Sunday, April 10, 2022
Monday, April 4, 2022
We did a hat overboard
Last year when we were taking my boat, the Huck Finn, to dry dock, it became a thing. There was way more crew than I had anticipated, but, to tell truth, I was glad they were along.
The Crew:
Larry: He drives the Colonial Belle.
Jolene: Senior deckhand on the Colonial Belle.
John: Houseboat owner, a good egg all-around.
Dre: Me.
So what happened, halfway to Midlakes, John’s hat blew off and ended up in the water. I think Jolene was driving.
We had a hat overboard.
Jolene threw it into reverse. We came to a full stop. Larry was shouting directions to me, and we came about in shallow water. I left the helm for a brief moment to indicate where the fish net could be found. I went to slow ahead using the engines as steering.
Larry said “go to port!” “Go to starboard!”
We recovered the hat.
It was impressive to me because Larry, Jolene and myself had trained for just such an occurrence. We turned out to be good at our jobs.
Then we went ahead and brought the boat to Midlakes. It was the best end-of-season cruise, ever.
Sunday, March 13, 2022
I’m your First Mate. Admit it, you love me.
And I know why. All captains love me. It’s because I know shit. Whether it’s a bowline knot or some minor aspect of pirate law. It’s crucial, and it comes in handy.
Everybody wants a good first mate, and you found one, and it feels good. Someone you can trust. Someone that will talk sense when everyone else goes crazy.
Knowing your place is important; and while command is attractively built, it doesn’t necessarily fit those who are more apt to figure things out.
The weight of command is best left to those who believe in themselves, while the smartest of us are constantly in doubt. That’s why second in command is so important. And why captains should listen more than they talk.
I’m not gonna get into the whole “rats head, ox neck” conversation. I’ll let you google that at will. Nor will I talk about shitty first mates.
Every captain in the world will debate me on this, and yet still, they will defer to a good first mate. Because it’s easy. And better off for crew and passengers.
It’s human nature.
Salute.
Tuesday, October 6, 2020
Bowline Knot
Bowline, Gunwale, Boatswain
Pronounced:
Bolun, Gunnel, Bosun
The Royal Navy were a bunch of hicks. That's probably why I fit in.
Monday, August 31, 2020
Saturday, August 29, 2020
Friday, August 28, 2020
This is why we can't have nice things
Boat guest says ‘N-word’ keyed into car after canal dinner cruise in Fairport: A live band, food and friends… all while going down the Erie Canal in Fairport. Chaz Bruce hosted the event, called the “All White Boat Cruise”, with guests donning bright white clothing. He says the evening was a big hit.
Until it wasn't.
Monday, August 17, 2020
Saturday, August 15, 2020
Swallows & Amazons 90th Anniversary (1930-2020)
All I can tell you is that I was hooked from the get-go. Swallows and Amazons really had an effect on me; it was like childhood nostalgia distilled into a boatstruck-fever-dream.
Anyway, I own all of the books. I’ve read all of the books. You should too.
Swallows and Amazons For Ever!
Friday, August 14, 2020
Sunday, August 9, 2020
Lock 32
Okay, here's some pictures of me being all action man at Lock 32.
And here I am making sure the gates are ready to open for another Colonial Belle sunset cruise. This photo was taken by Senior Deckhand-in-training, Jolene.
Monday, October 16, 2017
Tour Boat Comes On Hard, Several Drinks Spilled
FAIRPORT, NEW YORK — The touring vessel Colonial Belle ended it’s 22nd cruising season on Sunday with a severe mishap in Lock 32 in Pittsford, NY. The boat was returning to the lock chamber when it came on hard against the lock wall.
“It was horrifying!” said one passenger, “This little guy? With red hair? Dressed like a pirate? He sold me a Grey Goose and soda for $9. I almost spilled it!”
The boats Captain, the legendary Kaitlynn McHenry said “I blame the crew. You just can’t get good help these days.”
Senior Deckhand and First Mate Dre Elmore had this to say: “I don’t get enough sleep. I have a rash. I just can’t seem to focus anymore. The sun was in my eyes. Also, I’m all out of Red Bull.”
The boats owner, Mona, could not be reached for comment.
“It was horrifying!” said one passenger, “This little guy? With red hair? Dressed like a pirate? He sold me a Grey Goose and soda for $9. I almost spilled it!”
The boats Captain, the legendary Kaitlynn McHenry said “I blame the crew. You just can’t get good help these days.”
Senior Deckhand and First Mate Dre Elmore had this to say: “I don’t get enough sleep. I have a rash. I just can’t seem to focus anymore. The sun was in my eyes. Also, I’m all out of Red Bull.”
The boats owner, Mona, could not be reached for comment.
Monday, October 9, 2017
One and Done
 |
| photo by Kaitlynn McHenry |
She lines up with the liftbridge, but why is she turning? It’s a dream. You don’t have to turn the boat for departure, she’s always pointed west, towards the bridge. It’s a dream.
