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This may seem like an odd concept for most inland sailors to grasp, but, when you are at sea in rough weather conditions, this idea may be one you wished you had considered more thoroughly. It’s while you have to be at the helm that the gimbaled helm station may shine in its brilliance.
As a boater who is always tinkering, I decided to build a prototype for a gimbaled helmsman seat. You know, something that would remain level no matter the sea conditions. I didn’t even tell my wife, Lyn, about it because I wanted to wait until I tested it to work out any minor kinks. I started with a basic idea and spoke to my brother-in-law, a machinist, to help me fabricate the parts. Arvin, though not a boater, agreed, and suggested that the apparatus should be built with the idea that it could be taken apart quickly and then stowed in a locker until it was needed again. It took a few months to get everything ready, then I needed only to wait on the weather. The opportunity to test the beautifully crafted seat appeared in late October. It came about as my sweety was getting ready to drive south to spend a few days, or so, with her aging mother. As she was leaving, she mentioned, “You may have to take the boom tent down before the storm hits.” She thinks I leave this stuff up too long, as if I’d take a chance like that. I’d completely forgotten that there was an early storm coming in, but I said, “Yeah, if it starts to blow hard here in the marina, I’ll get that canvas down.” Lyn wasn’t gone more than a few minutes before I had the aft port locker open and the parts of my gimbaled helm seat out, and was putting it together. I planned to go up to Admiralty Inlet, probably up around Point Wilson where it can blow up a stink. I figured that would be a good place to see how this thing might work out. I left Brownsville as soon as I was ready and made my way up to Glen Cove, just south and west of Port Townsend, where I anchored for the night. I woke to winds howling through the rigging early the next morning and I remember thinking, ‘Okay, perfect.’ It wasn’t raining, just blowing. However, later in the day I changed my mind, but you decide after you’ve read about what happened. After I had the seat fastened in place, I discovered that I needed some kind of belt device to keep my body on the seat in case it got bumpy. I knew I might not have my hands free because I would need to use them to steer the boat using the tiller. I dug into another locker and found several good, thick, strong, bungee cords that we sometimes use to hold the dinghy down on the foredeck for short trips, they would have to do. I arrived in my chosen area late in the morning on a port tack, and close reached across the shipping channel. With a double reefed mainsail and a storm jib, it was an easy sail. I had tacked and started back across the shipping channel when I caught sight of a small ship heading inbound. I knew I would clear her bow easily, but it was what I saw following close behind the ship that troubled me, it was a standing wall of water. I couldn’t tell how high it was but it was intimidating even at this distance, and the distance was closing faster than I liked. I was strapped into the seat using the four good strong bungee cords, and each end had been clipped around me to the back of the seat, and they were running just across my chest just above my waist. 
I couldn’t go farther west to get out of the way because of the shoal area off Wilson Point light. I’d just have to tough it out, but this was exactly one of the reasons I had designed this seat upon which I now sat. When the wave got to me, the bow of the boat rose up the front of the wave much like that of a rocket getting ready to launch itself into orbit. For a brief moment I thought I might become a member of the “Backward 360 club.” I only vaguely remember hearing the crashing of stuff inside the boat, a mess that was to take me all of one afternoon to clean up. When the bow jumped nearly vertical, my gimbaled seat stayed level, as designed. However, the new angle of the boat resulted in the tiller going upward to stay parallel with the hull, as it should. Problem was my body was also coming into parallel with the floor of the cockpit. The result was the tiller, and my head, came together with a resounding “Whack,” right between the eyes. At the same time, the backs of my legs were slammed against the forward bulkhead of the aft locker that the gimbaled seat was fastened to. Also, the sudden change in direction caused my body to slam forward. As it tried to caress the tiller like my head had done, the bungee cords did their job perfectly. Actually, too perfectly. They stretched with the impact of my body weight going forward, but then they painfully jerked me back into the seat where I belonged. After cresting the wave, the boat was hit with some heavy following wake. The hull rode up over the first wave by leaning heavily to port and took water over the rail. At the same time my right inner calf was thrown against the port side of the tiller housing. Then the boat recovered by quickly heeling way over to starboard, which slammed the inner calf of my left leg against the starboard side of the tiller housing. My thoughts were questioning whether I’d ever walk again. When things settled down I got the hell out of the man trap I had been sitting in. I hove the boat to, tied the tiller off and took the contraption off its mounting position. With the high dollar, metallic death seat now back in the locker, I turned south. Still running under a double reefed mainsail, and a storm jib, I headed home. I didn’t feel the pain from my ordeal yet, but I soon would. 
When Lyn came home a few days later, she put one foot in on the seat of the cockpit, looked across at me, and stopped. Her mouth dropped open, the bags of goodies she was carrying slid down her arm and banged against the coach roof. I was sitting in shorts, only because more clothes brushed against the sore spots, which I didn’t need, and she said, “What in the world happened to you?”
I had an idea what I looked like because I looked in the mirror while in the marina shower room during the dark of night. I had two black eyes, and a bump on my forehead. My legs were bruised from the back of each leg, which progressed around to the insides of each leg. Then there were the four prominent bruises across my chest from the bungee cords. I didn’t have enough time to think about an answer, probably due to the pain medication I’d been sipping most of the day, so I said, “I went horse back riding and got thrown off the horse.” Later, in bed, she said in the dark, “You look pitiful, you know that don’t you?” “I ‘spose.” “I don’t know what you did, but you didn’t go horse back riding.” “Oh, hah. You don’t know everything.” “I know you hate horses.” ...back to 48° North title page.
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