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Captpete
| | Posted on Sunday, January 13, 2008 - 05:26 pm: | 
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Did you get your boat to Guam over the water?
No, I bought her here in Guam as a semi-derelict, hauled her, went back to the States for two years while I sold some property I owned, came back, and went to work on the refit, which I thought I could complete in 6 months. I labored 7 days a week for 18 months, at which time I ran out of $ and had to put her overboard. (I could have used another 6 months to get her right.) Meanwhile, the price of fuel had tripled. So much for business plans.
The rest of the story would fill a book - literally. 
To finish answering your question, she got here on the deck of a freighter. The guy who brought her out here bought her in Alaska, (Sitka, I think), drove her to Seattle, and shipped her from there. He went broke, abandoned his crew here, and left town deeply in debt. The crew stripped her in an effort to get back to Alaska, and then she started doing what any steel-hull will do when you ignore it: she started melting away.
Oh, hell; it's a very long story.
Got your PM, and will attend to that now.
PS - Her papers indicate that she carries 1200 gallons of fuel. She gets better than 3 mpg, so 800 gallons in her fish hold would allow her to make that passage non-stop. But the boredom would drive me totally insane. I don't even like a 24-hour steam to the fishing grounds, where the fun starts!
Cape Pete |
Jackbequick
| | Posted on Sunday, January 13, 2008 - 08:30 pm: |
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Sounds like a long sad story you ought to write. Write it like two parallel stories, the sagas of a boat and a man...
I deal with the boredom on deliveries with audiobooks and music on a mp3 player on the off shore legs. But my deliveries only take one or two days.
But 3 MPG does not sound bad, is that at hull speed? Maybe 5 knots or so? At 120 NM per day it would be 33 days to Hawaii and 20 to San Diego. I wonder what the odds are on getting 53 nice days all in a row? I'll bet it would make my trip from Fort Myers, FL to Baltimore via the ICW look like a day off.
Let me know if you decide to come home over the water and need crew, I've always wanted to do something like that. Doing it once would probably cure me of that. :>)
Jack |
Captpete
| | Posted on Monday, January 14, 2008 - 02:10 am: |
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Six knots w/ a fuel burn under 2 gph. Practical hull speed. Just starting to throw a little bit of a wake. (You can leave off that .25 when multiplying the square root of the waterline if you want to save a bunch of fuel.)
And at about 40' LOA and a displacement of 56,000 pounds, there isn't much that will slow her down. Once I had gained the confidence level to allow it, I took her out in some 15' seas to see how she was going to act. She's designed to be on her lines when the hold is full of product in an ice and water slurry. The hold was empty, so she was light and a good bit off her lines.
I drove her into a head sea and the harder I pushed her, the better she rode, until she peaked out at 6.5 knots. She never gave the slightest indication that she was interested in pounding. But even with her flared bow, she'd take some blue water over the anchor chute, but she's designed for that. 3/8 Lexan windows that don't open, no flat spots on the front of the house, and enough scuppers to shed a deck full of water in no time at all. You just have to make damned sure everything on the deck is properly secured.
She'd make that non-stop passage in less than two months. That's a lot of MP3's!
But audio books are a great idea. Fishing back home, we always had 20 or 30 of the old fashioned kind aboard, and there was a lot of trading that went on between boats. Most of the shrimp fisheries I was in, a particular species could only be caught during either daylight or at night, and there was lots of time to read when the work was done and the anchor was down.
Other fisheries were the bop 'til you drop variety, and you were too damned tired to even take a shower before falling into the bunk, often sleeping with all your clothes on. I've gotten way too old for that shit these days. I gotta get 4 hours, and even then I'm only good for about three days. And then, as soon as the fish are sold, I crash for 24 hours.
But I still love doing it.
Capt Pete |
Jackbequick
| | Posted on Monday, January 14, 2008 - 09:43 am: |
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There are bluewater boats and there are bluewater boats. But yours sounds like it would be up to anything that I would ever want to be out in. Of course, then there are the days when conditions are worse than you expected or the forecast indicated.
I have not been badly beat up on a delivery simply because I don't go unless the conditions are favorable. My rule of thumb is that if the called for seas are four feet and going to fall or stay at that in the next two days, I'll go. If they are at four or higher and the forecast calls for an increase, I don't go. And I look at the wind forecast real closely too. If I have to proceed slower it runs the delivery costs up and it starts getting hard on the boats. And on me too.
