Amazing luck you've observed

[boatpoker]

Originally Posted by Tetepare

Sometimes the uninitiated or downright stupid just get lucky.

As one of the unfortunates described above, I somehow managed to overcome my own inadequacies and convince the most beautiful woman I have ever seen to marry me.

I'd rather be lucky than good

[JPA Cate]

For those of you who may not have run across the Tragedy Strikes thread, it looks as if there may be a lucky outcome developing there, too.

Ann

[Svalan]

Thanks to "Seasick" for an awesome and very well written story.
Merry Christmas to all.

[Sea Dreaming]

This one isn't about sailing but I still think it counts.

Many years ago, when I was a teen, I left home to make my own way. I had a job but I was couch surfing and just getting by. Unfortunately, the restaurant where I worked closed unexpectedly. It was winter and there were no jobs to be had in my little town. My family and I were not getting along. Going home was not an option.
For the judgmental peeps, I did not do drugs or drink and I was not pregnant. Actually, my mom and I had been fighting about school. I wanted an alternative education, sailing high school, my mom just wanted me to "get real" lol

Any way, I didn't have any mone and I'm not even sure when I had eaten last. But here I was, walking along after dark, having been out looking for a job. It was bitter cold and the winds were howeling, when I passed by the only convenience store in town. The parking lot was empty but there was trash blowing in the wind. A piece of trash hit me in the leg and I picked it up. Turned out to be a $20.00 scratch ticket...a winner!

I stretched that 20.00 until I got a job a couple of weeks later. But I had food!

[Captain Bill 3]

Seasick should submit his story to a sailing magazine.

[Pelagic]

I think we are all Lucky, it is only those doing dangerous things, that realize it.

[Cormorant]

There are probably just as many stories of weird bad luck . . . though the really unlucky sailors don't live to tell their tale.

[Siberianhusky]

I consider it an amazing display of luck everytime the Alberg 30 across from me makes it back to the marina! Was out on it once with the owner, was never so relieved to be back on the hard in my life. Almost ended up on the rocks when the owner got "distracted" by a bird! This was in the middle of a busy channel.....then she almost creamed a Hunter 38 trying to get into her slip.
Most "exciting" 2 hours of sailing I've had in a while. Never knew what would happen next, still don't know if some of the tacks were intentional and she just didn't bother warning anybody or if she just wasn't paying any attention to what she was doing.

[hamburking]

Nice to hear a local story on a global forum. I sail out of Kingston and the 1000 islands are my backyard. Camelot is a beautiful island. If you go:

http://coord.info/GC4M6DN

Too bad you had to ruin the story by calling all canadians morons. Pretty nice, especially when you were a guest in our country. Did you forget we took all the good islands from you in the war of 1812?

[JPA Cate]

Yesterday's luck:

It happened in benign conditions, in daylight. No one was hurt. The traveler car broke. The boat caught all the important bits for repairing it. We used our double preventers to control the boom, and centered it, got the main down.

Not luck to have the double preventers. It is not the first time something has broken allowing the main to go apes**t--last time it was a shackle--but they are intentional, we've had 'em since Jim fitted them a few boats ago while he was single hand racing.

Ann

[brownoarsman]

Hahaha, Ann, that last story reminded me of my pre-departure check right before I left the Bahamas for the sail to Charleston. I looked over all the moving bits and pieces, and it seemed like the jib car spindle bolt was missing. I looked on the other side and indeed it was. With only an outboard on the back, I'd probably been sailing this way for a long time since I went through the berries and the Abacos and only turned the motor on twice.
I patched it with a harbor freight machine bolt and a nut, hoping it would hold, then found the actual bolt tucked up against the bulwark and so replaced the patch job. Glad to have had the real thing when I ran into gale plus winds about 24 hours later


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[brownoarsman]

Though the most amazing bit of luck on that trip was on the four day run from Marathon to the Bahamas. I got fed up with boat work after the engine blew, and just took off, without bothering about AIS or radar reflectors. The first night out, I entered a busy freighter crossing zone and raised each freighter on VHF until, after about five VHF calls, I was convinced they could see me. Around one AM, I got caught in a squall that lasted about an hour. This was the kind of squall where the clouds blot out the moon and the stars and the thick rain turns everything pitch black. I rolled up the jib and forereached, and stayed in the cockpit for the first half hour spotlighting and airhorning. After a half hour, I had grown so cold that I went down below and warmed up, while scanning the horizon through the cabin roof windows and poking my head up every ten minutes for a horizon scan. Suddenly the heavy wind passed, the boat motion went still, and one or two stars could be seen on the horizon. I had just checked the surroundings from the cockpit three minutes before, and went up to start raising sail.
A very large commercial boat was about 1,000 feet behind me, such that I could see three crew who had descended onto the stern platform and walkways on the port side and were peering into the water. I spotlighted them, and they spotlighted me back. I think that was a tacit acknowledgement that they had thought they'd hit me and were on the stern looking for wreckage. Four or five large freighters were clearly visible as well.

I should mention that I partly left Florida for the Bahamas without reflectors or AIS as a result of some of the Bahamas 'what equipment do I need?' and single handed sailing threads. I maintained an active watch with horizon sweeps across the horizon every ten minutes, but it was just so dark that nothing could be seen. Eternally grateful that my little 28 footer, and me too, weren't lost then and there. I probably also could have made securite calls throughout, but I didn't realise how much danger I was in.


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[Capt Phil]

My amazing luck tale occurred in Bones Bay up on the BC coast while I was running a small converted gill netter working for Homer Stevens of United Fisherman and Allied Workers Union fame while at the same time he was President of the Communist Party of Canada back in the 50's. He hired me to sign up fishermen in the Union and I haunted the areas where some of the major fishing companies frequented with a case of whiskey aboard and would try and approach the fishermen as they offloaded their catch to the packers who would then take the collective catch back to the canneries.
As I approached the head of the bay where the anchorage was there was a dock running out to the middle of the bay from an abandoned cannery. I noticed a couple of guys slowly walking out to the end of the dock and as I passed, it looked like one of them was lifting his arm to wave to me. At that moment, my cigarette fell out of the overflowing ashtray be side the compass in the wheelhouse. I bent down to pick it up off the floor in the wheelhouse and heard a crack! Then another! Two bullet holes appeared in the port wheelhouse window right where my head would have been before I inadvertently ducked to pick up my dropped smoke. Fortunately, I had a .30 30 lever action that I took everywhere with me and got off a shot at them before cranking up my speed and heading down the bay. Both guys hit the deck and I swung around and left the bay for safer waters!
One of the fishermen had obviously ratted me out to the fishing company who decided that they didn't want their employees being organized. Lively times growing up on the coast in those days... Phil

[brownoarsman]

Capt Phil; this was in Canada?! Wow, have times ever changed! Always love to hear your stories, you, sir, have some fine ones!


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[Capt Phil]

Thanks for that, Browny... Yes this was on the west coast about halfway from Vancouver to Prince Rupert. They were wild, crazy times all up and down the coast. Many of the West Coast Mariners were back from WW ll and couldn't fit in with society so they migrated to the water to earn their living. There was no such thing as PTSD in those days, just 'shell shock'. I worked with a number of them who tragically killed themselves or just finally went off the deep end because there was no help for them. I started out there when I was 14 years old and spent 20+ years working commercially before emigrating to the US. I'm trying to write some of these experiences down with the help of a writer I met on CF but have fallen down on the job of passing stuff along to her over the holidays. Must get back on that! Cheers, Phil