Boat bites, on the boat (part 2)

By: Nat Manning

Now that we arrive at the boat, the danger really begins. The deck of a sailboat is a virtual cornucopia of hazards that come in all colors and flavors. Hey, you remember “cleats”? Well, they are generally sprayed onto a sailboat and then bolted down where-ever they land. For fun, add some steel wires with barbs called “meat hooks”. Cotter pins, bolts, clamps, toe rails, and various sundry items are placed throughout for you to conveniently hurt yourself.

So far we have focused on doing damage to your knees and feet. It just wouldn’t be right to ignore the other important and equally sensitive areas of your body. Let’s take a minute to talk about fun with rope.

There is a lot of rope available on a sailboat for you to hurt yourself with. Sailors call this stuff “line” by the way. The key to hurting yourself with rope is for it to have a lot of force attached to one or both ends of it. The first technique is one that you can all practice. Take the rope (line) and hold it tightly in your hand as the load comes onto the other end. As the rope travels through your tightly clenched fist rapidly, temperatures will suddenly go from ambient to over thirteen thousand degrees. The smell of burning flesh should be enough, but you just have to look at the raw meat that used to be your palm. Imagine how much fun simple chores are going to be for the next week or so. There are other ways of having fun with rope, but require more finesse to accomplish. Step in a coil in the rope just before it comes under load and you get to travel to places aboard that you would otherwise never visit, like halfway up the mast. Sometimes injury can be accomplished more simply by pulling very hard on the rope when the load suddenly comes off the naughty strip of nylon braid. As you advance to more sophisticated methods of injuring yourself, try holding a rope as it enters a block or runs under the wing of a cleat!

Bimini tops and hard tops are strategically located for you to crack your head on, but to bring up a really nice knot, things called “booms” are readily available for your use in hurting yourself. They are heavy wood or aluminum horizontal posts that swing back and forth across the boat, teaching you that “duck” has nothing to do with a migratory water foul. This is a lesson that has to be learned at least once per day.

Going down into the cabins below, not every part of your body is sore or damaged yet. Not to worry, boat designers have thought of everything. The “ceilings” of the cabins are built slightly shorter than the average person. This causes you to bend your head slightly forward. This is a clever set up that casts your vision downward. With you looking downward, beams are placed at intervals along the ceiling close enough together to provide generous opportunity yet far enough apart to allow you to achieve maximum speed before knocking part of your scalp off.

Boat designers have finished all of this off with the strategic assistance of inertia. Down below, the motion of the vessel is not detectable visually. This results in the tendency to fall down with unexpected motions of the boat. Rather than just fall down, lots of counters, benches, table corners, etc have been provided to cause bruises in all the places that haven’t been already addressed. The next time you see a sailor look for the ‘boat bites’. Just because you don’t see them, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t there.

In conclusion, I would like to thank everyone who assisted me by injuring themselves on and around boats. I finish this scientific study as I nurse my bruises and scrapes from my last experience aboard.

Filed Under: Nat's slip

Tags: adventure • gatherings • sailing