But it all works out. The company I do the deliveries for doesn't want me to do the deliveries if the conditions are not good because the boat needs to be delivered in top condition and ready for a season of use.
I did get caught out in ten foot seas for a few hours once and it was pretty unpleasant. The boat was 36 foot pleasure boat with a YanMar 400 and jet drive propulsion. That boat only draws about 30" in calm water and it was simply a lot of work to keep it going in the right general direction. The autopilot could not keep up with it in those conditions and it required constant on and off steering with a lot of rudder angle to hold a rough heading. And also having to play with the throttle to prevent pounding off of waves keep it going straight with following or quartering seas from astern.
I wouldn't have been out there that day on purpose.
I got started on the deliveries through a family/social connection and have learned a lot in the four years I've been doing them. But I love the work and being out there on nice boats when conditions are okay.
I saw some serious weather from on board Navy ships once or twice but I've not spent any time at all on 30 to 50 foot offshore working or fishing boats. And don't know if I ever will. But the guys that are out there doing it and making a living at it certainly have my respect.
But I think I understand why you guys keep going back out. :>)
Jack |
Captpete
| | Posted on Monday, January 14, 2008 - 07:10 pm: |
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But I think I understand why you guys keep going back out.
I think about that a lot. It's certainly not all hardship and drudgery, although there's plenty of both involved. But there are days when it's so beautiful it nearly takes your breath away. I remember one day in particular, and the image from that day is permanently burned into my brain.
We were fishing a couple hundred miles off the Carolinas in the winter. I'm sure you're familiar with the winter weather patterns on the east coast. One cold front after another, generally starting with NW winds, which veer to NE as the front passes. Some are stronger than others.
We were working on the off shore side of the Gulf Stream, and if you waited until it was too rough to fish, you were committed to staying there and riding it out. It was already too late to try to cross the Stream.
We would monitor the HF high seas forecast as the front approached, and occasionally rip another page from the weather fax machine and add it to the collection on the clipboard. We could ride out a gale, but storm warnings would send us across the Stream and into waters shallow enough to anchor in. Or, if the gale conditions were going to last more than a couple days, it was just easier to take it on the anchor where we could shut down the main engine and enjoy the fruits of the 20kw genset: heaters in the living spaces, fridge and freezer, hot showers, microwave, VCR movies in the galley, and yes, hair dryers. (We all still had hair back then, and wore it long.)
But if we chose to stay on the grounds, then it was a couple days of jogging around in 20 to 25-foot seas. Idle into the seas for 10 or 12 hours at just enough rpm's to maintain steerage. Then pucker up, jam the throttle to the stops, make a 180, and run downhill for a couple of hours until we were back where we started. Another 180 and do it all over again until the front blew itself out.
As I'm sure you're also aware, after frontal passage, the weather turns severe clear. The wind's still honking outta the NE, but the skies are clear with the bright sun shining down. I was sitting in the captain's chair reading early one morning, with the window next to me open, and would occasionally look up from my book to enjoy the sights. Even from the vantage point of a 73' dragger, the waves were towering, with 4 or 5-foot brilliant white rolling crests tumbling along their tops, and they were back-lit by the early morning sun. It was shining right through their upper portions, creating a beautiful electric-blue color. It was a truly awesome scene.
I had a decent Nikon 35mm camera sitting on the dash, but what follows happened so fast that I didn't have a chance. Actually, I was too awestruck to think about it. Right after I looked up from my book, a pair of bottle nosed dolphins appeared in the nearly transparent azure water just below the crest of the wave coming at us, poked their noses through it, and surfed right by the boat.
How many folks have ever witnessed something like that?
Before I started fishing, I couldn't make myself get up in the morning. And college just won't work if you can't make an 8 o'clock calculus class. Miss two days in a row, and you'll never catch up again.
But once I started fishing, and got serious about it, I became addicted to watching each new day begin. Starting with false dawn, it's as if the sun's appearance is a monstrous battery charger. I can feel the energy building within me and when it breaks the horizon, my needle is sitting on full tilt boogie and I'm ready to grab the day by the neck and throw it down on the mat.
('Course, that 4X coffee churning in my gut might have a little to do with it.)
There have to be rewards to keep you going back, and the sunrises are only one small one. I think the hunt is a big part of it, for when you are successful, that is very rewarding.
