pork rinds.

2. Keep it low. Shooting from the bridge or up high is better for getting an overall view of the boat or to look down on another boat you’re shooting. But odds are you don’t have a gyro stabilizer for your handheld, which is what professionals use to keep cameras steady for those beautiful overheads. The lower you’re positioned on the boat, the more stable and steady the lens. Also, consider the back of the boat is the most stable area, least susceptible to pounding.

3. Get a Gorillapod. Use this twisty gripper to mount your vid cam anywhere on the boat. Just keep in mind point two above.

4. Get a waterproof vid camera. It’s going to get wet, trust me. I use the Sanyo Xacti, but there are other quality brands. Or get a waterproof casing like this one for the Flip.

My colleague Lenny Rudow posted about a boating app for iPhones today.

As an angler, he should appreciate this one called Fishbate, described in detail by Gizmodo. After reading the review, you might not want to let your kids download it.

Check out this edition of Power Boating from 1908.

Love this passage:

Ready for take-off.

Those are my feet strapped in and ready for action. Minutes after I took this picture, I landed  wrong and executed a trap door–otherwise known as a face plant. I got a nice concussion and a punctured ear drum out of the deal.

Fellow Boatermouth writer Jeff Hemmel taught me to wakeboard years ago and I thank him for the fun, and also for the injuries. Jeff? He blew out his knee on the water.

Yeah, wakeboarding hurts. I should have known the risks from the time I visited a wakeboard tow park in Orlando and half the cats waiting in line had on knee braces. A few guys had on helmets.

The American Journal of Sports Medicine published a paper on wakeboarding injuries. 77 percent of wakeboarders polled for the article said they’d been injured.

Based on the poll of the boarders and participating doctors, here are the most common wakeboarding injuries.

Torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL)

Shoulder dislocation

Ankle Sprain

Fractures

So yeah, wakeboarding hurts. But I’ll keep doing it because the fun outweighs the risk. No pain no gain, right?