Overboard Boater

Decoy the Dog rocks out on the bow.

Cat lovers are prone to ask, Why not show pictures of cats on boats? Because cats hate getting wet more than life itself. A dog on the other hand, a good dog, is born to be on the water.

Boat owners with good water dogs like to show this off. In my 11 years at Boating Magazine, we received thousands of pictures of dogs on boats, contrasted with a few dozen angry  or “gotcha” letters pointing out mistakes, a couple of “cancel my subscription” letters over racy bikini photos, and the occasional freakish stalker note. (Editor’s note: Those who stalk the boating media are far more unhinged than the average celebrity stalker. It takes real dedication to stalk the non-famous.) Had we changed the title to Dogs On Boats Magazine we would have probably doubled our subscription base.

A bad dog on the water can be a complete pain in the ass. Always trying to jump off a moving vessel. Succeeding in jumping off a moving vessel. Trying to grab live fish. On shore, rolling in dead fish. Getting seasick. Dog sick is bad news in a cuddy cabin.

But a good dog on the water is a better boat companion than just about anybody. They don’t scuff the nonskid with black soled shoes. They don’t try to jump out and handle the lines while docking without asking. They don’t bitch at you to slow down or complain about the cold. They just take it all in, ears flopping, tails wagging, and digging the whole experience. That’s the best kind of passenger of all.

The Frozen Bait Vending Machine

I saw one of these frozen bait vending machines near a local tackle shop and posted a photo here the other day. I wondered, who came up with this idea? And how does it work? So, in the spirit of bringing you news and information you can’t find elsewhere, here is the story behind the frozen bait vending machine.

“It was a culmination of many people, some of whom had family members who were fishermen,” said Tom Gautsch, eastern regional sales manager of Fastcorp, the frozen vending machine company that makes it.  ”They thought our ice cream machine would be perfect for selling frozen bait.”

The vending machine is a chest freezer with a robotic arm that vacuums the selected product from inside to deliver through the opening port. Baits are stocked by different venders that vacuum seal the baits before freezing them.  The machine I saw sold peanut bunker, spearing, as well as pre-fabricating rigs for bluefish, striped bass, and blackfish.

Would you buy from a frozen bait machine? If you fish with bait, and the tackle shop’s doors are locked, and the fish are biting…

What about quality? Well, the shelf life in the machines for ice cream is 18 months. Said Gautsch, “As long as somebody doesn’t unplug the machine, the bait should last a while.”

The last resort of a desperate man.

The 2010 Antique Race Boat Regatta, hosted by the Antique Boat Museum in Clayton, New York, is set to run August 13-15 in the Thousand Islands Region of the St. Lawrence River.

The Antique Boat Museum is one of the coolest places in the world for a boat lover to visit, hosting on display several jaw-dropping classic boats, including this Gold Cup Exhibit of historic wooden raceboats.

At the regatta in August, see them all on the water, performing in their intended environment.

Click here for more information on the 2010 Race Boat Regatta.

File this news story under either “WTF” or “Despicable.” A restaurant in Santa Monica called THE HUMP got busted for serving whale sushi.

Hey guys, somebody there must have known whales are endangered. Really cool. Can I get my condor egg-white frittata to go, please?

The owners apologize on the Hump website. Um, okay, but why do you need to put in place “procedures’ to ensure you comply with the law? You couldn’t figure that one out beforehand?

Got a spare $28.5 Million?

I was browsing through Boats.com, which syndicates this blog, for research on the present-day value of used boats.  I clicked on the “Pre-Owned Boats” and stumbled on this little gem:

564′ 2009 Custom Bulk Carrier 35000DWT CL. BV (SWJ) - US$28,500,000.00

I was looking at maybe a 22′ Grady-White center console, but I may have to take out some sort of bank loan.

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?