Competition is a big part of it, too. Nearly all the good fishermen that I've known are extremely competitive. Deep down inside, they'd rather come to the dock with a break-even trip, but be the top dog, than come in with a profitable trip, but be out-fished by most of the fleet. That's probably another way of saying that our reward is the bolstering of our insecurities, bit it's still the way it is.
Freedom is another big reward. As soon as you leave the dock, your world shrinks to the size of your boat. But you become the master of your world. And with that, you accept the responsibility of that world. No cops to monitor your behavior, no safe haven if you screw up.
And with that responsibility, comes judgment, and this is where fishing differs a little from getting from point A to point B. Well, maybe it only differs in intensity. There is a line which you must never cross. It is not clearly defined, and it is not stationary. The closer you come to that line, the more profit you will make. But... if you cross it, you won't come back.
That is not an over dramatization. My proof is a list of friends and acquaintances who crossed that line, and are now gone.
It may sound a little twisted, but exercising the judgment to play that game successfully is extremely rewarding.
And then, of course, there is the fun factor, and this is a big one. For me, there is nothing that's more fun than slamming the fish, or whatever you're chasing.
The Perfect Storm was nothing less than a great disservice to all commercial fishermen in my opinion. But one thing they got right was when the guys were in the fish and packing them in the hold, down there high-fiving each other while they were stacking them and shuffling ice around. The crew camaraderie when you're on the fish is amazing.
('Course it ain't so hot when there isn't a fish in sight, and the captain's the biggest a$$hole in the world.)
Well, I guess I got a little carried away with this, Jack. That's what passion will do for you, I reckon. Sometimes, you just can't help yourself.
Capt. Pete
(Message edited by captpete on January 15, 2008) |
Davegess
| | Posted on Monday, January 14, 2008 - 08:27 pm: |
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Capt. you do need to write that book. I bet that we could get you hooked up with a good publisher.
Unfortunately it writing can be tough, boring work but rewarding when it is done. |
Oldog
| | Posted on Monday, January 14, 2008 - 08:59 pm: |
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I second that Cap'n
the Dewie storys and some of the others would make a great collection!
As always A heart felt thanks for sharing! |
Court
| | Posted on Monday, January 14, 2008 - 09:24 pm: |
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Fish Stories |
Captpete
| | Posted on Monday, January 14, 2008 - 11:39 pm: |
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Capt. you do need to write that book. I bet that we could get you hooked up with a good publisher.
That's very encouraging, Dave, but I think getting published is a lot like becoming a rock star. For every one that makes it, there are a thousand out there who are better; they just never got the break. And finding that break requires a great editor, an agent who believes in you, and a lot of luck. That's a tall order.
But just like the thousand bands that don’t make it, but keep on playing their music, you keep writing. The more you do it, the better you get. (The big “P” word.) And for me, writing is anything but boring. Maybe for some folks it’s like driving a boat from point “A” to point “B” is for me. It’s great to get there, but that damned ride; it’s soooo boring. For me, writing is more like fishing; it’s all about the ride.
But seriously, Dave, if you’ve got any shortcuts to that break, I could probably stow my pessimistic rhetoric for a little while. (I’m sure what you have suggested is exactly how some of those breaks appear.)
I'll drop you a PM, and take it off the board.
Fish Stories
What? You don’t like the Dewey stories? (And right after Dave and Oldog had me all pumped up!)
Capt Pete
(Message edited by captpete on January 15, 2008) |
Road_thing
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - 09:07 am: |
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Go, Pete, go! |
Jackbequick
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - 03:53 pm: |
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Great stories Pete. I really enjoy seeing things like fish feeding on schools of herring, the occasional whale, etc.
This fall I spotted something that looked like a partially submerged large black box or something floating in the water about a half a mile off my course. This was in 2-3 foot seas, about 30 miles off shore and thoughts of an inverted hull or a shipping container or something crossed my mind. I headed over to check it out and when I got about 200 yards away, it awakened, blew, and dived. It had been a napping or sunbathing right whale. I felt bad about having disturbed it.
I cross the Stellwagen Banks on some of my deliveries and see whales blowing in the distant just about every trip, a high point is occasionally seeing a humpback breaching. They seem to be curious animals and I've seen a pod gather near one of the whale watching boats like they wanted a closer look. I've even seem then do partial or full breaches like they were putting on a show.
