John Burns
(inducted 2007)

Request:

Dear King Neptune - I have made over a dozen off shore trips on my Beneteau 50 "Blue Chip" between the northeast and the Caribbean via Bermuda, a number of offshore voyages down the east coast on my vessel and on smaller boats to Florida (most recently this year offshore to Key West with a layover in Moorhead City).  I have raced across the English channel from the U.K. to the Netherlands on several occasions in the position of navigator.  I hold a USCG Merchant Mariners License (6 pack) with the maximum offshore designation - near costal 100 nautical miles. - John Burns

Story:

One exciting story was an early offshore voyage being a navigator on "Quick Hook" for a Lloyd's of London marine syndicate race celebrating the centennial of the sinking of the Lutine off of Tershilling Netherlands (where the big ship's bell at Lloyd's - now rung to commemorate disasters - was salvaged from).  We raced from the U.K. across the channel to the Netherlands. 

We were in a fleet of 2 dozen boats with a HMS Frigate escort. Early on the second night, the fog set in and I could no longer make out the tri-color of the X-racer sloop to windward of me.  We were in the middle of the English Channel and about 2 nm from the start of one of the world's busiest shipping lanes.  I began hailing "security, security.." on low power VHF-16 with our GPS position, course and speed, with the warning "..unable to alter course" , which was true, because in the POV of a freighter doing 25 kts, our 7.5 knots to windward was standing still.  We did not have radar, and the fleet was no help as we were somewhat disbursed at this point.  We were running an all points watch, fore, aft, etc. and blowing the fog horn.

We spotted the first freighter early, as it loomed out of the fog went from green-and-white to triangle of death (red-white-green) to red-and-white, fairly quickly, and cleared us without incident except for our elevated heart rates.

The August fog rolled in and out, increasing to point where lights from a freighter were not going to be visible until it was too late.

The three part solution to this was simple, (1) we bore off to cross the lane more quickly at a right angle and hoisted every piece of canvass that we had on board, (2) I started hailing every 5 minutes , then every 2 minutes trying to keep the pitch of my voice from getting squeaky, and finally in addition to the watches on deck, (3) we all became quiet as possible, and setup a "screw watch" down below.

A screw watch consisted of placing a coffee cup against the hull of the boat inside down below the waterline and listening for the sound of engines, first to Starboard and then to Port.  The watchman hailed "ship to port" or "all clear" as we sailed through.

Anyway, we made it safely across and managed a respectable finish despite shredding the spinnaker on the third night.

-John Burns - March 2007