Boating Basics

Karasue

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Hi All,

My story is set along the Chesapeake Bay and my main character owns an old fishing boat she inherited from her father. I've been looking and having a hard time finding a place that gives me the basic need-to-knows about boats. What the different areas are called, how to dock, and the differences between a fishing boat and a yacht. If anyone is from the area or has experience with this kind of stuff I'd really appreciate answering a few questions and giving me some links where I can look.
 

frimble3

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Disclaimer: we always had boats when I was a kid, but nothing bigger than a 20 foot pleasure boat.
And, I'm totes on the wrong coast. Here's hoping this spurs others to correct me, add stuff.

'Old' fishing boat - has it been regularly maintained? And, I gather the father was a fisherman. Being his daughter, is she familiar with the boat and it's handling?

The differences between a fishing boat (presuming you mean a commercial fishing boat, and not 'a boat used for recreational fishing), and a yacht are many.
Fishing boat: has lots of large heavy nets, winches, a hold suitable for holding wet, dying fish. Minimal, spartan accommodations for the crew, no place for guests/passengers. A general smell of fish and diesel about the place. Built for work.
Yacht: has lots of fancy equipment and water toys. Minimal spartan accommodations for any crew, fancy, plushy accommodations for owners, guests. A general air of clean, shiny good-times. Built to impress.
I've seen workboat (fishboat, tugboat) conversions, usually on traditional wooden hulls, that make lovely private passenger boats or live-aboards, but generally of a more 'vintage' wood and brass look, than the spiffy modern white and metal look that screams 'yacht'. (Also, generally as expensive as buying new.)


Docking: no game for beginners - it's slow-moving maneuvering, because there are no brakes on a boat.
 

Marissa D

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If it's on the Chesapeake, it might be an oyster dragger or a crabbing boat. If it's a really old fishing boat, it might be a skipjack, which would be very cool (and beautiful--look up images online.)

It's probably easier to answer specific questions, if you want to shoot some out here.

(another lifelong recreational/sports boatie person here, sail and power.)
 

stephenf

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Hi
People have been using boats for centuries. Some of the basic technology used today can go back a long time and linked to local conditions and usage. Potentially, any boat can be used for fishing. I don't know Chesapeake Bay , but there will be local traditions that dictate, to some extent, the boat your character will have. Are we talking amateur rod fishing or commercial fishing?.I live on the coast. The fisherman use drift nets. The nets hang on floats. The fisherman don't pull all the net in, just a bit of it. take the fish, throw them in a box and drop net back in, and move to the next bit. The boats are small with just an outboard motor. The boats need to be small because they drag them up on the beach to store them. In a nutshell. I would not worry too much about the complexities of boats, just research the local boats and usage.
 
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Murffy

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My grandparents used to own a 25' ChrisCraft with inboard motor. That took some getting used to. Unlike with an outboard, you can't steer unless you're moving and steering is sluggish when moving slow. It's easy to over-steer a boat like that. If you wait for the boat to be pointed in the direction you want before you straighten the wheel, the boat's turning momentum will carry it beyond that point. You have to anticipate and straighten the wheel before you're pointed in the right direction. This can make for many amusing/frustrating moments when newbies are trying to dock the boat or maneuver through a narrow, slow-going channel.
 

lonestarlibrarian

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What year? Is it set in the modern day, or is it historical?

I went to the Calvert County Marine Museum and took a ton of photos of their models. If something sounds interesting, you can probably take some keywords and makes some good progress on Google.

Some snippets from the label text--

"Crabbin' Season: Spring, Summer, and Fall. Crabbing became lucrative during the late 1800's with improved refrigeration and ice-making and the spread of steamboat and rail transportation. The highly perishable blue crab could now be sold to restaurants and seafood markets, or sent to crab houses to be steamed and picked for the crab meat.

Local watermen use several methods to harvest Callinectus sapidus, including trotlines, crab pots, and dip nets. Trotlines, the oldest commercial method, are long lines that are baited at intervals and laid on the bottom. The line is raised end-to-end, and crabs clinging to the bait are dipped up with a net. Wire crab pots, introduced by a Virginia waterman in 1938, are now used in the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River. On the Patuxent, crabbers must use trotlines.

Watermen also dip "soft crabs" from the shallow waters along the shoreline. Soft crabs, so named for shedding their hard shells, are considered among the finest of seafood delicacies.

