Deckhand 101, Lessons on the Fantail

Line handling is a skill that takes a lot of practice.  It’s an age old tradition for a new deckhand to receive instruction on the fantail from the Captain, Mate, or senior deckhand in the finer points of line throwing and “lettin’er go”.  It doesn’t look all that  different now than it did more than [...]

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Seasources.net

When it comes to mariner education and license upgrades, I don’t make a habit of promoting one product or another since they all pretty much do what they need to do albeit for a stiff price at times.  I came across a license prep website a few years back and took a liking to it [...]

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The “Near Miss” or, how I learned to live with the recreational boater.

“Near miss” From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia A near miss is an unplanned event that did not result in injury, illness, or damage – but had the potential to do so. Only a fortunate break in the chain of events prevented an injury, fatality or damage. Although human error is commonly an initiating event, a [...]

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Tugboat Etiquette for the New Hire

It’s a regular occurrence, we take the novices aboard and get them oriented.   We show them the pointy end (the bow), the port side rail, the starboard side rail,  and then the not so pointy end (the fantail) all the while extolling the virtues of remaining within those boundaries, no swimming without authorization if you [...]

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The Deck Chronicles; The Fine Art of Bitchin’

Since long before the days of hand held radios and modern twin screw tugs, the deckhand has been responsible for the “first and last twenty feet” of the job.  This means that he was relied upon to give direction to the tug using a small police whistle or use hand signals to safely guide the [...]

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No Really, This is No S**t

The difference between a sea story and a fairy tale is said to be that a fairy tale always starts with “Once upon a time”, and a sea story always begins with  “No really, this is no s**t”.  It’s no secret that fishermen are known to exaggerate just a bit when talking about the one [...]

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