FAT ADVICE for Heavy WEATHER

As a clumsy Chicago teenager, I worked at Blatt’s restaurant on Michigan Avenue—the cheese blintzes were to die for. One day Nat, the manager, asked me to replace a fluorescent bulb. I broke the first one attempting to withdraw it from its skinny carton, and I broke the second one while attempting to insert it while standing on the counter. Not good. This gave me a lifelong respect for the fragility of fluorescent tubes.

A few years later, while still a teenager and sailing with my wife-to-be, Carolyn, I came across another fluorescent tube, this one in the Cozumel Channel between Yucatan and Cuba. It was dancing on the face of a giant breaking wave during a full gale.

The unexpected sight of it in such a bizarre, storm-tossed circumstance blew my mind. It seemed impossible that something that fragile could survive such monstrous forces. Thus began my lifelong education in heavy-weather sailing.

Let’s stick with fluorescent tubes for a moment. If you toss one into the sea, it immediately lays sideways to the wind and waves, and rolls. But let’s say you attach a short piece of iron rebar lengthwise to the tube with some rubber bands; now it won’t roll if the waves aren’t too big.

Fine. Most well-designed sailboats with keels will fend for themselves for years if they break loose from their mooring.

However, if the seas build, eventually our fluorescenttube-with-a-keel will tumble; the weight of its keel alone isn’t sufficient to prevent it from rolling over while beam to the waves. However, if you hold the tube in line with the waves so that the waves aren’t striking on the beam but rather on the bow or stern, immediately the keel can work and the fluorescent tube is in a very stable position, even if the wind and seas increase dramatically. And best of all, the tube doesn’t have to be directly into the wind or away from it; 45 degrees to either side is fine. Only lying broadside to the seas is bad.

That’s it. That’s 90 percent of what we need to know about storm management. The rest is just details.

When Less Is More If you daysail your boat, chances are you drive an automobile to the marina. If you’re a prudent driver, you won’t do this if the car has no brakes or, say, another malfunction like a stuck gas pedal. It should be the same with sailing: If you

A dependable windvane that can handle big wind and waves is more than a convenience, it’s a key piece of safety gear because it helps the crew remain rested. Tucking in a reef before things get sporty (above) is prudent seamanship.