Should have lost my mast today, I am so stupid

[zedpassway]

Every day sail should be treated as if you are going out for three day adventure. If you see it that way, then you will have all the equipment that you might need just in case.

My first sail in my small pocket cruiser with admiral and experienced sailor(who actually knew nothing) resulted in eventually being picked up by the coast guard, and taken to the yacht club. It was expected to be a quick 6 mile run from the launch to the mooring, and I just assumed that it wouldn't be more than that.

When the motor died due to ethanol poisoning, and the wind went to almost calm, and the experienced sailor made us go out into the middle of the bay looking for air, when we could have sailed back to the dock, we ended up drifting toward rocks. We left the two anchors at home. We had no food, and no sleeping bags to stay over if we had to stay out over night. And our cell phones had died. We had no games, and none of the stuff which could have made our becalming just another interesting experience, instead of something potentially quite scary.

I was lucky that the portable VHF reached someone who called the USCG for us. Mountains surround us and a National Park which has no VHF stations to cll the USCG.

While we were in no immediate danger, the reality was that conditions got quite scary later that night with a storm and 25 mp winds and dense fog, and if the USCG had not picked up us we would have been in deep do do by 3 in the morning floundering on sharp rocks in an unknown place in the dark in the fog.

Always take backup for everything important(I actually have two motors now), and even a back up rudder and tiller. I have a ladder I could actually climb to get out of the water, a winch on the mast to get a heavy body out of the water, harnesses for everybody, sleeping bags, hot food, etc.

You never know what the conditions are going to change to. Your daysail might turn into a three day cruise especially if you are out in a lake like the Greats or on a bay that empties into the ocean 5 miles south.

[Tetepare]

Sandero nailed it, cascading problems.

Anybody can handle one problem
Experience can handle two
Professionals can handle three


Don't forget the old adage that things come in threes!

We have all been there. Keep your head. When there are three crises be able to tell which is the most urgent.

[kmacdonald]

With luck like that, I'd prepare for a lightning strike before leaving the dock next time.

[Amani Jnana]

Originally Posted by Sea Dreaming

Wow! Nice save! Sure, now you know what you have to do next time. But honestly, aren't you just a wee bit impressed with yourself for getting yourself, and your boat, back?

Excellent comment

[odeapt]

I am very lucky to have made it back safely. I appreciate all of your responses. After yesterday I felt very overwhelmed and started to wonder if I made the right decision to buy a boat. But I am confident that this experience will help me in the future.

I found a website called westsailparts.com with a owners manual, and found this about the boomkin tangs. W28's are included

"A major rigging problem point on the W32 is the boomkin stay tangs bolted to the hull at the stern. The early boats had a 1" wide tang, with a 1/2" clearance hole for the pin on the stay, leaving less than 1/4" of metal around the hole."

My plan from here is to replace my entire rig, chainplates included. I plan on doing it myself so it will take awhile. In the meantime I am going to take lessons at a local marina on their C19's.

I really just need to remember to take it slow and have fun with it. It doesn't help that I have very little time off of work and want to do too much.

[Pelagic]

Didn't read all the posts since the first 2 pages were sweetly supportive, but I am going to give it to you as requested !!

BEGINNERS!
NEVER EVER leave the dock on a new boat to you without doing a detail inspection of all the standing and running rigging, making sure all safety locks are in place.
Put up and inspect sails,
forcefuly test rudder and fixings at dock
Test engine and shaft at dock

There was a detailed list of many more safety / inventory inspections that my sailing students used to do BEFORE we cast off as 4 students and one instructor on charter boats

If solo sailing, even more critical that you get into the habit of pre-departure safety checks.

I constructively suggest that as your punishment, you make a detailed safety Check List that you promise to follow faithfully until you are totally intimate with your boat.

[BozSail]

Suggest you get a NOAA Weather app for your phone. Also, a Tides app and a NOAA Buoy app. These are good to check before leaving the dock.

[kmacdonald]

Originally Posted by odeapt

I am very lucky to have made it back safely. After yesterday I felt very overwhelmed and started to wonder if I made the right decision to buy a boat.

I was wondering the same thing.

[ebsail]

It might be a good idea to find an experienced friend ( someone on this list may be available) to go over the boat from one end to the other and try to get rid of potential problems IN ADVANCE. Makes for a more peaceful sail. For a newbie you did very well.

[John_Trusty]

One thing to add to the comments of these sailors with many more miles under the keel than I will ever have ... I remember on one of my first few sails on a "big" boat - racing with friends on a 30-something footer. We had a cascading failure like you described where someone made a mistake and a couple things broke in rapid succession. A couple of crew (including me) freaked thinking that we had destroyed the boat. The skipper calmly gave instructions and we had the thing back under control within a minute. I asked him later how he kept calm when metal was bending and things were breaking. He said that he had already broken similar things on previous boats, and other than some money, nothing was really lost (meaning crew). You have had one of these moments. In ten years, when the sh** hits the fan you will be that calm skipper.

