Nordhavn 5263 arrived in Tacoma at 5:22AM this morning assisted by Weddell Foss and Henry Foss. We took our dinghy down and the fog was so thick we couldn't see the bow at times. We'll do a more detailed blog entry with more pictures but here's a quick sampling of some of the pictures.

The first view as the Ever Ethic emerged from the fog:

5263 tucked safely away up on deck:



Getting lowered into the water:



Floating in the sun:



Underway heading North towards Seattle:



When we left this morning at 5:45 it was 28F. Its warmer now at 43F but its been a long cold but exciting day. We'll post more pictures and details soon.

--jrh
jrh@mvdirona.com

Following Hong Kong, we stayed two nights in the Li River area, the first at Guilin and the second at Yangshuo. The area had long been famous for its dramatic karst topography of jagged peaks, sheer cliffs, and complex limestone caverns.  We spent much of the time taking in the scenery from the water, in two different boat trips, but also underground and from atop a mountain.

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Nordhavn 5263 finally is en route from Asia, on board the Ever Ethic. The ship is scheduled to arrive into Tacoma on December 4^th. We’ll still have weeks of commissioning before the boat actually is ours, but this definitely is a major milestone. A safe splash at Tacoma and an uneventful trip to the Emerald Harbor Marine docks will be another.

Our boat originally was scheduled to ship to Seattle from Xaimen between October 22-27^th on the Dijksgracht, and that ship had been delayed until Nov 8^th. Then the shipping company dropped the Seattle stop to more quickly deliver an emergency shipment of generator parts to a customer on the east coast. Fortunately, Nordhavn was able to get our boat on another ship only a week later. Rather than a direct shipment from Xiamen, however, our boat was first transported to Taiwan, then loaded onto the Ever Ethic bound for Los Angeles, Oakland and finally Tacoma. We're lucky that the delay was not a lot worse.

We've been watching the Ever Ethic's progress using VesselTracker.com, one of several sites that display ship locations using AIS data. You can view by vessel, port or general region. For example, this page shows all the reporting AIS vessels in and around Seattle.

The Ever Ethic no longer is within range now--it's somewhere in the Pacific. But we'll be looking for it near Los Angeles in a couple of weeks.

Last week, an anchor accidentally deployed on the BC Ferry Spirit of British Columbia at it exited the east end of Active Pass into the Strait of Georgia. The ship apparently did a complete donut as the crew put the vessel in full reverse to slow it down. The ferry was delayed for 80 minutes as the crew worked in rough waters to secure the anchor.

It's not clear at this point why the anchor dropped--a BC Ferries spokesperson said the crew did not deploy it. According to a comment posted to the CBC story linked above, the anchors normally are locked on deck. But in close quarters or when approaching a dock, the lock is removed and a clutch is used to hold the anchor in place. On exiting Active Pass, the anchor should have been locked back in place. Perhaps the lock failed or was not engaged properly, or the clutch failed before the anchor lock was in place.

They're lucky the anchor didn't let loose inside Active Pass, particularly while passing another ferry. The channel is narrow, with swift current, and has blind entries at both ends. BC Ferries has already had two major accidents in Active Pass. Three people were killed with the BC Ferry Queen of Victoria collided with the Soviet freighter Sergey Yesenin in 1970. And in 1979, the BC Ferry Queen of Alberni went aground there, incurring extensive damage but fortunately with no lives lost.

The picture below shows the two 550-foot Spirit-class ferries, the largest in the fleet, just inside the west entrance. The waterway barely has sufficient passing room. Donuts are out of the question.



We see plenty of pleasure craft where a windlass clutch is all that keeps the anchor properly stowed when underway. Securing the anchor is as important for pleasure craft as it is for larger ships. An anchor can come loose in rough water and deploy, or bash about on deck or into a windshield. We’ve heard stories of pleasure craft where anchors deployed accidentally and the rode fouled the propellers. This resulted in thousands of dollars in damage, in addition to putting the vessel and crew at risk.

We secure our anchor with a short length of half-inch line with a carabiner permanently tied on one end. Once the anchor is stowed, we clip the carabiner to the anchor's trip line eye, and tie the other end to a nearby cleat. This is a simple and efficient system, and we can easily tell at a glance from a distance if the anchor is secured.

One of the many advantages of boating in the Pacific Northwest is that we can cruise year-round. While many boaters here do winterize their boats, they typically don’t have to do as much work as northeast coast boaters. Seaworthy, the BoatUS Marine Insurance & Damage Avoidance Report, often carries stories of winter damage claims where ice and snow-covered boats either sunk at the dock or were seriously damaged. These boats typically are in the central and northeastern United States, where winters are cold and long with plenty of snow. In Who Needs to Winterize?, however, they report that state with the their highest number of freezing-related claims was California. Because winters aren’t as harsh, people don’t take winter preparations as seriously, so cold snaps and storms pose a greater risk.

The article provides tips for winterizing a boat and concludes with a recommendation to stow or remove biminis over the winter. The bimini provides no protection, and can be destroyed or age prematurely. This is good advice to follow no matter where you keep your boat. An extended bimini acts like a sail in strong winds. A few years back, a winter storm destroyed the bimini of the boat moored next to us at Elliott Bay Marina, and we’ve seen others damaged as well.

 

Seaworthy documents real claims and discusses how they might be prevented, in order to improve boating safety. Like Safety Digest, it is a publication every boater should read. Learning from the mistakes of others is much cheaper and safer than learning from your own.