The Salty Barrister

The two weeks that encompass the Christmas and New Year holidays always seem to pass with frightening speed. One moment someone's leaning into your office with holiday wishes, and the next thing, your secretary is cheerily reminding you that your letter has the wrong date: "It's 2010 now, John." So it is.

You say what you want about progress, I like the nautical bubble because things seem to take a little longer to change. And that's a good thing. Take the past decade, for instance. Oh, I know the marketers will sling this and that as heralding "marked" change, but really? The things that count to me seem pretty much unchanged. There's still wooden hulls being pushed along under acres of sail, good looking small craft, harbors that'll hold an anchor, moorings and launch service, floating docks, Saturday races, bags of ice, grills on transom rails, tan lines, sailing lessons, your wake's white curl, a boater's friendly wave, rafting up for the concert, the rumble of twin engines, an open line of ocean, moonlit cruises, high tides, the smell of varnish . . . .

I didn't write a holiday post. I'll let my earlier Thanksgiving post stand for the Season.

Underway and making way.

--- JKF

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My sister is a professor at a university here in the Northeast. She lets me come around once a semester and talk to her oceanography students about maritime law-like things. It's hard to condense maritime law into a fifty-minute or so period; so, what I end up doing is the ol' shotgun approach.

We hit topics that I think might keep a college-aged brain interested. I talk about salvage (peril, voluntariness and success), chatter on about the differences between the territorial sea and the exclusive economic zone (one's your backyard and the other's kind of like the neighborhood), meander around some causes of action available to an injured crewmember (Jones Act and Unseaworthiness), and usually close by addressing whether a captain can actually perform a marriage aboard a vessel (mixed law; statute says no go, but some case law suggests otherwise).

When you're lawyering, a lot of what you say is measured in favor of the advocacy of your position. What I get to do once a semester before a bunch of college kids is a refreshing change. Think of it as the difference between an employer's Christmas party, and having a drink with friends.

Alright, we'll get a couple of more posts in before the Holidays. Speaking of holidays, take a look at Captain Doug's recent blog post on The Daily Breeze? That's the way to do it, friends. Christmas in Staniel Cay, Bahamas. One of these days I plan to do the very same thing, snow and sleighs be damned!

Underway and making way.

--- JKF

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If you’re reading this Blog, it’s a fair bet that you’re not lugging water from a well, that you’re not cowering in fear of a local militia, that you have monies sufficient to put food on the table, and that you have a roof overhead. Yes, some of you might be sick or without a job, I know that. Life is not an easy stretch of water, but if you’re reading this blog, I can darn well guarantee that you have plenty more to give thanks for than the majority of this world’s population.

I’m no bleeding heart, but if you consider yourself a “boater,” then life’s been ok to you. Being able to slip across the ocean’s surface on one’s own time and without being driven by the urgency of trying to land a meal, or fleeing a hostile coastline is amazing fortuity. You, my friend, have a lot to give thanks for in that alone.

I was going to try something clever like writing about the number of maritime cases that refer to Thanksgiving (31, if you’re interested), but my aim is not to entertain today. If I may suggest so, get off this damn computer, and go count your blessings.

Underway and making way.

--- JKF

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I'm not sure what a Tweet is all about. Don't get the wrong idea, I'm LinkedIn, I e-mail up a storm, and my web "presence" is decent. It's just that the idea of a steady stream of observations seems fatuous somehow. I guess thinking others want to know your randomness presumes something I don't like. For the now, I'll leave the Tweeting to the Hollywood crowd and bumble along, but in case things change I've had a go at a practice Tweet below. (For those non-Tweeters, it's short because you're only allowed 140 characters in each Tweet.)

Thx 4 cmg abrd.Jst rd nw law in NY.Ownr/optr plsr bts <21' incldg rwbts kyks canus only allow bt op if all abrd wearing PFD b/t 11/1 - 5/1.

Boy, the English language is going to die under this program, huh?

Underway and making way.

--- JKF

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So it looks like the Dutch government pulled the plug on the teenager's attempt to sail solo around the world (http://www.wcjb.co.uk/dutch-girl-sailing-dream-torpedoed-by-authorities-18730). I don’t have an opinion one way or the other, but this news item gives me traction to tell you of a good read.

Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific in a Raft by Thor Heyerdahl. If you haven't read it, pick up a copy and if you have read it, have another go. It's a great story about several fellows that built a raft of balsa logs and sailed 4,000 plus miles across the Pacific. The successful voyage supported the author's thesis that Peruvians were the settlers of various islands in the far Pacific. What a story though, alone on nine balsa logs with the sea's creatures, the weather and rippling currents. Storms, a reef, injuries and the ever-lurking panic of being swept into the sea make it a read that'll put some grit back into your seagoing affairs.

And yes, this post has a little bit of maritime law flavor; namely, that Thor and his friends didn't seem to need the counsel of any maritime attorneys to fight off a meddling bureaucracy.

Underway and making way.

--- JKF

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Let’s face it, we've all been assigned a serial number in the form of a social security number.It seems everywhere you go these days, someone's asking for your "social." I guess that soft lexicon aims at trying to make it seem less Orwellian. How you wonder am I going to segue into something salty? Try this on for size, your boat has its own kind of "social".

A vessel manufacturer must identify each boat produced or imported with a hull identification number. The HIN, as it's called, must consist of twelve characters. The first three characters identify the manufacturer, characters four through eight are the manufacturer's serial number, characters nine and ten typically indicate the date of certification or manufacture, and characters eleven and twelve indicate the model year (i.e., "82" for 1982). Characters nine and ten can be decoded by understanding that character nine will be an English letter of the alphabet with January being "A", February being "B", etc. Character ten must be the last digit of the year of manufacture or certification. A visual guide to decoding your boat's social can be found below.

You can decode a portion of your social security number as well so as to learn the date and state of issuance. There's probably a clever observation to be made between a vessel's HIN and a person's social security number, but nothing's coming to me at the moment. Writing about social security numbers makes me feel like I've turned out of the harbor and into a gray sea scudded with chop and pressed low under a dark sky. A sense, I guess, of something unpleasant making its way ashore.

Underway and making way.

--- JKF

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I'm in the midst of an office move -- same building, different floor.  Still, that's got me shuttling around like a spider crab fleeing a seagull! At any rate, we'll be back to jawing out some maritime issues in a day or so. Next up is the Jones Act. What is it, and does it apply to that tactician fellow you pay in your never-ending quest to win the Club's Wednesday night racing series? Good stuff.

Underway and making way (kind of).

--- JKF

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