{"id":43921,"date":"2017-11-20T22:35:24","date_gmt":"2017-11-21T03:35:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/?p=43921"},"modified":"2023-05-06T17:43:03","modified_gmt":"2023-05-06T21:43:03","slug":"turkey-tie-ups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/turkey-tie-ups\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkey Tie-Ups"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"Cap'n <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n Done properly, a raft-up can safely accommodate a variety of boats and crews.<\/span>\n Carolyn Goodlander<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n\n

May I speak bluntly? Of course I can. If you\u2019re going to gather together a hundred or so sailors on a dozen boats on Thanksgiving Day with the specific goals of 1) eating too much, 2) drinking too much and 3) laughing too much, then you best do it properly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Of course, there is the option not to raft up. This makes sense from a seamanship perspective, but not from a social one. I love a large gathering where I endlessly stroll from sailboat to powerboat to sea-spider racing trimaran, not only to check out the various vessels and their gear but to run into enclaves of nudists, animal-rights advocates, parents, herbologists, gaffers, kitesurfers, home-schoolers, scuba divers, Frenchies, revolutionaries, bread-makers, wood butchers, anarchists and writers, all tucked into aft cabins and forepeaks, on swim ladders, sitting on booms, gathered in cockpits and just strung out on happiness along the side decks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Christmas has grown too commercial, and New Year\u2019s is amateur night for folk who don\u2019t know how to drink. While I like the edginess of Halloween, there are too many razor blades in apples for me to relax. Thanksgiving, however, is just a glorious food orgy of good vibes. I look forward to the gluttony all year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

OK, that\u2019s my party-animal side. The other part of my personality is the technical sailor who knows that if you want to get stupid with lots of people, you\u2019d best think it through prior to playing macram\u00e9 with the actual boats. Let\u2019s get some basics down: Each vessel should tie four fenders on each side, have its anchor gear ready to deploy, and have four nylon dock lines with chafe protection ready to run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Why should all vessels have their anchors ready when most will not need to deploy them? So the raft can break up at a moment\u2019s notice, at anyone\u2019s request. Basically, that\u2019s our rule. Anyone can raft up, but only if they can cast off in a heartbeat. Obviously, this means each vessel has to have a designated skipper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Why nylon line? It makes a huge difference in noise compared to Dacron. Plus nylon dock lines will be much kinder when led over varnished cap rails. We love varnish and have no desire to kill it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Why so many fenders? Obviously, all the boats are going to have to tie up to each other, so the more fenders, the merrier. In addition, having a giant tri, two catamarans, a schooner, three ketches, two yawls, and a dozen sloops and cutters rafted together draws attention. Invariably, at some point a 60-foot Donzi will roar by at high speed, see the raft-up and decide to check it out, dude! The rafted vessels must be ready to handle a sizable broadside wake in addition to any squalls that might blow through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s where it gets a little delicate. Chances are that there are going to be boats with various sorts of gear and skippers with various levels of expertise. Thus, well before the event, you need to pick the proper center boat. This boat needs to have a good anchor, rode and windlass, as well as a nonintoxicated, nonstoned skipper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

This boat should arrive early (perhaps even the day before), in a spot with plenty of room if the wind should shift, and put out at least 8-to-1 scope for its anchor. Why so much? We\u2019ll get to that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

In our annual Thanksgiving raft-ups in the U.S. Virgin Islands, we used the schooners Liberty or Cassiopeia, or Capt. Dave Dostal\u2019s lovely 56-foot yawl Rob Roy. In a pinch, we\u2019d go with Lon Munsey\u2019s Flying Circus, even if hanging off a wooden vessel more than 100 years old was a bit daunting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Next we\u2019d pick a few smaller vessels, say Thatcher Lord\u2019s yawl Trinka and Larry Best\u2019s graceful U.S. Coast Guard Academy yawl Osprey, for our wing boats rather than have these lovely boats raft alongside the center vessel. To begin the raft-up, we liked having all the boats gather around noon. Since we were doing this in the U.S. Virgins, chances were very good that the wind would be from 112 degrees to 118 degrees and not falter. Predictable conditions are a real plus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

The larger boats (without the best gear) rafted on each side of the center boat. In theory, four vessels would raft up to the center boat, two on each side. At that point, the wing boats deployed anchors 45 degrees from the raft-up, dug them in, drifted back and then pulled themselves sideways into the raft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"cap'n <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n
\n Besides carrying ample fenders and stout dock lines to any holiday rendezvous, the Cap’n recommends a quick return to the food line before someone else gets the goodies.<\/span>\n Carolynn Goodlander<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n\n

With the wing boats tied in place, we\u2019d have a raft of seven boats hanging on three large anchors \u2014 one directly forward, and the other two spread out at 45-degree angles. We would adjust the rodes so the center boat always took up first and then the side boats. This meant we not only had a very wide and stable stance, but the vessels got slightly pulled apart in any sizable gusts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

