Of course I know the difference.

As for ships heading to sea to ride out a bad blow, that depends on if
they can clearly get away from it or not, and exactly what kind and
design of ship it is that we are talking about.

My point stands - you won't find "ships" with rope being used for their
rode, and if you think that ships have not sought refuge from storms in
various harbors, you'd be wrong - many of them indeed do, sometimes
successfully, sometimes not.....

Many ships that have sought to ride out storms at sea have been unsuccessful
in doing so. Indeed, some of our more interesting scuba diving is done on
ships that have succumbed to the weather.

All things being equal I will choose to move a vessel out of harms way.
The issue becomes determining exactly which way I need to move, the speed
said vessel can achieve, the port(s) along the intended route in the event
that I am wrong about the path of said storm, and my computation (as
skipper) of the risk of moving the vessel .vs. staying in my existing
port.

This is NOT a simple calculation, and it is NEVER free of risk.

Hurricane Mitch got two ships that illustrate how you can be wrong with
EITHER decision - one which went to sea to face the storm rather than being
up against a lee shore in an uncertain harbor, and a second which reached
what it thought was a safe harbor and, while at dock, broke loose in the
storm. Both cases resulted in loss of both the vessel and life.

Does that make the skipper's decision wrong in each case? Not necessarily.

Mitch, as with many of these storms, did not go where people thought it
would. By the time it was clear WHERE it was going, escape was cut off.

Judging from the vessels that I have seen being put up in the "wrecked
boats" salvage yard around here that were sunk by Ivan, I'll simply note
that I've not yet seen one that appeared to have an all-chain rode in use.

Ivan got a number of vessels around here due to simple bad luck. They went
west from here thinking that this would put them on the west side of the
storm, which is where you want to be if you have a choice.

When it became clear that these skipper's decision was WRONG, and that they
were now sitting right under where it was going to come in, they had to
turn 180 and hightail it back east.

Not all of them made it.

Around here, getting caught on the east side of a storm with no safe
place to run to is VERY possible; the "pocket" formed by the panhandle
and peninsula is the absolute worst place in the world to get caught in a
serious blow as it is quite shallow and yet has no safe harbor available
from Appalachicola east to Steinhatchee - with many vessels unable to get
into Steinhatchee due to draft constraints.

Florida has a number of places where such errors in track can be relatively
minor in terms of degrees of diversion yet have profound consquences. The
Panhandle is one, and the west coast is another, given the usual path of
approach of storms in both areas.

I was in some ways lucky and in others it was fortunate that I did not
make a decision to run early - if I had I would have probably gone west as
did virtually everyone else, and given the maximum speed of my vessel I
would have been forced to attempt to secure her where she almost certainly
would not have survived. In this case my late decision to move - which was
only partially "voluntary" - turned out to be the saving grace, as I was
able to determine that EAST was the only possible direction I could run
under the circumstances.

It turned out to be a good call; she's undamaged, where many others with
skippers that have many, many years of experience beyond mine are total
losses.

--
--
Karl Denninger ) Internet Consultant & Kids Rights Activist
http://www.denninger.net My home on the net - links to everything I do!
http://scubaforum.org Your UNCENSORED place to talk about DIVING!
http://www.spamcuda.net SPAM FREE mailboxes - FREE FOR A LIMITED TIME!
http://genesis3.blogspot.com Musings Of A Sentient Mind


In article ,
JAXAshby wrote:


karl, you of all people really should know the difference between a boat and a
ship. you should also know (I bet you do) that a ship at anchor is under
constant positive watch and control. you should also know (I bet you do) that
in a really bad approaching blow, ships head to sea away from the storm.

From: (Karl Denninger)
Date: 10/3/2004 7:25 PM Eastern Daylight Time
Message-id: et


In article ,
JAXAshby wrote:


All chain rodes have been used and reasonably popular since long before
you started going to boat shows.

My boatshow going experience goes back to the 1950's. All chain rodes
didn't
start to become popular until the later 1980's and didn't really hit stride
until the mid 1990's.

Some people did it long ago, but most of them lost their boats early on.

Really?

That would include all the ships that have all chain rodes, right?

--
--
Karl Denninger ) Internet Consultant & Kids Rights
Activist
http://www.denninger.net My home on the net - links to everything I do!
http://scubaforum.org Your UNCENSORED place to talk about DIVING!
http://www.spamcuda.net SPAM FREE mailboxes - FREE FOR A
LIMITED TIME!
http://genesis3.blogspot.com Musings Of A Sentient Mind