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Around the World of Sailing
18 April 2001
This weeks features:
Finish Line
The US Coast Guard's 9th districts maintains 2679 federal aids to
navigation and regulates 3016 private aids to navigation. These
5695 aids are within the Great Lakes. 1733 are floating aids
which are pulled out in the fall and replaced in the spring.
37% are replaced with winter markers.
Watery World News
Watery World News is dedicated to our watery planet and the
things that people do on the water other than sail. Whether it's
tug-barges, kayaks, rowing shells, PWC's, swimming or other
water activities Watery World News will provide the sailing
audience of ATWOS a different look at the world around them.
Watery World News of 20 December, 2000 reported on a
possible banning of PWC's from Indiana Dunes National Lake
Shore located on Lake Michigan.
Currently 66 of 87 national parks ban PWC's. A recent
agreement reached in court states that unless PWC's can be
proved to not harm the environment they will be banned from the
remaining 21 parks by September of 2002.
The Personal Watercraft Industry Association feels
improvements to make PWC's cleaner and quieter will convince
authorities to allow PWC's in the 21 parks.
Water Level Update
Here is an informative feature that used to appear in the
Friday edition of Sailing Daily. Below you'll find water
level info that pertains to Lake Michigan and Huron.
For information on other lakes see:
http://huron.lre.usace.army.mil/levels/weekly.html
Reference Point Inches below Chart Datum - 9
Difference From 6 March 2001 0
Difference from 6 April 2000 -5
Difference from long-term Avg. -26
Difference from Record High -57
Difference from Record Low +87
Forecast for 6 May 2001 +3
Rowing Reporter
The Rowing Reporter is a weekly column of commentary
and observations by Ike Stephenson, Marine Informationist.
It concentrates on the home waters of Around the World of
Sailing Lake Michigan and Muskegon Lake.
**********
Rain and Lake Levels
Last Wednesday, Muskegon received the first spring rain.
A rather entertaining storm complete with thunder, lightning
and hard rain that cut down visibility.
Obviously rain is one way that lake levels can be
raised. The question is how much affect does a rain like this
have?
Through the Army Corps of Engineers you can review
daily lake levels at different great lakes stations. Ludington
MI is the closest station to Muskegon.
After the rain the water level at Ludington rose .19
inches. At Holland to the south is rose .07 inches.
Since then despite only .06 inches of rain, the lake
level has managed to stay up. As of Monday the Lake Michigan
was up .2 inches from before last week's rain.
So in this case it seems that 2.6 inches of rain gives
.2 inches of benefit in lake level.
***********
Tall Ships Notebook
Thursday evening, April 12th, at the Muskegon Museum of
Art photographer Thad Koza presented an informative slide show
and commentary. His talk concerned Tall Ships expected to be
in Muskegon August 9-13. For a current list of ships see:
http://www.sailmuskegon.com/ships
When you hear the phrase tall ship don't let your mind
default to multiple masts and lengths measured in 100's. A
tall ship can be any vessel above 30 feet of length at the
waterline with 1/2 of her ships crew being age 15-25 sail
trainees.
When aloft on any sail training tall ship the trainees
are required to wear a safety harness. Not so in days past.
Following are notes on a few of the vessels that are
expected.
The Concordia, a 188 barquentine, is literally a
floating schoolhouse. Its deckhouses are fully operational
classrooms.
The Denis Sullivan, which hails from Milwaukee
Wisconsin, was named after an early 20th century schooner
sailor. Her mast timbers are also from Wisconsin. They came
from an old growth forest in one of the Indian reservations in
that state.
The Cape Rose is a 73-foot schooner, which is now
sailing after several years on the hard. Plans include a
sailing to wellness program for women.
The Norfolk Rebel is an early candidate for most unique
ship. Styled as a tugantine, the ship features 2 masts and
enough horsepower to work as a tug. Her deckhouse looks like
the shelter you'd find on any tug.
The slides that were shown put further flesh on the
Rebel's unique image. She was shown under sail... carrying an
asymmetrical spinnaker.
This vessel even rates a song. Lyrics to the song are
at: http://www.southernbranch.com/Tanners/Rebel.html
*******************
From the "My idea's better" file
Recently, a new one-design class the Inter Club 24 made
its debut in the Caribbean. While the class is new, the boat
isn't totally so.
The IC 24 is created by taking a J 24 hull, removing
it's deck and putting a new Melges 24 style deck on.
This creation ranks as one of the oddest in the battle
to increase participation. Constructing a boat with ideas
taken from two other successful classes (J24 & Melges24) would
seem to be one step too clever.
However, let's remember that in addition to loving
water sailors always have a better idea than their fellow
sailor!
************
NE Buster
Muskegon Lake experienced it's first buster of the
spring. With the lake's shape, winds from the east and north
can create havoc. Since things often bust, docklines, anchor
chains etc. I call these occasions busters.
The lake gets frothed up with Whitecaps. There is
heavy wind waving and wind streaking of the water. Moored
boats pitch with bow and stern exchanging high and low
positions.
The beach between Sappi Paper and the Cottage Grove
boat ramp took on the look of Pere Marquette beach on Lake
Michigan. There's enough fetch for waves to whitecap, crest
and then roll into the beach. That's a little lake in big lake
mode.
Muskegon experienced 10 to 20 knots winds with
regularity. Gusts went as high as 32 knots. Perhaps not the
gale (= 35 knots and up) forecasted, but amply ugly on Muskegon
Lake.
The buster came courtesy of a pressure gradient that
began at 1032 millibars over western Lake Superior and descended
to 1012 across eastern Lake Erie and Western Lake Ontario.
Heaviest winds were from eastern Lake Michigan to western Lake
Erie.
Happy to report that this early in the season there are
not a lot of candidates for the buster to strike. One down,
several more to go.
*************
Rowing Reporter Interactive- The Rowing reporter seeks
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ike@torresen.com. If readers write we can start a dialogue about
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