Cross contamination

[Tony]

Re: Cross contamination
Does anyone have any info on the likelihood of diseases and/or invasive species of plants and animals being spread by trailer sailors?
As a group we tend to be promiscuous in our choice of launch sites and I wonder if washing down the  trailer and hull, letting it air dry, etc is a sufficient safeguard or do we need to be chucking something like  metabisulphate  (left over from sterilising the home brewing kit) into the bilges and ballast tanks?
Lakes like Bala are particularly vulnerable.

[Johan Ellingsen]

Tony,old boy,unless you were indulging in very indelicate metaphor at 4 (our time) in the morning ( in which case one shudders at what the night before was like ) you have a point,
at least as regards water ballast tanks.
www.wwf.se/source.php/1254140/Silent%20Invasion_2009.pdf
is a report on noxious species spread by ships opening their ballast tanks att various points on the globe,paticularly the Comb Jellyfish and the Wooly-handed Crab,which even I have seen.
So you who trans mare current in BC:s, BR:s etcetera had better stay in one piece of water!

/Johan,shocked awake by having to think

[Graham W]

Here's a Lake District action plan on freshwater cross contamination http://www.scrt.co.uk/images/stories/pdfs/cfbplan_final.pdf.

It takes 15 pages to get to the meat of the issue. I saw one mention of water from ballast tanks but there may be more as I began to lose the will to live after wading through it (the report, not the ballast water).

As far as the outsides of hulls are concerned and from what I have seen from notices on Spanish lakes, if you move your boat around from lake to lake, you are exorted to check carefully for plant and animal passengers before launch.  If you use your ballast tank in different places, I think trailing with open bungs is good policy, to try to dry out your innards. I'm less sure about chemical treatment of the tank as presumably any residue could be nasty in high enough concentrations?  And is there any threat at all if you move from the sea to freshwater and vice versa?

[Johan Ellingsen]

The Wooly-handed Crab is a salt-water denizen who has succesfully established himself in the Gulf of Botnia,where the water is brackish enough to drink.

[Michael Rogers]

At the English Raid last August on the Broads, we were exhorted to wash down thoroughly when we left at the end. Special attention to crevices such as CB and DB cases. I can't now remember the names, shapes, etc of the potential villains.

The DCA have started a series of articles about all of this in their magazine. The first one was very good.

Did you know (he asked, hoping the answer was, 'Gosh, no!!') that there is a long established colony of scorpions in the harbour wall at Sheerness? Again in a recent DCA mag, an amusing account of hunting them, and then casually letting one loose at some nautical black tie function. I gather the species in question is not exactly lethal.

Michael

[david]

Hi
       "Over here" ~ there are real measures to contain invasive species. Zebra mussels seem to be the most often one mentioned.
    When I bring my boat back into California; I am always stopped at the check point and the boat inspected. The bilge and ballast must be clean and dry. Any standing water will cause delay or possible refusual of entry.  The boat must be clean of all floatsum.
 I also need to have the boat inspected prior to launch at a few of our local lakes.

[Tony]

David, Michael.
Good to hear that they are taking this seriously in some parts.

Yes, Johan,I was, for once, making a serious enquiry.

(Don't worry about the hour. It's part of the NHS Sleep Deprivation Program. The “Friends of Nurse Rached”* wake me up to take blood pressure readings etc. every couple of hours just to ensure  I don't enjoy my stay too much. )

Seems to me we have another case of the scientific community knowing perfectly well what the problems are but are unable to convince the politicians that action is necessary - until their political careers are threatened, that is.  (Don't get me started on David “money-no-object” Cameron's sudden U-turn on global warming when half a dozen  mansions in Surrey were getting a bit wet and not just a few thousand hicks in Somerset or darkest Wales!)

