Gong

Pjm has posted pictures of the Maine coast, including a nice one of a gong. If you came sailing with me I'd probably take you out around Clapboard, halfway out the Hussey, through Whitehead Passage between Cliff Island and Peak's Island, and then around by the fort and back past Little Diamond, Great Diamond, Cow, Mackworth, and the Brothers. In fact, I'm going for a sail this morning and I expect to do that loop.

We'll go past some gongs and some bells on the excursion. A bell buoy makes sounds, like a gong. In the fog it's hard to tell a bell from a gong. The gong's clang is lower pitched than the bell, as you might imagine, but it takes time to know just from listening which you're hearing. The bell buoy looks different, though. It has a broader base and is shaped more like a cone, with the structure containing the bell and the flasher narrowing from its wide bottom to a narrow top. A third kind of noisy buoy is a groaner. The groaner has some kind of rudimentary pipe organ mechanism so that when it moves on the waves air is forced through the pipes, making a low groaning sound. Groaners are shaped more like a gong than a bell buoy. I like groaners the best, although there's not one in the little section of Casco Bay I haunt most regularly. They do sound like a groan, and there's nothing really quite like the noise. Bells and gongs are distinctive, too. I can't think of anything else that makes noise as predictably and reliably as a navigational buoy, yet without a regular or mechanical pattern of sound. I suppose wind chimes are the closest thing. You know the range of sounds they'll make, and you know you'll hear them, but you never know just when they'll tinkle or what rhythm it will take on.

My favorite thing about noisemaking buoys is the game I play everytime I pass one (and am not in a sailboat race). The game is to throw a penny onto the buoy. If the penny lands on the base and doesn't roll off into the water, you get to make a wish. It's harder than it sounds. You're on a moving boat; you can't get too close. There is tide and wind to take into account. The buoy is moving on the waves, so the surface you are throwing at is at a constantly tilting unpredictably. And hitting the base is one thing, but getting the penny to stop and not ricochet or roll away is very unlikely. If you can do it you deserve to get your wish. The rule about the game is that it can only be played on a bell or a gong -- a silent flasher doesn't count. It's an open question whether you can do it with a groaner; I'm inclined to say yes although I think that might be cheating. I'm not sure where the game comes from -- I imagine my dad made it up once when we were cruising, because nobody else I know is familiar with the game and even my dad seems to have forgotten it sometimes. But it ranks up there with Pooh sticks as one of the pointless activities I find disproportionately fun.

Comments

[win]

The difference between a gong and a bell is that a gong has more than one tone (pitch) while a bell has only a single tone. A groaner is also called a whistle buoy (and is so designated on charts). For all you want to know about buoys and more, see: http://chartmaker.ncd.noaa.gov/mcd/chart1/aids/Q.pdf

[pjm]

Ah, then my picture is a bell (there's just one bell there.) There's a real gong later in the series.

[Scheherazade]

So if bells can be tall and cylindrical, does that mean gongs can be wide and conical? Am I imagining that bells and gongs are a different shape? Or are they both a different shape and have two pitches of sound?

[pjm]

As it happens, both photos (bell and gong) show tall, cylindrical buoys. The bell is red and the gong is green, but I think that has more to do with their location than their relative bell-ness or gong-ness.

I do remember seeing tapered sound-buoys (that is, not nuns) but I don't think the shape of the structure is particular to the message it's communicating. (I could be wrong, of course; I already have been.)

As I recall, a buoy's color, number, bellness/gongness, and shape are all related to whether the buoy marks the left or right side of the channel. Thus, for instance, in IALA B (the US) buoys on the starboard side of the channel returning are:

Color: Red
Shape: Cone (nun), Pillar, or Spar
Topmark: Conical
Light: Red

The port side is as follows:
Color: Green
Shape: Can, pillar, or spar
Topmark: Cylindar
Green:

In IALA A (just about everywhere else), the colors are reversed (red LEFT returning).

Green buoys are always odd numbered, red buoys are always even.

Above from the IALA standard and COLREGS. I can't seem to find a reference for whether gongs or bells go on the port or starboard, but distinctly remember learning something along those lines in my navigation class.

[pjm]

Heh. It hadn't occurred to me until now to consider any more details about a bell or gong than the immediate, "Stay well clear, there's a ledge around here somewhere."

This uncle has an unfortunate habit of finding ledges with his propeller (it would be unkind of me to share our speculation about the causes) so one of the subtexts of this particular cruise was showing him what to stay clear of before he found out for himself.

I think I learned "red right returning" before I learned "right turn on red after stop."

[Ms. Feverish]

I think I also learned "red right returning" before I could drive. And then shortly thereafter realized that unless you have a chart, its pretty hard to tell what's returning and what's not...

In my mind, nav. buoys of all kinds always signaled "get out the charts!" :)

[cheap viagra]

All 50 states as well as the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico have allowed right turns on red since January 1, 1980, unless a sign otherwise prohibits this, such as "No Turn On Red".