Blog 2021

On the twentieth anniversary of September 11, 2001, we are reminded of the ripple-effects of that fateful day. As a nation we continue to honor the victims of 9/11 and the ultimate sacrifice of so many service men and women in the wars since.   

Today is a day to reflect on the pain we have sustained as a nation, and to honor the victims who came from all walks of life.

NYPD Officer Moira Smith, a 13-year NYPD veteran and mother who gave her life while calmly and swiftly evacuating survivors.

Tariq Amanullah, a Pakistani-American and financial executive who worked on the 88^th floor of the South Tower and who had successfully led a Great Muslim Day of Adventure at his community’s Six Flags just days before.

Mark Bingham, a 31-year-old CEO of a San Francisco PR firm and openly gay man, one of the United Flight 93 passengers who is believed to have attempted to retake the cockpit from the terrorists. 

Twenty-three-year-old Mohammad Salman Hamdani, a Muslim NYPD cadet, who ran towards the towers to help, laying down his life in the process. 

The 2,983 victims of the terror attacks of September 11^th included Americans like Moira, Tariq, Mark, and Mohammad, from every corner of the country and every walk of life. While these victims’ families will always carry their loss, their stories will live on as a reminder of what it means to be American.

Evil knocked us down that morning. But the stories of hope and heroism that emerged from the carnage are a testament to our national resilience, a signature of the American spirit. We immediately began to rebuild, strengthened by goodness and rooted in solidarity.

Former Marine Dave Karnes left his civilian job in Connecticut on 9/11, put his uniform back on, and headed towards New York to work alongside first responders. He later went to his reserve center and reenlisted, and would serve two tours in Iraq. Many others like him stepped up to serve, whether in the military, the State Department, or in nonprofits.

But as we mourned in the days following 9/11—in the grocery store, on the school bus, at football games—we also walked with unease, the comfort of our daily routines assaulted. And for some, it brought out bitterness and hate.  

The first revenge attack after 9/11 came a mere four days later. At the Arizona gas station he owned and operated, Balbir Sigh Sodhi was shot by an angry assailant. Balbir Sigh Sodhi was a hardworking Indian Immigrant and a Sikh, whose religious tradition and peaceful manner was rooted in his embrace of all people, regardless of background.

Years later, some of that hatred and misguided fear still festers. And in recent months, it’s been emboldened.

We cannot allow it. We must remember what the hours after 9/11 taught us about who we are.

We are One America.

We are a nation of helpers and doers.

We do not cower in the face of threats; we stand strong to our values.

We keep serving and striving toward the more perfect realization of our ideal

PREPARE FOR THE STORM BEFORE IT HITS

Last week we may dodged a bullet. While some of you may have experienced some damage, the key to being safe is in the preparation. That means having a well-thought-out plan long before a hurricane warning is posted. To be successful, your hurricane plan needs to address the where, when, who, and what of hurricane preparation.

Where Will You Store The Boat?

As with real estate, three things matter most: location, location, location. Your boat's chances of surviving a hurricane undamaged are highest if it's where the worst of the storm isn't. When it's practical and safe, moving your boat out of the way is the best strategy. If your boat is trailerable, take it inland and to high ground; if not, you or a captain can relocate it by water. When hurricanes threaten the Northeast, hundreds of coastal and offshore boats migrate north to Maine or up the Connecticut and Hudson rivers.

But if your boat is farther south, the lack of precision in forecasting makes relocating the boat by water a risky proposition. You may end up moving it into the storm's path or, worse, finding yourself offshore in the middle of a hurricane. If getting the boat out of the way of the storm isn't safe or practical, more than 30 years of research of claims show that boats on the land suffer relatively less damage than those in the water. When the boat is left at a mooring, at anchor, or tied to a dock and something goes wrong, it's more likely to end up sinking or aground than if it had been ashore. That can be extremely costly. In addition to losing your boat, there could be expenses for cleaning up any spilled fuel and removing the wreckage that results. Unless your marina docks have been engineered and built to withstand hurricane-force winds and the accompanying surge, WE recommend hauling the boat and securing it on the hard.

Whether you haul the boat or leave it in the water, your most obvious option is to leave it wherever it is. But the place where you normally keep your boat may be a disastrous one in a hurricane. Here are the key factors to consider when assessing how well a particular location might protect your boat in a tropical storm.

Surge

Most people think wind poses the greatest threat to life and property from a hurricane. In fact, storm surge poses at least as much danger. Superstorm Sandy's wind speeds were below hurricane force when it made landfall in New Jersey, but its surge damaged or destroyed an estimated 65,000 recreational boats. In Hurricane Katrina in 2005, some 1,500 people lost their lives, and many of those deaths occurred directly or indirectly as a result of storm surge. The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has created an experimental website where you can zoom in on your locale to see what the maximum surge height above ground level would be in a direct hit by a Category 1 through Category 5 hurricane. You can use that data to assess whether the piling heights on floating docks are high enough to keep the finger piers from being lifted off the pilings and to gauge how high storm surge could be in the hard-stand area. While you're at it, if you live in a coastal area, you might want to see how your house would fare. Google "ArcGIS Storm Surge" to find the website.