"I bought a skiff from Kennedy Grover for $18.00. Paid for it in two days catching peelers which sold for 12 cents a dozen. Didn't even bother to save soft crabs because they wouldn't survive. Only kept peelers." --Joseph Gross, Solomons, 1982.

Model of Brogan. Brogans were large log canoes, built of five or seven large logs pinned together. The brogan's two raking masts carried a simple sail plan with jib, foresail, and mainsail. Watermen built brogans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; they made excellent platforms for the early patent tongs.

Hooper Island Draketail. Hooper Island draketails made a popular crabbing and oystering boat in the early years of the twentieth century. The boat has a cross-planked, V-bottom hull. Its distinctive feature is its round reverse-rake stern, called a draketail, ducktail, dovetail, or torpedo stern.

Chesapeake Bay Skipjack (under construction)

Potomac River Doryboat Doris C. Potomac River doryboats were widely used in Southern Maryland for oystering and crabbing. Among bay craft, doryboats were unusual in that they were planked fore and aft, rather than with the cross-planked construction typical of deadrise (V-bottom) boats in the region. The original dories were sailing vessels, having two masts, but most were converted to power in the early years of the twentieth century. The Doris C. was built by John Long of St. Mary's County around 1920.

BugeyeLizzie J. Cox Model. Built by John Branford of Fishing Island, Maryland, in 1905, the Lizzie J. Cox was a nine-log, 67-foot bugeye.

There were also models of schooners, sloops, but like the bugeye, you're getting into watercraft of significant size by that point.

Life changed slowly along the Patuxent River from the 1820's through the Great Depression of the 1930's. But change it did.

Tobacco farming remained the economic mainstay, but after 1865, seafood harvesting and processing rapidly grew in importance. And while locals continued relying on sailing craft to get their goods to market, steamboats increasingly linked the isolated communities along the Patuxent to the outside world.
 

Enlightened

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Lots of questions you need to formulate and answer, such as:

1. Is the boat recreational or commercial? What fish exist in the Chesapeake, if the new owner uses it to fish?
http://dnr.maryland.gov/fisheries/pages/regulations/index.aspx
http://www.mrc.virginia.gov/recreational.shtm

2. What is the actual boat? A fishing boat can be any boat.

3. What do the characters need to know of engine repair (if it has an engine, and if it breaks down) and radio codes for rescue operations.

4. Local weather patterns when the story takes place on the boat. Weather changes every month.

It sounds like you are concerned with just phraseology of boating terms, such as mooring or tacking.
 
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DrDoc

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The US Coast Guard coordinates a group called The Power Squadron, a group of boat owners interested in obtaining CG certification and training. For nautical terms, try this <http://www.nauticed.org/sailingterms> as a starter.

For Chesapeake oyster boats, here is an image of one of the basic ones <http://www.chesapeakequarterly.net/v01n3/main/>

If you main character had a normal relationship with her father then she at least know how to start the boat, and how to tie and untie it from the dock. She may also know something about moving boat courtesy and safety, such as sail boats have the right of way, but heavy tankers have the 'right of weight'; be aware of your wake's affect on nearby, smaller craft, and during night navigation remembering "red on right returning" referring to the red and green running lights of ships at night.

It's a beautiful area, if not as beautiful as it once was.

Enjoy
DrDoc
 

WeaselFire

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Chapman's Piloting book. Should be in your local library.

Jeff
 

Duncan J Macdonald

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<snip>

If you main character had a normal relationship with her father then she at least know how to start the boat, and how to tie and untie it from the dock. She may also know something about moving boat courtesy and safety, such as sail boats have the right of way, but heavy tankers have the 'right of weight'; be aware of your wake's affect on nearby, smaller craft, and during night navigation remembering "red on right returning" referring to the red and green running lights of ships at night.

Ummm... Red Right Returning actually refers to the color of the channel buoys. If you keep the Red buoys to your right when returning from open water, then you are in the marked channel. This US Coast Guard Publication has some very nice diagrams.

If I see another boat's red running light off my starboard side, that means I'm seeing their forward port side. That makes me the burdened vessel, and am required to give way. From the same link:

"Whenever you see a red navigation light from another vessel, give way. It is the stand-on vessel. According to the Rules of the Road, it has the right of way. If you see both the red and green sidelights of another boat, it is coming straight toward you. You should take action to change course in order to avoid a collision."
 
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