[Geek_Guy]

I'm going further on the you are OK scale. There are lots of ways to learn. Some people learn by having someone go through everything step by step. Some by just jumping on and trying. In the grand scheme the first is the best for most people. However the second can work too.


It would have been nice to have had advance knowledge of the weaknesses you found. But my opinion is that no matter how carefully you prepare there are always more things that you can and usually find when you venture out. From the things that happened it appears that you have an older boat. As stated by others you can get some good information by having inspections done and/or having someone with more years onboard take a look. But if your boat is older there will be other things come up.


I say you have passed the first hurdle of boating. You had surprises, you were panicked and scared. Then put it down and found a way to work around your issues. I venture to say that everyone on the forum has had several of those times. The thing that would be way worse in my opinion is that you stayed at the dock and fretted that something may happen if you pushed your skills a bit.

[ValiantV]

Originally Posted by odeapt

So I expect absolutely no sympathy for what happened today, because I am a retard and made a horrible decision. I have had 2 sailing lessons now, still don't know what I am doing..

I had a brilliant idea last night to take the boat out this morning, by myself... My intention was just to motor around and get comfortable with the boat. So i got out of the marina no problem and there was very light winds, so what do I do? I decide to raise the sails and try to sail a little. I get the main up, and start to unfurl the jib... when my goddamn tiller breaks OFF! (picture below) due to being rotted out. Note at this point the headsail is not all the way out, but im losing control of the boat now and kind of panic. I struggle to maintain control of the jib, and NOW the winds pick up A LOT. the boat starts to heel, and it feels like Im going to capsize, I am eventually able to stick the other end of the tiller in to take control of the rudder. I eventually get the headsail furled and secured and the mainsail lowered.

One thing I didn't notice while all of this happened was that I guess my forestay and intermediate forestay loosened, because somewhere in the chaos the chainplates for the boomkin broke! (i think that's what its called, on the stern).

I eventually make it back to the marina. my roller furling is arched because of how loose the forestay is, I could turn the turnbuckle by hand on the intermediate forestay, not normal right? But yeah when I kill the engine, I now hear my bilge pump is on. I eventually find that the stuffing box is leaking a bit. So now im thinking, great, my boat is going to sink. Luckily i was able to search the internet to find it was an easy fix to adjust the gland nut.

So yeah I know i made a very poor decision today, I thought I was going to be stuck at sea, but I made it back. I don't trust the rigging at all on my boat now, so I am going to address that immediately...

Feel free to tell me how stupid I was today, I need to be humbled.

We've made our share of slips and had a few unplanned "adventures" along the way as well.

What I would suggest us that you get a knowledgeable buddy (or even a surveyor) to look over your boat. Little "surprises" like a rotten tiller breaking off can be avoided in the future. That will take some of the traps out of your way and as you experienced, those "trigger" events can start a chain of events that can lead to disaster - or in your case - a story you can now laugh about.

I'm just glad nobody had cell phone cameras around for some of my early "arrivals" at the dock. Then again, Bob Saget may have been offering me $10,000.

[Scot McPherson]

[QUOTE=Sailorbob8599;2372450]This suggestion is for anyone new to sailing.
If you want to learn how to sail well sooner, get yourself a sailing dinghy. Something about 10 ft. long will do the trick.
QUOTE]

I agree with this not necessarily the 10 ft limit, but the concept for sure. I learned to sail on a sunfish. Nothing will teach you about sailing in the pure sense faster than a small boat that reacts to you and to the wind so quickly, and of course there is much less danger involved. You'll learn your points of wind, and how much of a PITA tacking can be when your target is upwind on a lee shore, but you WILL learn and learn well. I sailed across the long island sound when I was 15 years old with a six pack of soda and a couple hand sandwiches.


I learned a whole lot that day about a lot of things I should have known about first, but boy I did learn them fully and solidly.

I taught my kids to sail on a Snark.

Bigger sloops and cutters sail pretty much the same a lug rigged or sprit sail rigged dinghies, but they have different reaction times and more controls. You need to learn to think a couple steps ahead rather than to just react like you can with a sailing dinghy, but it's still the same idea, its just learning what needs to come next rather than just learning what to do right now. However with experience you'll eventually feel confident that you can single hand a schooner, if it's rigged to be single handed.

[Cheechako]

We all do things we should have known better. On my 31 foot boat I took a 2 week vacation alone. I had to push hard the last two days to get back to work. The final day I'm headed to the Ballard Locks in Seattle and kind of in a trance from a long day moving. I'm headed to the locks waiting area at about 5 knots to make the next opening. There is a RR bridge that is normally sitting swung up and open unless a train is coming. Just before the bridge I look up and damn!... it's down! I pull the throttle back fast and crank the wheel. My U turn misses the bridge with the mast by about 3 feet... arghhh. That would have been a bit embarassing in front of all the boats waiting for the locks....

[kmacdonald]

Training wheels.