[Rhodes22-list] Re: Salt Water Sailing

[Richard Smith]

>
> But, all this makes me curious: Would the conditions you described on
> this trip around the Statue of Liberty somehow be tougher or worse than
> the conditions I just described?>

Harder/easier?  Difficult to say but in general...

The real difference between what you experienced and that of the salt water
costal cruiseing experience is the ever changing tidal currents and their
effect (coupled with that of the wind) on sea state.  The operative word is
"CHANGING"!  It must be understood that in bay and costal sailing  massive
amounts of water are being pushed, shoved and deflected by a multitude of
interacting forces.  What happens?  A turbulent mess!

Let's consider the area in upper New York harbor named the Battery.  To the
north is Manhattan Island.  On the east side of Manhattan is the East River
(tidal estuary), to the West, the Hudson River (another estuary).

To the South (1/4 mile) is Governors island which to the East is separated
from the Brooklyn Shore  by Buttermilk channel (might have the name wrong)
and to the West by the northern portion of the New York Upper Bay.

Now... the water in each one of these channels is being driven by a
multitude of forces NONE IN SYNC WITH THE OTHERS;  Tide, wind, relative
water depth....etc.  At the Battery where it all comes together the result
of all this can be maelstrom of swirling water which when first seen from
the cockpit of a small boat gives one pause.  The same conditions exist (in
varying degrees) occur through out the upper and lower bays.  I described
the situation at the Battery because the clear visual evidence of the
causality.

Let me stop right here and say that the greatest enemy a small boat sailor
has is FEAR followed by exhaustion.  That's that happened to the poor guy
from Jersey.  My wife and I having experience can view these conditions with
a degree of detachment which makes things much easier.

To continue, these conditions are constantly changing and because of the
complexity of the fluid motion not particularly predictable.

To my knowledge there are no bodies of fresh water with measurable tidal
influences.  This means that the circulation in a large lake will vary
slowly in some sort of relationship to water level.  Therefore conditions
will be relatively predictable and in general much less turbulent then the
conditions around the Battery.  For the purpose of this discussion I am
leaving out the issue of the affect on the sea state occasioned by winds
blowing against or with the current.  It should be the same for fresh or
salt water.

So.. the answer to your question is that marine operations in costal waters
are invariably more boisterous and inherently dangerous then those in fresh
water.  That's simply because forces in play are more diverse and of much
greater magnitude.

What does this mean to the guy in the Rhodes?  Simply that there are some
places like the Battery or the L.I. Sound Race which at certain times, under
certain conditions may be LETHAL and have to be avoided.

I know that Lake Superior is famous for it's ship wrecks but they are either
as a result of grounding by the ship being overwhelmed by largish wind
driven seas.  Obviously a good chart and a weather radio will minimize these
perils.  For the guy on salt water in a small boat the real danger lies in
the smaller scale perils.  The waters around headlands and in shallows can
suddenly become dangerous and conditions just as rapidly subside to a benign
state.

I can recall being becalmed on L.I. Sound and seeing a single 18 inch
breaking wave moving westwards through the otherwise glassy sea.  Tidal
generated.

To sum it up.  Probably the Statue of Liberty voyage was tougher because of
variability.  Coupled with the ever changing wind velocity. Another thing,
seas building and subsiding in response to the continually changing
hydraulic flows do not allow ones metabolic state to adjust as it would to a
comfortable repeating motion.  It's much more comfortable to sail on the
Atlantic then the Sound.  Predictable motion!

Remember I am describing the terror of neophytes.  My wife and I rather
enjoyed the sail I described although we were not enamored by the
accelerated winds occasioned by the Bernoulli effect in the Narrows which
really laid us over for a time.

Richard Smith