You throw her into gear and jam on the throttle. The bow rises up in protest and then settles and she gets to moving fast.
There are people along the dock, and on boats, watching, something curious is happening, but they can’t place just what.
The liftbridge looms. No radio call, no request for a lift. The boat settles down into the water and gains speed. There is no stopping her now.
The clang of the bell and the forlorn bugle of the horn as the bridge operator hits too many buttons at once. But it’s too late. The bridge lurches upwards, too slow, far too slow. And the boat continues forward.
The bow impacts the bottom truss of the bridge and crumples in a tin-foil ball as sparks fly.
Sparks fly.
The people up front are throwing themselves to the floor. There are screams.
You kick the throttle forward. Your face is contorted into a rictus of joy. The noise, the shrieking of steel on steel, it’s something you imagined a long time ago.
That first time when a man asked you about being a woman captain.
Sparks fly.
It’s only a dream. You wake up.
Lunch cruise today. 11:30 crew call.
One and done.
Sunday, September 17, 2017
The smaller the boat the bigger the asshole
One of the worst aspects of being a dockmaster on the Erie Canal is having to deal with boats that throw a wake.
You see, the speed limit on the Erie Canal is ten miles an hour, but in a zone where there are boats docked, that drops down to 5 miles an hour and/or NO WAKE.
Every vessel is different; some boats throw a wake at lower than 5 MPH. PWC (personal watercraft, jet skis) throw a wake just looking at the water. You don’t even have to start them up.
Anyway, the point is, the only way you can know if you’re throwing a wake IS TO LOOK OVER YOUR SHOULDER BEHIND YOUR BOAT. The gauges in your fancy boat, even if they read six knots (which is faster than 5 MPH BTW) will not tell you if your snowflake of a boat makes other boats jump up in their berths and crash into concrete walls in a way that upsets all and everything aboard.
Only your eyes can tell you this. Waves and whitewater. If you got that, you got wake.
Lets back up a bit.
A wake is a wave produced by a boat moving through the water. I know that sounds simple, but you would be amazed at how many people with too much money and not enough sense have no idea what the term means.
They can buy a boat, why can’t they put it up on plane in a harbor where other boats are docked? They have no idea. And if you yell at them from the dock, they get pissed, because hey, they spent a lot of money, and shouldn’t have to pay attention to rules, and politeness, and understanding of how water and boats work. Money, gas, throttle, zoooooooooooom!
The title of this piece refers to the fact that large boats require skill; so generally, and I do mean generally, the larger the boat, the more skilled and conscientious the captain. This rule has its exceptions, but generally, it’s true.
Smaller boats require less investment, which scales with less intelligence and/or knowledge of the rules of the road. And by intelligence, I mean if you spend a fuckton of money on a boat, you might learn how to use it. Again, this does not follow with my experience of boaters. Even huge boat captains can be assholes. But generally, that’s not the case.
Anyway, the funniest exchange we had this season was early on when a 40+ yacht of recent vintage ($400,000 by my least estimate) rolled up into Fairport at a smarter than polite clip. They hailed the bridge, and asked for a lift. As dockmaster I gave a warning. The radio exchange went something like this:
FAST BOAT: Fairport bridge, we’d like a lift.
FAIRPORT BRIDGE: I’ll get her right up.
DOCK MASTER: Uh, Westbound vessel, this is a no wake zone, please mind your wake.
FAST BOAT: Roger that Dockmaster, we’ve got an inboard 37 computerized navigation system, we have to maintain this speed for bare steerage
DOCK MASTER: (long pause) I’ll give you points for the excuse.
FAST BOAT: (laughter from the crew in the background) It’s no excuse, I've been a captain for two years now, and I have to maintain bare steerage.
DOCK MASTER: (no response)
Because what do you say to that? That’s a lot of money for a boat that doesn’t go slow? How do you dock? Do helicopters follow you around and throw you a line when you want to stop? The crew was guffawing in the background, because they knew their captain was full of shit. I’ve been a captain for ten minutes and I know BS when I smell it.
The truth is, It’s just easier on everyone involved to slow down. Shit, you have to stop anyway until the bridge is up. It’s like racing up to a stop light. What is the point?
Today was just another example of why boats should be licensed just like aircraft.
We were getting ready to get underway on the Belle when this 34 foot Rinker came roaring through the harbor ON PLANE. The Colonial Belle Captain was the first to give them a shout. I was on the dock and yelled. Bob, our new dockmaster piped up. Meanwhile, all the poor boats in the harbor were slamming into the concrete and the pilings were leaning out in a scary kinda way. The captains excuse on the Rinker? “We didn’t know the rules.”
If you don’t know enough not to throw a dangerous wake in a harbor where other boats are docked, you need to park your boat and give the fucking keys to someone who has the sense not to be a dangerous piece of shit. Seriously. I want to know what these guys think when a boat goes by and slams their expensive beauty into a wall? But then again, I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt. They don’t think that far ahead.
