Lithium batteries are a fact of life in this day and age, and, like so many other things aboard, we must treat them with care. When I wrote the CCA article on Fire in the Boat – Prevention, I gently danced around the issue of fires in smaller Lithium-Ion and Lithium-Metal batteries. There I talked about the issues of charging them (don’t let that happen in a bunk or under a sail), and the high heat they generate when shorted. Read more
Update:
Articles are of general interest to the entire CCA membership, and are not particular to any specific station. Categories include Feature Articles, Safety Moments, White Papers and For Ocean Racers.
Good seamanship should include the ability to assess, address, and anticipate. The best offshore sailors use sight, smell, hearing, and feel to monitor what is going on below, on deck and in the wider environment for whatever may come next. Experience lets the crew member distinguish the significant concerns from normal variations. In a perfect world, every issue would be caught before it becomes a problem or emergency. Let’s snap back to reality—it’s not going to happen… Read moreIn Stephen Covey’s best-selling self-help book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, one chapter is titled “Sharpening the Saw”.
Read moreAfter two major collisions with substantial loss of American lives between US Navy destroyers and merchant ships, many of us went to websites that provide histories of the movements of the ships in the area up to the minute of the collision.
Read moreIn the early 1970s, a new method of categorizing life jackets was introduced by the Coast Guard and Underwriter’s Laboratories, using five “types” and a new, strange name for life jackets: the Personal Flotation Device.
Read moreOn the night of November 29, 2014, while competing in the second leg of the Volvo Ocean Race, Vestas Wind ran aground on Cargados Carajos Shoal shortly after local sunset.
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Read moreDinghy Safety Checklist
It only takes a few minutes to verify that your dinghy is "good to go."
USCG Federal Requirements - IMPORTANT NOTE: States may have additional requirements for registration of all types of boats and young passengers, including young operators of propelled dinghies
Last weekend [October 2015], I was asked to take part in US Sailing’s National Faculty during their annual meeting. My goal was to create a “unit” in US Sailing’s Safety at Sea Course on Crew Overboard, and this required that I come up with a plan on how to explain this challenging seamanship problem to sailors of all backgrounds.
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Ah, New Year’s Resolutions. So easily conceived, so quickly neglected! Lose 20 pounds, get regular exercise, reduce intake of saturated fat, and cut out that last glass of wine in the evening: we’re very good at making promises to ourselves, and then allowing them to fall by the wayside as the weeks of the new year speed by.
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No one wants to spend money foolishly, and no one wants to be subjected to unnecessary risks. How do you figure out how to spend your safety dollars efficiently to minimize the risks associated with going to sea in sailboats? Risk analysis generally boils down to the likelihood of something bad happening, the cost incurred when it does happen, and the expense of avoiding the problem in the first place.
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While working with fellow CCA members on a comprehensive marine safety manual, I found that the powers that be have prospectively revised VHF channels. The changes are intended to harmonize global communications but, in the natural order of things, will likely cause some short-term confusion.
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One of the requirements for the 1982 Singlehanded Transpac was to have sailed 300 NM, singlehanded, in the boat that you were going to take to Hawaii. For my second Singlehanded Transpac, I had selected an Olson 30, Collage, which I saw has having dramatically better creature comforts than my 1980 boat, a Moore 24.
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