Outfitting an Operational Facility

I was overly optomistic about how easy it would be to outfit my new powerboat so it would pass inspection as an "Operational Facility" for the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary. You may find my experience useful or maybe just amusing.

I ordered a brand new 24 foot Stingray, Model 240 LR, in January of 2003. Several friends advised me on what to order with the boat to help it qualify as an Operational Facility. While I was waiting for the boat to be built, I began thinking about the remaining equipment. Here are some of the items that seemed most important or caused me the most trouble.

AUXSAR Towing Rig. Short line with block is attached to one stern cleat. The Tow Line is fed through the block to the other stern cleat and the eye passed, via heaving line, to the towed vessel.       Advantages: (1) The length of the Tow Line can be easily adjusted. (2) The Tow Line can be easily released in an emergency; just uncleat and let it run free. (Some QEs are big on quick release.) (3) Reduced torque from the towed vessel when turning.       Disadvantage: (1) This places more stress on the towing vessel's cleats than the "conventional" bridle whose legs are more parallel to the towing line.

AUXSAR TOW RIG. The "Rope in a Bag" heaving line (shown here) works well if you wet the bag before throwing it. I keep this towing rig together in the mesh bag. The only tricky part of this design is determining the length of the line with the block (i.e. pulley). The lines that meet at the block have to make equal angles of 360 degrees when the tow line is "straight out", i.e parallel to the tow boat's centerline. Otherwise, the block won't be in the center. The length of this short line, from the cleat to the block, has to be D/(2sin60) approximately 0.577 D, where D is the distance between the stern cleats. If you believe that the angles must be equal, it is easy to calculate this length. If you don't assume the angles are equal, the calculation becomes a bit more difficult. (Try it.)

Commercial Skiff Hook. This is shown attached to the handle of my broom. Any pole with a threaded end will work. This little gadget is "magic." Tie the light line to your line and hook the eye of the vessel you wish to tow, boat or PWC. Just pull. The gadget will pass the line through the eye of the vessel and back to you. Now you tow with a double line and when you want to release, just untie one end of the line. It will run out to the towed vessel's eye, pop through, and you are unhooked. The gadget is sold as a tool to easily tie up to a mooring but it works great as a skiff hook. Thanks to Fred W. for showing me the idea. This gadget is only 10" long and weighs just a few ounces. Fred has a separate line and a heavy pole which won't fit on my boat. The rest of the picture shows a light line for PWCs or small boats and a skiff hook similar to the one advocated by Bob K. in Charleston. The main difference is that this has a safety catch so it won't come loose. Hopefully, you can release it when you get to the dock. In an emergency, you just release the carabineer and give the unit to the towed vessel. You have six feet of line to stand off when you release it. The shaft fits into a hole in the handle of my boat hook (not shown).

BRIDLE. I purchased a 25 foot, 3/8" braided nylon dock line with an eye splice from Boater's World (10% Auxiliary discount and credit on my Captain's Card account). I put an eye splice in the free end and tied a knot in the middle with a short loop of line in front. This loop goes through a float to a thimble in the loop. The closure of the thimble is whipped and sealed it with vinyl rope dip. Originally I used a 15 foot, 3/8" line (in picture) but this was not long enough. I now use that line for a second bridle in case I need to tow a boat with no center cleat.
TOW LINE. I now have 50 feet of 1/2" braided nylon line with eye splices in each end (thanks to Walter Spall). This is a great tow line for most boats. For PCs I have a second tow line, 40 feet of 3/8" braided nylon to which I attach my skiff hook. My first tow line was 25 feet of 3/8" braided nylon but this wasn't long enough and is now an extra dock line. Next I obtained 40 feet of 3/8" braided nylon. Before I had a chance to use it, Walter Spall gave me the fantastic tow line I now use. {Walter called my first tow line "Pat's clothesline." I knew 'God takes care of fools and angels'. I didn't know He would send Walter.}
HEAVING LINE. I made a MonkeyFist out of 25 feet of old line I had laying around, probably 1/4 inch cotton line. George Lazarou suggested that it would be better to use nylon since cotton may rot out in a few years. I made another MonkeyFist out of polypropylene and attached it to the throwable cushion. This line serves two purposes, a throwable line and a backup heaving line. I put a light aluminum caribiner on the end so it snaps into the eye of the tow line. I don't want a heavy snap hook on the heaving line.
SKIFF HOOK (or Kicker Hook). I made a hook using a modified version of the one recommended in the Pelorous and described on the District 7 web site. One minor modification was that I used machine screws to fasten the snap hook to the shaft instead of welding it. More importantly, I strongly disagree with the suggestion of having an open hook; I want it closed. The danger of the open hook coming loose is too great for me. However, I very much agree with the idea of NOT unhooking the snap hook in an open seaway. How are these reconciled?

The whole idea of the tow is to get the PWC to a dock or shallow water where the PWC is stabilized and can be safely unhooked. If this happens, you never unhook in a seaway. What is Plan B for the 1% of the time when this does not work? I have about 5 feet of line on the skiff hook which is attached to the tow line by a snap hook. Just manuever to within 5 feet of the PWC, unhook the short line and toss it to the PWC operator. Even if he keeps it, you only lost $5. Factoring in the 1% probability of that happening makes this a 50 cent gamble - well worth it in my opinion.

Here are several links to instructions I used for working with line. I consider these the best on the web (I searched through 50 links to find these).