This approach to a raft-up is a bit tricky to imagine, but it is easy to do. In fact, with a seven-boat raft and a steady wind, it\u2019s possible to stay rafted together for days without getting any pressure on your fenders if you\u2019re OK with a long step in between vessels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Needless to say, when tying off the boats, you have to look aloft because masts must be staggered. I\u2019ve been on rafts that resulted in broken spreaders and entangled rigging because the locations of the rigs weren\u2019t properly considered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

At night, in the Caribbean at least, sometimes the trade winds die for a couple of hours after midnight. Thus our center boat often deployed a light aluminum Fortress anchor off the stern to keep the whole raft from spinning. (It would be deployed after everything else was in place so it couldn\u2019t get caught in a prop while maneuvering.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

The beautiful part of this arrangement was that if a large, violent squall was sighted, within moments the boats on either side of the center boat could cast off and the wing boats could dump out more scope, while the center boat reduced its scope from 8-to-1 to 6-to-1. Instantly, you had three smaller rafts, equally and safely spaced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

What if more people and boats show up? Here, again, this arrangement shines. If the wing boat casts off its springs and aft line from the boat closer to the center of the raft, both boats can pull away from each other by easing their bow lines. The new arrival, meanwhile, can pull into the just-created \u201cslip\u201d between the vessels as easy as pie (pumpkin is my fave, although I love blueberry and apple too).<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Any multifreaks or yacht racers who might show up at the last minute can temporarily hang off the side boats because their vessels are usually light in weight and won\u2019t stay long. (Multifreaks, I should explain, are multihull speedsters, folks who refer to our monohulls as lead mines or sea slugs. Yes, we seek revenge by taunting, \u201cI\u2019m not sure I want to go offshore in any vessel that needs to be stamped \u2018This side up\u2019 at the factory!\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

When rafting, dinghies can be a problem, especially when the motherships have outboard rudders, boomkins and self-steering vanes, the latter of which don\u2019t like to be tapped even slightly, let alone have a Boston Whaler get caught under them during a large wake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

One solution, if someone is just stopping by, is to allow the \u201cSure, we\u2019ll have a beer\u201d speedboat to drift aft on a very long painter. This can work fine or end in disaster, depending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

A safer solution is to anchor a dinghy astern and off to one side of the raft-up. Since everyone will be swimming throughout the day anyway, direct all extra dinghies there, especially rigid ones with iffy rub rails. (There\u2019s always a teenager in the water who will happily swim a dinghy back if you don\u2019t want to get wet.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Another factor to consider is landlubbers. Since we did our Turkey Day raft-ups on St. John, many of our best friends used to be intelligent \u2014 oops, I mean used to be sailors \u2014 and have now swallowed the hook. So we liked locations convenient to a beach so we could ferry these folks back and forth at predetermined times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

We used to do this in the national park until it installed for-profit moorings and nixed the practice. After that, we gathered in Round Bay, on St. John\u2019s East End, which was hassle-free, close to a number of beaches, and didn\u2019t get a wind swirl or backwind during our normal trade-wind conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Now, a bit of advice once the food arrives: Don\u2019t get lax and allow conversation to distract you. Wolf down your meal and immediately tack back into the crowd for seconds, thirds and fourths. If you don\u2019t make your move quickly, there is a danger you\u2019ll get slowed up by the gluttons. Yes, you can use your elbows and hips on your fellow sailors, just go easy on any elderly guests or crawling infants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

If your tummy hurts the following day and there are no scratches on your \u00adtopsides \u2014 you did it right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\u2013 \u2013 \u2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

The Goodlanders spent this past \u00adtropical-storm season in Grenada, where on Thanksgiving Day, they hoped to give thanks for having survived hurricane season, and to say a prayer for all their less fortunate cruising buddies.<\/i><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cap\u2019n Fatty shares the joy of sharing a feast with a raft up in the islands in this classic Thanksgiving tale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33154,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"BS_author_type":"BS_author_is_guest","BS_guest_author_name":"Cap'n Fatty Goodlander","BS_guest_author_url":"","hydra_display_date":"20171120","hydra_display_updated":false,"_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":"162","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"If you\u2019re going to gather together a hundred or so sailors on a dozen boats on Thanksgiving Day, then you best do it properly.","_yoast_wpseo_title":"Turkey Tie-Ups %%sep%% %%sitename%%","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","arc_story_id":"3R5HQT2KOKB3KL5H7IIF3JWUOU","arc_website_url":"turkey-tie-ups\/","custom_permalink":"turkey-tie-ups\/","arc_subtype":"no-sidebar","arc_exclude_from_feeds":false,"sponsored":false,"sponsored_label":"Sponsored Content","sponsored_display_label":false,"sponsored_image":0,"post_right_rail":true,"post_right_rail_ad_1":true,"post_right_rail_ad_2":true,"post_right_rail_ad_3":false,"post_right_rail_ad_4":false,"post_right_rail_recirc":true,"fixed_anchor_ad":true,"post_top_ad":true,"post_off_ramp":true,"post_taboola":false,"labels":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[162],"tags":[483,198,205,348],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43921"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cruisingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}