Graham.
Stirling work wading through all that “Committee-Speak” and even making sense of it!
The “Check,Clean, Dry” action plan will work for larger organisms, fish eggs etc  but may not deal with the sort of viral  and bacterial problems allegedly found in some fish farms.
Sea to fresh water and back? Again, it'll zap the larger organisms but I don't think it would worry your average virus. They famously withstand all sorts of extreme conditions.
Perhaps dousing a BR20 in Jeyes Fluid would be in itself more of a hazard than the risk from micro organisms but is that a call the average sailor (or anyone else) is qualified to make at the moment?
In recent years there have been unexplained  deaths among sea mammals, birds and various fish species - usually attributed to pollution - but could imported aquatic nasties be responsible?
We all know about Dutch Elm disease and Ash Die-back and so one thing is for sure, if a virus does ever make the jump from one host species to another (think Bird Flu) in a closed ecosystem like Lake Bala the results could be devastating.
I can't  say I'm actually losing sleep over this issue as yet but prophets of doom have a nasty habit of turning out to be right these days.

Well, here comes Nurse Rached with my morning dose of Tramadol ......and who's that with her?
A Consultant?
On a Sunday?
Ah, yes. The golf course is flooded, isn't it!



*Nurse Rached . If you haven't met her yet, click here:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nurse_Ratched

[Johan Ellingsen]

Well Tony,I did clock Nurse R, she's all over..reason for a consultant turning up out of hours,is the poor wee junior doctors are no longer allowed to work 100 hours per week;
this means the older generation is getting worn out for the second time around!

Try googling ballast water microbial conamination ruiz: Vibrio Cholerae!In Lake Bala!

Are you getting demob happy yet?

[Michael Rogers]

Hallo Tony

I haven't yet worked out what ails you, and I'm sure it's 'confidential' (have I missed some clues?), but I doubt it's much fun, and you have my empathy; I had some innards removed three (I think it was) summers ago, fortunately getting through with only 6 days incarceration and no long term anxieties. To be avoided unless…. Please regard this as one of those humorous get well cards, and get well before sailing starts.

As a retired quack, I'm going to harrumph about those ridiculously short 100 hour weeks referred to. In my day (by Gad) we worked a 168 hour week - that's not a mistake, no official time off for six months, and almost no sitting around waiting for things to happen. (We did actually organise an unofficial 36 hour w/e off every 4 weeks by covering for each other.) It was the making of me - I don't think.

Your ref to our Beloved Leader suddenly galvanised by the immersion of the Tory faithful in the Thames Valley. The best summary of that I have heard was the Government springing into action as soon as the effluent hit the affluent.

All these ecological issues are tricky. In the good old days (sigh) it was the verges of railway lines which sprouted strange non-indigenous plants brought in unwittingly on goods wagons with, I dare say, some odd invertebrates as well. Cane toads wreaking havoc in Oz (are they still?). The complete, very varied snake population of Hawaii eliminated by 'imported' rats. Etc. Does, dare I say it, Mother Nature have enough resilience to cope with these things in the longer term, or is that being complacent?

Answers on those quaint, old-fashioned things called post cards (remember them?), and if anyone mentions Facebook or Twitter, I'll…..I'll…..well, I shall jolly well not like it. I've decided I'm a fossil. 'Cheer up, sad world,' he said, and winked: 'It's kind of fun to be extinct'. (Ogden Nash)

Michael

[Johan Ellingsen]

Effluent/affluent...trying to do that in Swedish fairly had me gasping.Retired quack-(rising
68) I wish I was.Displacement behaviour,from workaholism(wife says)- boat activities.

More seriously,I too had a bit of a brush with things a few years ago,and Tony,it is an ancient wisdom that a proper Personal Health Incident in middle age will set you up
amazingly for many good years to follow!