Monkey Fist

Eye Splice - Braided Line

Eye Splice - 3 Strand Laid Line

Flags (Ensigns) and Signboards
The Stingray has no place for flag poles. On patrol with the Coast Guard Auxiliary, I need to display a US & a Patrol Ensign. Several Stingray owners and I have tried various arrangements (see below). I finally "bit the bullet" and screwed a bracket on the stern of my boat. (I don't like to put any more holes in the hull than absolutely necessary.) I used a bracket for a railing which is larger than the flag pole. I simply screwed a 2" long piece of railing to the end of the flag pole. The pole is held in place by two set screws in the bracket.
Several of us tried to use the metal flag pole shown in the fitting for the all-around light. We tried several ways to keep it in place. One attempt that looked promising was to modify a PVC adapter as shown. No luck. The vibration of the boat shakes it loose after about 30 minutes. The float allowed me to retrieve everything but several members have lost poles and the ensigns. I am surprised that the Stingray locking device does not come out.
Marine Service Center agreed to fasten my Patrol Signboards to the boat. They contacted Chris of Chris' Canvas in Georgetown. He recommmended using six suction cups and some bungie cords. I love the idea. I can probably lose 2 or 3 suction cups before I lose the signboards. So far they work fine. Kerry Williams has the same setup and reports that his works as well.

Signals, Lifejackets and some miscellaneous items
Everyone I know uses the Orion signal kit shown. The 'Beacon' for November 2003 reports that 10% of the flare guns made after the year 2000 are inoperatable. To insert a flare you must 'break' the breech by bending the handle down. The defective ones won't bend far enough to insert the flare. If yours is defective, return to Orion for a free replacement if yours was made after 2000. You can buy Type II PFDs in a package for a very reasonable price in almost any marine store. For the throwable, I put a piece of styrofoam on one handle so there will always be a loop showing for the man overboard (MOB) drill. I have 30 feet of polyrope with an aluminum caribiner to hook on a handle of the throwable if this needed. In a real MOB situation, I prefer to toss the throwable to the MOB immediately without a line. There is noway I can turn the boat in less than 30 feet so the line is useless, and possibly dangerous, in that situation. If the throwable is still onboard when we reach the MOB, the line can be attached quickly and tossed to the person. Good searchlights and floating flashlights are readily available at reasonable prices. In fact there are often sales on these items. I made my own toolkit and First Aid Kit with very little effort.

The Coast Guard Capacity plate is required by law and was easy to find. The Certificate of Compliance confused me (and several other people including the salesman and several experienced Auxiliarists). I finally looked at the Capacity plate more closely. It contains the Certificate of Compliance!

Pat made me get a placard describing how to make an emergency call on the radio. She wants this "in case you fall overboard and I have to call for help." I don't know if I am more shocked that she thinks I might fall overboard or that she is afraid to use the radio.

The MARPOL trash placard had a similar history. I did not see one on the boat and after looking at the ones for sale, I decided I didn't want a trash placard because it looked ugly. Boats under 26' are not required to have a trash placard. I really didn't want to weasel out on this but planned to argue against having one. By accident, when cleaning out some rainwater, I noticed that I have a placard in the head attached to the inside of the door frame, about 6 inches above the deck. Not really a "prominent place" but at least I have a thrash placard.

The Stingray anchor locker will only hold a Danforth anchor of 9 lbs or less. That is much lighter than I am used to. I attached 10' of 1/4" chain and 150' of 3/8" nylon, 3 strand laid line. There was no place to secure the bitter end, which I thought was a silly decision by Stingray. I bent a piece of the the aluminum stock left over from making my skiff hook and attached it to the end of my tow ring. The two ends come through the hull into the bottom of the anchor locker. The rode will be cleated above deck when anchoring but I did not to worry about tossing the rode over the side with the anchor by mistake. There are lots of stories of that happening.

I purchased a second anchor. District 7 requires a second anchor even though the Auxiliary form for Operational Facilities says this is optional. I got a small 1.5 kg (3 lb) grappling anchor and 100 feet of 1/16" line.

I bought a manual pump at Boater's World. I tried it out and could pump about 6 to 8 gallons per minute for short periods of time. My opinion on manual pumps is that these are convenient for some cleanup jobs but if you ever get into trouble, you better have a BIG BUCKET on board. I am sure my bucket works better than my manual pump (the biggest one at Boater's World). There is a nice theory about what to do if you ever get holed. Unhook your water intake line and put it in the bilge and let your motor pump you out. Has anyone EVER seen this done?

More Required Items

I ordered three fire extinguishers with the boat. If you have ever seen a boat on fire or the burned out hulk of a boat, you can't get too many fire extinguishers. One small B1 Class B is in a holder near the helm, one B1 Class B is just inside the storage locker in the passage way to the bow and one B3 Class C is an automatic system installed in the engine compartment with a readout light on the dash.

I made a deviation table very easily using the boat's magnetic compass and my Garmin GPS. Before GPS this chore was agony -- hours and hours of work and I am not convinced we every really got it right. Unfortunately, I found that Stingray put in my compass angled 6° off the lubber's line. The maximum 'real' deviation is also 6° so the total deviation is as much as 12°. Boo Stingray. The compass is very hard to get to in order to turn it or work on it.

I bought a loud-hailer on e-Bay for $30. Ed Wynoziak told me that a lot of them were being sold there. Seems to work fine.