Deck hardware and sleeping in toilets: how tough is it?

S

SnowTexan

New member
Well it happened again. It seems once every decade I am destined to sleep in a USFS pit toilet building. A potty shack. A latrine of divine engineering and exquisite execution. These venerable bastions of civility have more than twice saved my bacon, and last Friday was another such bacon saving. 2-3 Mph winds, they said...perhaps gusting to 5 mph. Clear to partly cloudy they said. Right.

About an hour to sundown I pulled into corral creek; hours from safety by water, and days by land. The wind was already approaching 10-15 and a rain/snow mix was coming down. I went ashore, gathered some wood and built a good fire. I cooked over the coals, put on a cup of tea, and noticed Miss Maria down at the dock bucking like a stolen pony with a howling wolf on her back. Well that made me want to cry right then and there for the old girl, but it got worse. The demons of the lake conjured their cliched washing machine, and Miss Maria’s thrashing continued. It became an outright beating as she struggled to free herself from the dock. Winds raged, water washed over the docks end, and I feared the deck hardware would not hold. Four fenders, four lines, and I realized
1. I was not sleeping on that boat safely
2. I don’t know j@ck squat about securing a boat in foul weather
3. I had removed my bivy sack from the boat and not put it back after it’s last adventure.

Well to keep this story from wandering let me just tell you, I can make a shelter and a fire anywhere With the right tools and under any conditions short of a hurricane. But why bother when there is a posh outhouse up the hill? I mean it has a roof, four walls, a locking door. Shoot it even has a bathroom. I cannot, even with my woodsy ways, manufacture such a quality shelter with a single poncho tarp and some 550 cord. I grabbed my sleeping bag and my safety gear, stuffed my pride in a pocket, and slept in that sucker until the wind let up in the wee hours. In that time I vowed to restock the boat with the bivy AND my 4 season tent for wilderness areas, to study the ways of making a boat secure like a new religion, and to ask the c-brats: just how much of a beating can that deck hardware take?

Thanks for any and all advice (other than “don’t go out in winter”. Clearly that won’t stick...)

Note: I had an immersion suit on all day, pfd, and my locator beacon. The boat did FANTASTIC in the water. Never felt in any danger of my own person or for the boat until I hitched it to the dock.


Nigel
 
Nigel,

Don't worry about Miss Maria. She is one tough girl. Most people underestimate the seaworthiness and toughness of a C-Dory vessel. Miss Maria has a top deck that is 3/4 inch thick with deck hardware that includes 5 through bolted SS cleats. She will be faithful to keep safe you safe and comfortable on the water for your lifetime!
 
Any Portty in a storm, I guess. Glad you and the boat are OK. Some excitement, eh?

Spring lines and fenders. Lots of them. And a fail-safe extra long bow line to a big tree on shore. I think your boat's cleats are probably not going to fail. I've been concerned about the sturdiness of some docks, however! I haven't been there in a couple of years, but I think that dock you were at is pretty sturdy. About 20 years ago, my brother and I spent a mostly sleepless night in a tent watching my CD-16 bounce around like a crazy cork at a park dock a little north of where you were. We were the only people there, so I had lines running everywhere to keep the boat secure without pounding itself to bits against the dock. At one point I seriously thought the boat might end up on top of the dock. I kept adjusting things to allow enough but not too much motion. All night I worried that the wind would change direction and necessitate major retying.

Those northerlies howling down the lake are really something. We were on the lake in January a half dozen years or so ago during a pretty good blow. Here's a shot from that trip - It's the Park Service boat trying to get to Stehekin.

Lake_Chelan_2013_088_Park_Service_boat.jpg
 
Love the outhouse part of the story. I probably would have stuck with the boat...but always hard to second guess (having never slept in an outhouse..)

I agree that these boats are mighty tough! It would take several thousand pounds to pull the cleats out. You made out better than some boats I know of under those conditions... Glad you are safely home...
 
Lake Chelan is a lively little pony, that's for sure.
I've read accounts of C-Dorys being deliberately lifted by their cleats by the factory.
 
I just posted another thread about the Beachcomber Marina on Vancouver island. The marina took a beating...from wind & water. So yeah, things can go "sideways" really quickly. Glad you made it safely. And yeah, I would not be above sleeping in an outhouse if I had to.
 
Glad you found a warm dry place. I feel for your dock line fears. I’ve spent far too many hours getting my lines just right...

Bathrooms are underrated as sleeping quarters! Here’s a pro tip - position your self directly under the hand dryer. When you get cold, that warm air sure feels good!

I spent a cold night in the Everglades City ranger station bathroom during a Watertribe race a few years ago. I was too tired to pull my tent out of my kayak - and the bathroom was WARM!
 
Glad you had a dock and can beach your boat to put up a tent. Up here in prince William sound there are no docks once you leave the harbor, and if you beach your boat to go ashore to put up a tent, your boat will really be beached due to the low tides. Not to mention being stranded with the bears. Only way we can get to shore is with a dingy which would be blown away in a good blow. I’m sticking with the boat. I try to find a cove somewhere and anchor. Even then I’ve had the anchor pulled by the wind. Good luck
 
Glad you are back and safe. You should be a writer. I must admit, I had a different vision of "miss Maria " as you described her (until I realized "she" was your boat. :)
Also, usually rooms with an on suite tend to be a bit more pricy. Sounds to me like you found a real deal.
by the way, I went out in the fog for the first time Saturday. (50 ft. visibility)
Made it to my favorite fishing spot to find 15 boats ahead of me.