Fetch

When wind blows across open water, it generates waves. Breaking waves have a tremendous amount of power; they regularly destroy massive concrete structures at the water's edge. The height of the waves depends upon wind strength, duration, water depth, and the exposed distance (called the fetch). Hurricane-force winds blowing across half a mile (the fetch) of open water 25 feet deep can generate waves of 2.5 feet and more in height. Increase that distance to 10 miles, and waves will grow to a minimum of 6 feet high. Wind direction is determined by which part of the hurricane passes over your location, so when putting together your hurricane plan, assume that you could get wind from any direction. If your marina is exposed to open water, or protected from open water only by a breakwall, it's vulnerable to wave damage, especially if there's also a surge risk. In Sandy, the combination of surge and waves lifted boats stored on the hard off their jackstands and carried them inland, sometimes for miles.

Flooding

Hurricanes can bring rains of 6 to 12 inches in 24 hours, which can overwhelm the cockpit drainage of boats in the water, causing them to sink; the rainfall can also find its way through any fitting or hatch that isn't completely watertight, flooding the boat. If your marina is located in a low-lying area or near a river, floodwaters can combine with surge to further increase the maximum water height above ground level. Take that into account when considering piling heights or the height of the hard stand above sea level.

Centering The Wheel

Start by figuring out the range of the wheel, which is how many times it takes to turn the wheel from hard-to-port to hard-to-starboard. Turn the wheel all the way to one side or the other, then turn hard the other way, counting the number of turns it takes. Divide the number of turns in half and remember that number. So if it takes six turns to get from one side to the other, three turns should center your wheel from either side. It's very important to know when your wheel is centered, especially with inboard or sterndrive boats where you can't see the drives. It's also a handy practice if you're asked to take the helm on an unfamiliar boat.

Steer A Straight Course

Now that you know how to center the wheel, the next technique is steering straight. Looking at the wakes of many boats, you'll often see a serpentine path, because people are over-steering. To practice:

• Center the wheel.
• Shift into forward gear at idle speed.
• Aim for a distant object, watching the bow.
• When the bow drifts to one side, make quick, short pulses with the wheel in the opposite direction then re-center the wheel.

Many people tend to over-correct when steering and, instead of staying on course, drift too far in the other direction because they hold the turn too long. The key is to use short corrections, and when the boat initially begins to turn in the desired direction, re-center the wheel. As you practice steering straight, you can continually find new objects to use as a target and see how the boat behaves differently at different speeds.

Setting The Wheel

Make sure the wheel is in the desired direction and position BEFORE shifting into forward or reverse gear. This helps reduce your turning radius, making your turn more efficient — useful when operating in close quarters, where you might not have the ability to turn without properly setting the wheel. For many boats, you should be able to do a 180-degree turn in little more than a boat length if you set the wheel, and do so in conjunction with proper gear shifting. 

Steering Wheel Control

Over-steering and over-correcting are common problems. We must know whether the wheel is straight or turned and, if turned, which direction and how far. There isn't room for guessing and making corrections if the boat doesn't turn the direction anticipated.

We're all used to driving a car. How much different can steering-wheel control be on a boat? Well, hugely different, in reality, and it can get you in trouble if you don't recognize the distinction. Cars steer from the front while boats steer from the stern. Boats pivot, cars don't. When you steer a car, the front tires turn the front of the car, and the rest of the car follows. Take a corner too tightly and the inside rear wheel hits the curb. When you steer a boat, the rudder, outdrive, or outboard swivels at the stern and directs the thrust in a way that pushes the stern in the opposite direction. Because of this, when taking a corner in a boat, your boat needs room on the OUTSIDE of a turn — the exact opposite of a car. This difference isn't too noticeable on open water, but critical in close quarters.

What Boat Insurance Policies Cover

How and where you boat determines the type of coverage you need. An "all risk" policy will offer the best protection. However, an “all risk” policy does not cover every type of loss. In insurance terms “all risk” just means that any risk not specifically omitted in the policy is covered. Typical exclusions include wear and tear, marring, denting, animal damage, manufacturers’ defects, design defects, ice and freezing.

You may also be able to add extra coverage. Available options may include: medical payments, personal effects, uninsured boaters liability, and towing and assistance. Most policies will cover permanently attached equipment, as well as items like anchors, oars, trolling motors, tools, seat cushions, and life jackets. Be sure to discuss these options with your agent.

