Welcome to CaptnMike’s World!
Captnmike
Search Captnmike
-
Useful Articles and Skills
- 21st Century Aids to Navigation
- Crew Class Resources
- Double Constrictor Knot – Quick Temporary Rope Whipping
- How to tie a Bowline with your left hand – Updated
- How to tie a Cleat
- How to Tie Your Boat to a Dock that has a Bull Rail
- Marine Rules of the Road
- Navigators Piloting and Charting Reference Card
- Quick and Secure Rope Whipping
- Spar Hitch Fender Knot
- Towboat Hitch / Capstan Hitch – How to use your winch as a cleat
Most Popular Articles Recently Viewed
- Video: Four and a Half Minutes of French Lighthouses in Terrifying Storms
- TVMDC – Practice – Correcting and un-correcting the compass
- Round Turn and Two Half Hitches
- Mike’s Quick Rope Whipping
- Making Pelican Hook Lanyards & Key Fobs
- How to Tie Your Boat to a Dock that has a Bull Rail – Part 1
- Washing Your Sheets, Halyards and Lines
- Contact
- Tips on Tying Your Boat to the Dock
- Anchor Hitch
-
Recent Articles
- Setting the ships clock the old fashioned way
- Westport Maritime Museum
- (no title)
- (no title)
- The macabre way early sailors refreshed their wardrobes
- Skipper Emeritus
- Why Don’t Ships Have Headlights?
- Puget Sound Lighthouses
- Anchoring and Storm Tackle [Updated]
- Mike’s Quick Rope Whipping
- The Untold 9/11 Boat Lift or How They evacuated 500,000 People Safely Off Lower Manhattan Island in Eight Hours
- NOAA Live from 1,250 Meters (4,100 feet) Below the Sea
Article Categories
Archives
Usefull Links
-
Article Tags
- aids to navigation
- ATON
- ATON's
- boat equipment
- boating
- Boating Etiquette
- boating knots
- boating safety
- boating skills
- Chart Reading
- Christmas
- class aids
- classroom aids
- Coast Guard Auxiliary
- Correcting
- Correcting and Uncorrecting a Compass
- crew skills
- fender knot
- Guerrilla Marketing
- knots
- Marketing
- marlinespike seamanship
- marlinespike skills
- mooring tips
- Nav. Exercise
- personal safety equipment
- Piloting
- Puget Sound
- safety equipment
- sailing
- Seattle
- seattle boating information
- TVMDC
- Uncorrecting
- weather
-
-
Westport Maritime Museum
Recently a friend visited the Westport Maritime Museum in Westport, Washington on the Washington State Coast and he sent me a few pictures he took of the museum. He was extremely impressed by the museum and the volunteer staff, very professional and knowledgeable.
The center piece of the museum is a First Order Fresnel Lens, the lens itself is about eight ½ ft tall plus the base to rotate the lens. The Lens Hall was built by the Museum specifically to display the First Order Fresnel Lens that is on loan from the U.S Coast Guard. The lens is awesome he says. Several people have said this is the most spectacular presentation of a First Order Fresnel Lens around. The lens is from the Destruction Island lighthouse, located 57 miles north of Westport. Constructed in 1890 in France, the lens contains twenty-four bull’s-eyes and 1,176 prisms. The Lens and base stand 17 feet tall and weighs six tons.
There is much more at the museum than shown here. There are several display cases full of history.
Posted in Boating Safety, History
Tagged History, lighthouse, travel, washington-state, westport-washington
1 Comment
Interesting information, especially for those who go on cruises.
Posted in Boating Safety
Leave a comment
The macabre way early sailors refreshed their wardrobes
I ran across this article on early sailors cloths, sometimes bought from thew “Slop Chest” which sometimes contained cloths from dead sailors, the ship’s captain sometimes made a little extra money from the sale of the cloths.
During the 17th and 18th centuries, British and then American sailors lived a hard life in rough conditions, often forced to work on military ships against their will. Exposed to the elements and working long days, they obviously needed utilitarian clothing. But in some cases, the clothes available to them came from their deceased peers from the “slop chest.”
And on commercial ships, the ship’s owner could make a small profit by taking the clothes of dead sailors and selling them to new sailors through the slop chest.
Posted in Boating Safety, History
Leave a comment
Skipper Emeritus
Recently Seattle Singles Yacht Club honored me with Skipper Emeritus Award for my contributions to boating, sailing, boating safety, member education and taking many many people sailing over more than 20 years and over 1,000 trips, sometimes up to 80 or 90 trips a year.
They had a nice Zoom meeting and several people shared stories of their good experiences on my boats or of times that I went the extra mile to help someone with a boating question or problem. I was also presented with a nicely bound book of stories, I have scanned it and the link is below.
Over the years I contributed in many ways. I taught something over 300 “mini-classes” at the end of the meeting. Some of the classes were “simple” such as how to tie a fender or How to Tie a Bowline, How to Tie a Spilled Hitch Bowline, How to Tie a Bowline with Your Left Hand, others like Rules of The Road were more involved and took extra time. I am quite proud to have passed on a bit of information to many people and made their on the water safer or easier.
Continue reading
Posted in Boating Safety
1 Comment
Why Don’t Ships Have Headlights?
Recently a friend sent me an interesting link to a video on Why Don’t Ships Have Headlights?
I found the video interesting even though I teach this subject in boating safety classes, the videos author also has many other videos covering different subjects including, Why Do Submarines Float So Low? Gyrocompass: How Ships Navigate Using The Earth’s Rotation, Why Did Her Stern Vibrate So Much? Icebreakers: How Do They Break Ice? How does GPS work?
And as noted in the comments, some ships do have headlights, here in the Pacific Northwest we think of lights on crab boats so they can pick post at night.
So I thought I would pass on the video and encourage you to check out some of his other videos.
Continue reading
Posted in Boating Safety, Navigation, Safety Thoughts
1 Comment
Puget Sound Lighthouses
This is a poster I made a while ago about 14 Lighthouses in the Puget Sound area. There is a short description and history of each Lighthouse along with a picture.
This poster has been a popular viewing item at the Alki Point Lighthouse during summer tours.
The file prints OK at 11×17 size but the type size is a bit small but even my old eyes can read it. Printed 16 inches wide it makes a very nice poster for your friends that like Lighthouse’s. Printed 24 inches wide it is very spectacular.
The Alki Point Lighthouse should be open for tours this summer after being closed for two summers due to COVID. The final plans are still being worked out since the inside of the Lighthouse is quite cramped and there are safety concerns for both those giving the tours as well as those attending the tours.
In the past the tour lasted about 30 minutes but you could spend time looking at over 100 years of history if you want after the formal part of the tours is finished.
Continue reading
Boating Safety Tips, Tricks & Thoughts from Captnmike 