“We didn’t know the rules.” He said this on the radio. Now, let’s disregard the fact that you couldn’t use this excuse if you drove at 70 miles an hour through a school zone. Let’s look at the fact that we often load up to ten wheelchair-restricted senior citizens on the Colonial Belle. What if this yahoo had been planing by at that time? What if he knocked our ramp off and spilled an eighty year old on the dock?
Don’t throw a wake around other boats. It’s that simple. It should be printed on every console on every boat in the World.
And word to the wise, it’s how we spot the real boaters from the fakes.
You see, the speed limit on the Erie Canal is ten miles an hour, but in a zone where there are boats docked, that drops down to 5 miles an hour and/or NO WAKE.
Every vessel is different; some boats throw a wake at lower than 5 MPH. PWC (personal watercraft, jet skis) throw a wake just looking at the water. You don’t even have to start them up.
Anyway, the point is, the only way you can know if you’re throwing a wake IS TO LOOK OVER YOUR SHOULDER BEHIND YOUR BOAT. The gauges in your fancy boat, even if they read six knots (which is faster than 5 MPH BTW) will not tell you if your snowflake of a boat makes other boats jump up in their berths and crash into concrete walls in a way that upsets all and everything aboard.
Only your eyes can tell you this. Waves and whitewater. If you got that, you got wake.
Lets back up a bit.
A wake is a wave produced by a boat moving through the water. I know that sounds simple, but you would be amazed at how many people with too much money and not enough sense have no idea what the term means.
They can buy a boat, why can’t they put it up on plane in a harbor where other boats are docked? They have no idea. And if you yell at them from the dock, they get pissed, because hey, they spent a lot of money, and shouldn’t have to pay attention to rules, and politeness, and understanding of how water and boats work. Money, gas, throttle, zoooooooooooom!
The title of this piece refers to the fact that large boats require skill; so generally, and I do mean generally, the larger the boat, the more skilled and conscientious the captain. This rule has its exceptions, but generally, it’s true.
Smaller boats require less investment, which scales with less intelligence and/or knowledge of the rules of the road. And by intelligence, I mean if you spend a fuckton of money on a boat, you might learn how to use it. Again, this does not follow with my experience of boaters. Even huge boat captains can be assholes. But generally, that’s not the case.
Anyway, the funniest exchange we had this season was early on when a 40+ yacht of recent vintage ($400,000 by my least estimate) rolled up into Fairport at a smarter than polite clip. They hailed the bridge, and asked for a lift. As dockmaster I gave a warning. The radio exchange went something like this:
FAST BOAT: Fairport bridge, we’d like a lift.
FAIRPORT BRIDGE: I’ll get her right up.
DOCK MASTER: Uh, Westbound vessel, this is a no wake zone, please mind your wake.
FAST BOAT: Roger that Dockmaster, we’ve got an inboard 37 computerized navigation system, we have to maintain this speed for bare steerage
DOCK MASTER: (long pause) I’ll give you points for the excuse.
FAST BOAT: (laughter from the crew in the background) It’s no excuse, I've been a captain for two years now, and I have to maintain bare steerage.
DOCK MASTER: (no response)
Because what do you say to that? That’s a lot of money for a boat that doesn’t go slow? How do you dock? Do helicopters follow you around and throw you a line when you want to stop? The crew was guffawing in the background, because they knew their captain was full of shit. I’ve been a captain for ten minutes and I know BS when I smell it.
The truth is, It’s just easier on everyone involved to slow down. Shit, you have to stop anyway until the bridge is up. It’s like racing up to a stop light. What is the point?
Today was just another example of why boats should be licensed just like aircraft.
We were getting ready to get underway on the Belle when this 34 foot Rinker came roaring through the harbor ON PLANE. The Colonial Belle Captain was the first to give them a shout. I was on the dock and yelled. Bob, our new dockmaster piped up. Meanwhile, all the poor boats in the harbor were slamming into the concrete and the pilings were leaning out in a scary kinda way. The captains excuse on the Rinker? “We didn’t know the rules.”
If you don’t know enough not to throw a dangerous wake in a harbor where other boats are docked, you need to park your boat and give the fucking keys to someone who has the sense not to be a dangerous piece of shit. Seriously. I want to know what these guys think when a boat goes by and slams their expensive beauty into a wall? But then again, I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt. They don’t think that far ahead.
“We didn’t know the rules.” He said this on the radio. Now, let’s disregard the fact that you couldn’t use this excuse if you drove at 70 miles an hour through a school zone. Let’s look at the fact that we often load up to ten wheelchair-restricted senior citizens on the Colonial Belle. What if this yahoo had been planing by at that time? What if he knocked our ramp off and spilled an eighty year old on the dock?
Don’t throw a wake around other boats. It’s that simple. It should be printed on every console on every boat in the World.
And word to the wise, it’s how we spot the real boaters from the fakes.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)