Types of Boat Insurance Coverage

This will depend on the type of policy, but common coverage add-ons (in addition to basic ones above) include:

• Specialized Coverage: Coverage for something specific on your boat like an expensive prop or navigation equipment.
• Salvage: Coverage that pays to remove your boat due to damage, from substantial to minor.
• Consequential Damage: Covers a loss that was the result wear and tear rather than an accident (rot, mold, corrosion).
• Towing: Towing your boat across a body of water to safety can cost $400 per hour.
• Cruising Extension: You can get temporary, additional coverage if you plan on leaving the USA (typically to Mexico or the Bahamas).

STAYING DOCKED DURING THE STORM?

According to members of the BoatUS Catastrophe team, its estimated that as many as 50% of the boats damaged during Hurricanes could have been saved by using better docklines: lines that were longer, larger, arranged better, and/or protected against chafing. If you decide to leave your boat at a dock, you'll need to devise a docking plan that is liable to be far different than your normal docking arrangement. By the time preparations are completed, your boat should resemble a spider suspended in the center of a large web. This web will allow the boat to rise on the surge, be bounced around by the storm, and still remain in position.

Take a look at your boat slip and its relation to the rest of the harbor. For most boats you'll want to arrange the bow toward open water or, lacking that, toward the least protected direction. This reduces windage. Next, look for trees, pilings, and dock cleats-anything sturdy-that could be used for securing docklines. With most docking arrangements, lines will have to be fairly taut if the boat is going to be kept away from pilings. The key to your docking arrangement is to use long lines, the longer the better, to accommodate the surge. (A good rule of thumb: storm docklines should be at least as long as the boat itself.) You will probably want to use other boat owners' pilings (and vice versa), which calls for a great deal of planning and cooperation with slip neighbors and marina management.

Lines should also be a larger diameter to resist chafe and excessive stretching. On most boats you should use 1/2" line for boats up to 25', 5/8" line for boats 25' to 34', and 3/4" to 1" lines for larger boats. Chafe protectors ("Critical Points") must be on any portion of the line that could be chafed by chocks, pulpits, pilings, etc.

To secure lines to hard-to-reach outer pilings, put the eye on the piling so that lines can be adjusted from the boat. For other lines, put the eye on the boat to allow for final adjustment from the dock.

Hurricanes are unpredictable. Understanding the Hurricane which is produced by NOAA is vital.

Creating A Graphic Track

When a hurricane is forecast, the National Hurricane Center (NHC), part of NOAA, produces a map of the likely track of the hurricane. Some boaters look at the map and wrongly assume that the widening cone shows the hurricane getting larger over time. Others think that the circles drawn on the map represent areas that will be affected by the hurricane, and that everything outside the circles are safe — also very wrong. These misconceptions leave many boaters either totally unprepared or poorly prepared for the storm, vulnerable to serious damage or total loss of their boats as a consequence.

What Do Those Circles Mean?

On any good hurricane tracking forecast map, there are dots representing, day by day, how far the storm is expected to travel and where the CENTER of the storm may be. But hurricanes are very unpredictable, so a circle is drawn around each dot on the projected track. The circle is NOT, as is often assumed, the extent of the storm. And the circle is NOT showing the outer edges of the storm. It shows only where the possible CENTER of the storm may end up, which is somewhere within that circle. If the eye of the storm ends up on the edge of that circle, the ramifications for the locations all around it can be dire, including locations far outside the circle.

Cone Of Uncertainty

The predicted circles are joined with lines on each side. These form what is often called the "cone of uncertainty." The eventual track of the storm may be anywhere inside that cone, but even this is not certain. It's important to note that the cone of uncertainty is usually greater as you extend out in time, because it's easier to predict the course of the storm tomorrow but more difficult to know where it'll be next week.

BASED ON AN ARTICLE IN BOATUS

So what"s the bally-hew about weighted blankets?

You know about them.

They’re blankets stuffed with pellets—usually made of glass or a plastic like polyethylene—and can weigh as much as 25 pounds.

Weighted blankets capture the cozy feeling of waking up under a heavy comforter on a winter’s day. And there’s some scientific theory behind the idea: applying pressure to your skin stimulates neurotransmitters like serotonin and melatonin that calm your brain.

Who Uses Weighted Blankets

Occupational therapists frequently use weighted blankets for something called sensory integration therapy, which children who have trouble processing their senses—a trait that’s often linked with autism. Weighted blankets stimulate those patients’ senses of touch, helping their brains adapt to it.

During a recent study to determine benefits,  researchers were measuring how their patients responded to questions about their emotional state, the researchers discovered evidence that weighted blankets had a marked calming effect.

They actually had a number of our participants fall asleep while the blanket was on them. They had to be awakened to get them to answer the questions.

Another study at Denver Health found that weighted blankets help reduce anxiety in patients with an eating disorder. Their results are still proceeding through the peer-review process, and they hope it will see publication sometime later this year.

Seemingly, the blankets have a medicinal benefit as well as just making us comfortable,