[Tony]

Talking of fossils, Michael,  it would be rather sad if someone from Sail  Caledonia infected “Teggy” with a paleolithic virus picked up from “Nessy”, particularly as the gwynaid, in Lake Bala since the last ice age, is being given a hard time by the ruffe which some bright spark introduced a few years ago.
As a wash down with a pressure hose is about as far as your average sailors can go to sanitise their boats, let us hope that it will be enough to prevent accidental contamination from one water to another.
If Foot and Mouth disease is so easily transmitted on car tyres and boots I should imagine that aquatic nasties are just as easily dispersed.
As far as the bugs that affect humans are concerned ....well, at least we've got the NHS!
Johan, I think the last outbreak of cholera in the UK was in the mid 1800s  so not too much of a problem – unlike Weil's Disease which is still going strong. (See http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/oct/26/weils-disease-andy-holmes )

By the way, my present state of health is merely inconvenient rather than interesting. 
“ An operation?” quoth a so-called friend. “Nothing trivial, I hope?”
A slip of the tongue, no doubt. Hmmm.

[Rob Johnstone]

To get vaguely back to the topic, I did notice that ballast tanks on Vagabond were decidedly whiffy after being filled with the same River Crouch estuary water for about 3 months. The brew was dumped during lift out and a litre of bleach overcame the smell. This was discharged onto the hard and disappeared into a drain.......

[Tony]

............. a litre of bleach overcame the smell. This was discharged onto the hard and disappeared into a drain.......

Hi, Rob.
               Hmm!   I think "disappeared" is a mite optimistic.

....but people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.........
(i.e.  I wonder what happens to the gallons of the stuff that goes down the drain - necessary, I'm told, for my OWN domestic comfort and safety? )

[Andy Dingle]

Very valid point Tony..

I have some experience in this matter, I spent 16 years as a professional diver predominantly working in docks, locks, weir and inland waterways. Washing down and disinfecting was an absolute necessity and was subject to random procedural checking, not only to prevent any cross contamination but also to ward off the very real danger of Weil's disease and other related very nasty bugs that we were in danger of contracting and carrying around on dirty gear. The advent of positive pressure face masks helped enormously in preventing you getting a mouthful of rats p*ss!
Mind you, after you have spent half an hour grubbing about at the bottom of a slurry pit or a cess pool you tend to be quite keen on getting a good showering off with a strong disinfectant..!

Incidentally, one of the non native species found all over the place in our water ways is the the US signal crayfish, can give you a nasty nip and is very aggressive..  but makes delicious eating! (The Environment Agency says they should be destroyed 'humanely'..  does that include dunking in a boiling pan of water and being served up with garlic sauce?!).


I spend most of my winter sailing at Rutland Water, one of the UK's biggest drinking water supplies. I was interested to read that Anglian Water, spend something in the region of £1.2 million of their customers money each year in clearing the invasive russian zebra mussel from their pipes and pumps etc but not once, neither at the Sailing Club when I was racing in the Travellers Series, with boats coming from all over the country, nor at at the Whitwell centre have I ever seen a sign asking for boats to be washed down prior to launching or after recovery. (Though having said that, there has been a new wash point built recently, but I don't recall seeing any signage on it).

Hope you get out of the cuckoo's nest soon ...


Andy

[Jim Levang]

Within a two hour drive from where I live in northern Minnesota, I could be sailing in water that drains into the Gulf of Mexico via the Mississippi, the Atlantic via the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway or into Hudson Bay. We have Asian Carp coming up the Mississippi, whatever comes in the ballast water of ocean going ships from wherever into the Great Lakes, and an army of uninformed out of state sport fishermen stirring the pot with their bass boats. We have been through the population explosions and crashes with their associated disruption from dozens of plant and animal invasive species from the Sea Lamprey to the Spiny Water Flea. This is a big deal here and it has been since the 1930's when the Lake Superior fisheries where wiped out by the Sea Lamprey. We have game warden types at boat landings trying to educate people. We also have large fines if you are caught on the road with your transom drain plug in or water in your live well. The Army Corp of Engineers says that it will cost $15 billion to keep the Asian Carp out of the great lakes but that it is probably already too late. It seems like the best that can be done is to slow down the spread and then wait fifty or a hundred years for populations to stabilize.