Another time I had a engine breakdown about 20 miles off shore and had to wait for a tow. Seas were calm, like glass, and it was a warm sunny day. I actually enjoyed the splendor and silence of the four hour wait for the tow boat. Fed my crackers to the birds and fish, saw a pod passing whales blowing in the distance, and just made the best of a bad day. I couldn't have picked a nicer day for it.
For a good read that will give you a feel for the New England fishing industry of a few years past, and the kind of people you'll meet out there, try All Fishermen Are Liars by Linda Greenlaw.
I also just read Cod by Mark Kurlansky. That is a history of cod fishing and it is a great read. Like a early history of America in many ways but lots of interesting details.
Jack} |
Captpete
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - 08:05 pm: |
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I've read a book by Linda, but can't remember the title. It chronicled one of her trips swordfishing. Maybe the one you mentioned is a newer one by her.
I've never met her, but knew the captain of one of the other boats mentioned in her book. I recall him saying that she was a top-notch captain.
I also read the Cod book. Some interesting data, but way too dry for my taste. I kept falling asleep. (History books do that to me.)
On the other hand, I thought The Perfect Storm was an excellent read. Meticulously researched, and totally accurate wrt the fishing areas I was familiar with. Too bad the movie turned it into a fairy tale, and a bad one at that.
Don't get me started! My rant would shut the BadWeB down for days!
Capt Pete |
Court
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - 08:06 pm: |
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Pete . . . quite the opposite . . . I'm betting I can connect you with a publisher.
Fish Tales . . . .
I love it!
You're my Captain . .. ya, ya, ya , ya, ya . . . |
Captpete
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - 10:29 pm: |
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You're my Captain . .. ya, ya, ya , ya, ya . . .
You sure you didn't mean, "yada, yada, yada?"
I wish you and Dave would quit teasing me with this betting stuff. (Neither of y'all have mentioned anything about the stakes)
Oh, wait a minute. Maybe it's one of those 'ya got nothing to lose' deals? I never thought about that.
I'm going to change the salutation, and send you the same PM I sent Dave.
Capt Pete
(Message edited by captpete on January 15, 2008) |
Jackbequick
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 09:32 am: |
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The sword fishing story may have the The Hungry Ocean. That's on my list of books to watch for at the library.
Next week I am starting a 14 week adult education course to get myself a OUPV or "6-Pack" Captain's license. It is being taught in the evenings at the local high school by American BoatSchool.
I was under the impression that I did not need a license to deliver privately owned pleasure boats with no passengers on board. Now I'm told that's not the case if I am being compensated for the work and that I should have one. So I'm trying to get in line with the program...
And the Coast Guard now views a person who takes a few friends out on his boat and asks them to share the fuel costs as "being compensated" and needing a license.
Its sort of another aspect of the litigatious world we live in. There are people doing the work that have the "ticket" and the knowledge and there are people that have the ticket and not the knowledge. And some with none of any of it.
It will cost me $900 to become "Cap'n Jack", for another $200 I can try for a Master's Certificate (for bigger boats, more pax) but I don't think I want or need that.
My plan is to wind up having the ticket to do the work that I have been doing and know how to do. And not have my butt hanging out to where someone will go after my house.
There was a court case down in CT a few years ago where a guy in a big sailboat asked an old man and a kid in smaller open fishing boat if he "could go over there". The old man said yes, the sailboat ran aground, and the old man got sued and wound up in court. I don't know the outcome, just heard about the case. But it is a sad thing. I'll bet there was a lawyer in the sailboat...
anyway, I thought I was already a Captain. They call me "Captain" every time I pull into marina and cough up $500 or $600 or more for fuel. Now if I'm the Captain, why do they make me put the fuel in?
Jack |
Captpete
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 06:30 pm: |
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And the Coast Guard now views a person who takes a few friends out on his boat and asks them to share the fuel costs as "being compensated" and needing a license.
It'll get easier in the future, Jack. Instead of a CG ticket, you'll just have a boat driver's endorsement on your National ID card - or on the chip embedded in your neck.
I don't have a CG license, never needed one, and never wanted one. (Commercial fishing vessels are "uninspected" vessels and don't require licensed captains, although change is in the works.) It's just a better way for them to keep track of your transgressions - and give them something they can take away from you.
I've had a few licensed captains working on my back deck over the years, and to a man, they didn't know which end of the boat was the pointy end. I know it's way too small a sampling to make any generalizations from, but personally, I wouldn't give you a nickel for a whole stack of CG licenses. (At least up to and including a 50-ton master's ticket.)