Richard
 
Nigil, the first rule of survival is to use what you have. You did. As mentioned, these boats are built pretty stout. Builds your confidence in "Miss Maria" right?

Sure glad you are using and enjoying your boat.

Harvey
SleepyC:moon
 
NORO LIM":1f57i8tf said:
Spring lines and fenders. Lots of them. And a fail-safe extra long bow line to a big tree on shore.
Click to expand...

Nigel, enjoyed your story!

Re. securing dock lines in foul weather - Bill has some good advise here. If you have ever watched videos of boats being towed it is usually the snap when a line comes taught when something breaks. I noticed when I was on the USCGC Mackinaw they had something that kept constant pressure on the line used for towing(not sure how it worked).

Normally positioned dock lines only allow for limited up/down motion. If you leave them too slack the boat will move away from it then slam back into it. The spring lines transform a lot of the up/down motion into fore/aft motion while keeping the boat closer to the dock.

Elastic snubbers on your dock lines also absorb a lot of the shock. Nothing less than half inch quality lines in good repair. I stayed in a marina last summer and this was one of their rules.

I have also found it beneficial to bring a stern line from the off dock cleat across the boat to the dock cleat. This allows for more up/down motion while keeping the boat closer to the dock.

Weights can also be hung from the bottom of fenders to keep them from riding up and flipping over the gunwale.

Regards,

Rob
 
I always carried one of these Taylor Made Fender Cushions.
fender_cushions.png
I got the size that fit snuggly in my Alaska series dinghy and used it as a seat instead of the rigid board that came with the boat. (This also made flipping the dinghy upside down to store on the cabin roof much less likely to scratch the gel coat.) The cushion found multiple uses besides being a dinghy seat and boat fender. It was great for sitting on in the cockpit if you wanted to stay low and out of the wind.

Its most important work, however, was providing serious boat protection if rafting up with another boat or if tied to a dock in a bad weather. It won't roll and it tends not to ride up the way cylindrical fenders can.

I agree completely about using the offside stern cleat, and triangles are better than rectangles when it comes to dock lines. Especially in rough weather, you do not want short straight ties from boat to dock.

Bill
 
Totally agree with Bill, long lines are better. More room for stretch (read shock relief). Triangles are good. Try not to have all the lines out and not use all the cleats -- spread the load around on the boat.

And of course, the obvious, if at all possible, you want to be on the downwind,(lee) side of the dock.

Bill, what a great idea to use those fenders as seats in the inflatable. Thank you.

Harvey
SleepyC:moon
 
Bill great idea for the dinghy "seat" cushion.

Another trick to keep the boat off the dock is to drop an anchor either abeam, and tie to amid ships cleat (by window) or if you have 2 extra cleats on the bow (outboard, under the railing)--forward of the beam, and an take a second line to something on shore (or a buried anchor), to hold the boat well off the dock. We have two sets of dock lines: One is 5/16, and our "normal tie up lines". But we have 4 1/2" and even several 5/8" "Storm" dock lines. The normal lines can act as snubbers, as we leave the heavier lines slightly more slack. This takes some of the shock load off the heavier lines, and decreases stress. I have used the beam anchor on larger boats up to 62 feet. Also gives a way to pull off the dock if the wind tends to pin you down.
 
Lake Chelan. For those who don't know the lake, it is on the east side of the Cascade Mountains, north of Stevens Pass. It is a long, narrow mountain lake. It is very deep with fjord-like shores for much of its length. It is notorious for serious winds, particularly out of the north late in the day. A beautiful lake in a beautiful setting.

Here's a photo I took from my brother-in-law's plane:

Plane_Ride_Above_Lake_Chelan_02_09_018.jpg
 
50.5 Miles long, with 1/3 of the length of the lake's bottom below sea level. Max depth is 1500 feet and average is about 475 feet. The surface elevation is 1100 feet and fluctuates between that and 1079 feet with winter draw downs for irrigation and flood control. The lake is artificially elevated by 21 feet. It is the largest lake in the state of Washington with a volume of 4.6 cubic miles, the deepest in the state and third deepest in the USA.

Not only that but it is a beautiful lake, clear water, and great mountains. I enjoy it so much my middle daughter's middle name is Chelan.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

IMGP1872.thumb.jpg
 
Thank you all. I definitely have some confidence in the build quality of this boat that was previously only theoretical to me. Bob, I did consider just drifting in the middle of the lake, as the boat was much more comfortable in the rolly Polly zone than it was in the smash bang zone. Next time I will consider that anchor trick.

On my return trip to Manson a day later I stopped at deer point and talked to a couple of guys heading north in a 12 foot bass boat with a scoped coyote rifle, a few Kokanee rods, and about three cases of beer. They asked about the c-dory and were amazed people take them to Alaska from Seattle or offshore to fish. I said it’s a lot like going up Chelan in a Bass boat, only with a radio, a radar, gps, and more flotation. They kinda laughed but I noticed they turned back south after I shoved off... so some of those beers must have been full cans still!
 
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