To read the full announcement, click here for the PDF: Marine Safety Alert

Here’s the map of the affected area:

The Coast Guard announced it will be cracking down on the practice of bow riding, meaning you can’t ride in the bow cockpit, as pictured above, while the boat is underway. According to the Coast Guard News website, this will take effect in the 5th District, which covers coastal New Jersey down to North Carolina.

From Noah to the sinking of the whaleship Essex to The Perfect Storm, maritime disaster stories have kept audiences riveted in accounts recorded on the written page. But in the Youtube and reality TV era, and particularly with the immense popularity of Deadliest Catch, the written word has some stiff competition. It is against these outlets that Kalee Thompson’s new book Deadliest Sea must hold up. And it does. In a fast-paced 289 pages, Deadliest Sea delivers the goods its readers will crave.

Thompson originally wrote about the Coast Guard rescue operation launched for the crew of the fishing boat  Alaska Ranger for an article in Popular Mechanics. From there she had the foundations for this book. Thanks to Thompson’s heavy-duty reporting, Deadliest Sea offers a depth of background and information that would be impossible to reproduce in a video or television format. The book brings together the backgrounds of both the Alaska Ranger crew and their rescuers, and how they all intersect in a singular dire situation.

With all the reportorial detail, the book also has the requisite riveting moments that captivate even despite knowing the eventual outcome. A favorite passage:

Ryan’s mind was racing. He was pretty sure he’d heard the ship’s officers talking to the Warrior. The other FCA boat would be on its way, but would they have relayed the message to the Coast Guard? If they did, the Coasties would be coming all the way from Kodiak, Ryan thought. That was so far, hundreds of miles away. It was still dark. Would it be easier to spot him at night, or during the day? he wondered. Maybe at night. His strobe light was still flashing. He thought about how he’d look from the sky. Would they see the suit, the light? Jesus Christ, how long could he stay like this?

The waves were huge: twenty-footers, Ryan guessed. From the deck of the ship, seas this size wouldn’t be any sort of spectacle. It was a different story when you were submerged in the goddamn things. He couldn’t keep the freezing spray out of his nose and eyes, the only parts of his body that weren’t protected by the suit. What if no one was coming?”

It’s a scenario anyone who has taken even a day trip out of sight of land has contemplated, and all the details, and the ensuing Coast Guard rescue, come to life in this book.

Find Deadliest Sea at Amazon.com or at other locations listed on Thompson’s website.

Insane video of a bass boat crash on YouTube.

I’m in the middle of reading my galley review copy of Deadliest Sea, a new book due out on June 1st. It’s about the sinking of the Alaska Ranger in the Bering Sea in 2008, and the rescue efforts by the Coast Guard.

I plan to do a full review soon. But, getting into it, I want to praise the author Kalee Thompson for her hardcore reporting. A former editor at Popular Science and National Geographic Adventure, she puts all her skills to use in describing all that went down in great detail. Click on this link to get the Harper Collins synopsis.

I got this in an email from The Safe Boater Training Program. It’s a link to an article called “23 of the Worst Boating Accidents Over the Past 20 Years.”

What can we learn from this? Never travel by large capacity ferry abroad and, if you live in Canada, you need a Pleasure Craft Operators Card.

It’s a noble idea on the one hand and, on the other, a waste of CO2 canisters.

BoatUS is trying to get people to wear inflatable PFDs by promoting Inflatable Life Jacket World Record Day.

The idea is to have everyone inflate their PFDs simultaneously at 11am on May 20th.

Inflatable PFDs don't interfere with fishing.

Anglers are usually the ones boating on the margins of bad weather, and most of them don’t wear the most basic of protection. Don’t want it to get in the way, is the common refrain against wearing life jackets. Just get an inflatable, man, and be done with it.

Lenny Rudow has always advocated inflatable PFDs for his offshore trips. He prefers the fanny back style that goes around your waist. After spending two days wearing a horse-collar style inflatable while fishing for spring striped bass on the Chesapeake with Capt. Tom Hughes (pictured) for (shameless self promotion alert) my book project.

I didn’t notice it during hours of fly casting and after the last trip  I hopped onto the dock and started walking to the car forgetting I had it on. I’m investing in an automatic inflatable jacket like this SOSspenders or Mustang and keeping it with my fishing gear. It doesn’t make sense not to wear one.

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.