You can memorize all the crap you want, but you've got to go to sea to acquire seamanship skills. Guam provides a bunch of examples of what I'm talking about. There are 100-ton captains here who have never been out of sight of land, and never spent a night "at sea."
But here's the best one: I know a guy who has a 6-pac, and makes his living pulling tourists around on an inflatable banana boat behind a jet ski. He aspires to get his 50-ton ticket, and was bitching that his "sea time" on the jet ski didn't count because sea time toward that license must be in a vessel at least 26 feet in length.
I may just be an old hard-nosed fisherman, but I don't believe a quick run out to the sea buoy and back constitutes a day at sea. And what the hell's riding around in a 26' skiff got to do with preparing you drive a 50-ton vessel?
But I will say that I'm proud of the value of my instrument-rated commercial pilot's license. That sucker was earned. (When I first started that instrument training, I didn't see any way in the world that I could learn how to do so many things at once.) Ain't no way you can fake an instrument approach while staying within 50 feet of assigned altitudes.
It's the CG's fault the lower licenses aren't worth the paper they're written on. They should take a lesson from the FAA if they want those licenses to have any value.
Back in the day, there were a couple of years when I was between fishing boats, and made my living driving sailboats back and forth between NE and the Caribbean, stopping in Bermuda mid-trip. (The days of the tax investment credit deal and a lot of folks were buying sailboats, and putting them to work with charter management companies.)
At that time, the qualifications for delivery skippers were determined by insurance companies, not the CG, and what they were looking for was experience rather than a piece of paper, which made a lot of sense in my book. (Especially since I had the experience, and needed the work.)
But, I hired some of my fishing friends as crew for some of those deliveries, and I'll admit, there was a little bit of "blowback," as the CIA is fond of saying these days, from loading up sailboats with commercial fishing attitude. I guess it was that "get next to the line" mindset, but we broke a few things that we probably shouldn't have.
Delaminated the forward bulkhead and bent a downwind pole in half on a brand new Morgan 46, but we made Newport to Bermuda in 4 days, and that ain't bad for a pig like that!
(Flimsy pole, and poor fiberglass work!)
There are some great stories written about the banks schooners that fished out of Gloucester in the early 1900's. (I can't remember the author's name, and the books have been out of print forever, but I've got one in a trunk, somewhere.)
Anyway, the above reminds me of the story of one of the captains who during his career had something like a dozen top-masts carried away during the race back to port to get the top fish prices. He claimed to his dying day that all but one of those masts were constructed of inferior wood.
(And I'm sure he was dead-on!)
I wandered a little bit there, but you aren't going to start any arguments with me on this subject, Jack.
Capt Pete
(Message edited by captpete on January 16, 2008) |
Davegess
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - 10:04 pm: |
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Capt, I never got the PM dave aht davegess com |
Captpete
| | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 04:26 am: |
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Dave,
Re-send on the way to something similar to the address above.
Capt Pete |
Court
| | Posted on Thursday, January 17, 2008 - 02:20 pm: |
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Capt'n . . . .
Just bought my books for this semester and I think I've discovered a trick. . .
If you price your book at $182.40 and require the "update supplement" which is $81.60 you don't have to sell many.
I went to pick up one book and came out $276.42 poorer.
I was going to get you a copy of Maritime Law but it was $285.00 and I figured it was likely stuff you knew.
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Captpete
| | Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008 - 12:33 am: |
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I was going to get you a copy of Maritime Law but it was $285.00 and I figured it was likely stuff you knew.
Not exactly. You could fit what I know about written maritime law on the point of a pin.
But I am intimately familiar with the unwritten maritime laws, not the least of which is the unwritten law of gross tonnage: The biggest boat has the right of way.
(Physics are tasked with the enforcement of that one.)
Capt. Pete |
Jackbequick
| | Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008 - 11:56 am: |
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The enforcement can be brutal.
I was in Subic Bay in the late 60's when they towed the back half of the destroyer USS Frank E. Evans in after she blundered in front of a Royal Australian Navy aircraft carrier while changing stations during night ops.
They lost 74 sailors in that one. It was in the early morning hours, there were a lot of berthing spaces in the front half, and it went down like a rock.
The carrier was the HMAS Melbourne, sort of a hard luck carrier. She had a nearly identical collision with a destroyer once before.
The "little boys" always have to look out for themselves. It is stunning how quickly you can run out of maneuvering room in a carrier task force.
Jack |
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