At the MTOA Rendevouz in St Augustine, Fla. this spring one couple had to leave due to a family emergency. Since they had come on their boat the problem of getting it home arose. Fortunately all worked out and someone totally unfamiliar with their boat ran the boat home for them. This got me to thinking of such a problem as THE WIFE and I are now making much longer cruises (up to several thousand miles round trip). I have had CCRIDER 18yrs and have 9, count them, 9 loose-leaf volumes covering every piece of equipment and system on the boat. There dozens of wiring diagrams and notes on how I did repairs .

SCHEDULE  1. A series of things to be done or of events to occur at or during a particular time or period. 2. A timetable. 3. To plan for a certain date.

When I give a presentation to a boating group I often mention that in our travels we do not have a schedule. And, we are sticking to it!! We are fortunate to be in a position to both establish and abide by this credo. I go on to say that, by far, a schedule is the most dangerous thing that one may have on a boat, I should add, an aircraft, as well. (I used to do a lot of flying with friends.) The last few years of cruising have been done sans schedule and it has been both exhilarating and SAFE. In the “old days” when we were working and had to be back at work “Monday” or whenever, we did some things that were not, shall we say prudent?!!! I don’t think that I need to go through the litany as we have all fallen into those traps. Of course, more often than not, we were “lucky” and nothing untoward occurred, but when it did________!!!!

For C C RIDER (Revised July, 2003)

A. MOORING:

Use chafing gear on boat end of lines whenever possible. Pull the boat a foot or so further away from the dock, first removing the gang plank. When setting the lines have the same sag in the lines so that one does not tighten with no strain on its sister line (s).

Extra lines and chafing gear are located in the lazarette and in the boat storage closet on the dock. In the lazarette the lines are on the forward bulkhead. The chafing gear is just aft of the port rudder stock. This gear is short links of red hose and black hose. The split chafing gear is for the two anchor lines in the event the anchors are used. If C C Rider is at its home dock, the

lines to double and add are already attached to the pilings.

Published in PASSAGEMAKER magazine

On a recent multi thousand-mile trip up the Tombigbee and Tennessee River System, we found virtually every boat tied with the "eye" of the dock lines on the boat and the bitter end on the dock. This results in the dock being tied firmly to the boat! By the way, we see a lot of this on the coasts but not as much as we saw on the rivers, where it seems to be universal. I hasten to add that I learned the same way.

Having acquired my first large boat in the oil patch I was quickly "corrected" by a commercial boat captain. I then began to take cognizance of how shrimp boats and the professionals tie up oilfield boats. In trying to discern exactly why so many boaters do this, I came to the conclusion (quite possibly erroneously) that it is probably a hold over from starting to boat on small boats, i.e. runabouts and skiffs that have the dock lines made-up to the boat. Upon graduating to "yachts" this habit transfers. So, what difference does it make, you ask?