Tornado of Memories

“Weather Where You Want” by Jason Y. Wood was a wonderful article.

In addition to Wood’s comments I would like to share how I make simple mistakes with electronics that are not the fault of the electronics, but ME.

As a boater who cruises in the Northeast I check the local weather for the obvious such as small craft warnings, sea heights, wind conditions, precipitation, fog, etc. I use a combination of local land weather reports, VHF weather reports, etc. The result is if conditions are improving or good I will move from a safe harbor and proceed out into the ocean to my destination. Sound like good seamanship? Nope. The reason is if you don’t know the weather forecast for your destination, you are leaving and heading into unexpected conditions. The weather at the port you leave from can be completely different from the weather that’s one or more hours away.

Next mistake that happens: Generally speaking boats generate wind noise, engine noise, and most annoying of all is hearing the noise of your VHF radio; after all, how many radio checks do you want to hear while fishing? What we all do all the time is stop the noise from the VHF radio by turning the volume down. Now you don’t hear the annoying transmissions from radio checks, or another boater talking about the great time he had two weeks ago and the list goes on. But then, out of the blue you have an emergency that could be as simple as having an engine that will not start, or I enjoyed your January Sightlines column on the Bertram raceboat White Tornado, it brought back a lot of memories from my racing days. I had a Cobia Racing Team boat with Mercurys and we did well in APBA OPC class. A friend of mine, Howard Weicer, who races OPC (Outboard Pleasure Craft) got an idea to run the Bahamas 500 in 1970. My girlfriend said, “Why don’t you run one of each brand of motor on the boat?” So we did just that. I had a Mercury and Howard had a Johnson. We borrowed a 27-foot Magnum rigged for ocean racing and a 120-horsepower Chrysler. We put it together with the Mercury in the middle. It wasn’t the fastest but it was strong and attracted a lot of attention when we arrived at Lucaya, Bahamas. As I remember we finished in the top 10 and won $4,000. One driver said we set a world record. I said, “No way!” He said, “Nobody would be crazy enough to ocean race with three different brands of engines.” Anyway we had fun and made a little money. Have a great day on the water! —Capt. Mike Rudderham

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