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Old 02-07-2012, 10:55   #61
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Re: Depressing day for new sailor

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A few more items to look forward too 1.) loose your dinghy while sailing, hopefully you find it and 2.) as you are setting your anchor in a crowed harbor, everyone always is watching, get the painter caught in your prop. That will always make for a great story.
I did the painter in the prop while in the BVI. It was not fun. Got "rescued" by a liveaboard. He reminded me of Crocodile Dundee! His name is Bryson. Great guy. We met up with him that night at the bar while getting dinner. Drinks were on me! While I was drifting back, he came up and lashed on and said, grab the wheel! He took me to my mooring and saved the day. Nobody wants to be "that guy". That day, I was "that guy". Feels good to know better how to handle it in the event that something like that were to happen again. Lesson learned and hopefully, I won't repeat. If I did, I would at least have a better grasp of getting myself out of the situation!

Thanks Bryson!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Old 02-07-2012, 16:53   #62
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Re: Depressing Day for New Sailor

My turn is next ! I havent sailed in years, like 30 , just bought a Hunter , dying to go out
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Old 02-07-2012, 17:14   #63
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Old 02-07-2012, 17:35   #64
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Re: Depressing Day for New Sailor

One from the Aussie side.This report makes for a good day out. Not mine thankfully.

"I made the mistake once of using a hook on a strop from a backstay to hold the end of the boom up. It was a new arrangement, as we would usually hold the boom up by hand while hoisting the mainsail. We hoisted the mainsail, and it was blowing hard. I cringed at the sound of the new mainsail flogging in the wind as we motored to windward. As soon as the crew confirmed the mainsail was fully hoisted, and that the keel was fully down, I bent down and grabbled the mainsheets, threw them out of the jammer, and bore away quickly. Because the boom was still attached to the backstay, no amount of letting off mainsheets was going to do the job. We laid flat on our ear, held there by a boom I couldnt let off, with the motor screaming because it was out of the water..... Not a pleasant thing to happen...

Then you just add one more thing to make it a real problem.
When the crewmember said the keel was down, it wasnt. On the old boat, letting out 10 feet of rope was fully down, but on this bigger boat with a heavier keel, 10 feet of rope meant the keel was only down three inches....

you would think that when you asked the crew to drop the keel, he would do the job properly, but when he's family, you cant say much.....

So then he climbs over the fence, walks down the side of the boat, and tries to stand on the 3 inches of keel sticking out. With bare feet.
The boat tips a bit more, the keel slides into the case and inch, and his toe is now jammed between the keel and the centrecase, while we lay on our side.......
What a buffoon. So if I stand the boat up, he gets dragged underwater with a jammed toe and drowns. And if I leave it on its side, we will fill up and sink.
Meanwhile, the motor is screaming.......
An expensive series of mistakes.

I yelled at the brother in law to get his fkn foot out or else, then I moved inboard to turn the motor off. Then I saw the mast tip was touching the water, and thought the last thing I wanted was the mast to go underwater. So I thought I could swim to the top of the mast and wrap my lifejacket around it, and it might buy us a few more minutes.
So I jumped down into the water, and swam to the top of the mast, and started to take my lifejacket off, the mast started going underwater, so with a lifejacket half off, Im treading water, trying to stop the mast from sinking, and its a losing battle......
When the mast tip got about 3 foot underwater, Ive got my leg hooked around it, treading water, and the keel slid back into the centrecase, freeing the brother in laws foot.
At this point, all the crew jumped off into the water, and one of them landed on the mainsail. buffoon number 2.
I lost my grip on the mast as it sunk out of reach. So then, watching the cabin filling up, I realised that the boat was going down. I swam to the bow and opened the anchor locker and took out the anchor rope and untied the shackle. I shackled the end of the anchor rope to the u bolt on the bow, and swam out away from the boat, unrolling the anchor rope. At this point all the bunk cushions and loose sails floated out and a motor boat approached. He started motoring in circles around the boat, so I swam out to him with the end of the anchor rope and offered him the end, thinking he might be able to take it in tow before it went down, and tow us into shallow water. ..... He ignored me, and just kept motoring around. then I saw that the guy alongside him had a movie camera, and they were both more intent on taking a movie, than rescuing us or the boat....

At this point the hull turned upside down. The guy with the movie camera just kept on circling. Bastard.
Finally another motor boat arrived, and picked up the crew and everything that was floating away, including brand new, unused headsails in bags, and brand new spinnakers in bags. The boat said "dont worry, we will put it all by the ramp and come back for you in a minute."

That was the last I saw of the sails. When he put all the stuff in a pile, by the ramp at the yacht club, some bastard stole them all.

The second motor boat came back, and tried to tow the boat, but it was too heavy, so I shifted the end of the rope to a chainplate, and they towed at rightangles to try and turn the hull over.
Finally the mast broke and the hull rolled over as the safety fence demolished itself. When the bubble burst, the hull sank down so that the cabin roof was level with the water. The boat had airtanks, so it stayed at the surface. It got towed into the shallows, and I was able to climb aboard and let the keel down. With the keel now resting on the sand, the hull floated high enough for the stormboards to be above the water level, and we could pump it out.
The last straw was the realisation that the winch handle, necessary to winch the keel back up enough to get the boat onto the trailer, had been one of the the first things to fall out, and the floating one, supposedly recovered and left with the sails, had also been stolen."

Total damage was around $6k. All for the sake of a hook on a strop on a backstay.....

Coops.
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Old 02-07-2012, 17:58   #65
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Re: Depressing Day for New Sailor

Experience can be a hard task master, but I really believe that is why we all do go down to the sea.
There is the chance everything will go just prefect or not that's the beauty of it, the satisfaction is it just us and the sea and when you get it right it's a feeling that's just yours even better if you can share it with someone of the same mind.
So you had a great day! best of all you know what went wrong and knew it, far better than some who don't.
So the best is still ahead and always will be, I have worked at sea most of my life and still can't wait to get back to pull up a sail and mess stuff up once again.
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Old 02-07-2012, 18:02   #66
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Re: Depressing Day for New Sailor

I don't know... to me, only a complete idiot would forget to vent the fuel tank on a dingy.

By the way, seriously, what exactly is venting a fuel tank on a dingy? I'm going to make a mental note to vent the hell out a the som bitch!!!!
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Old 02-07-2012, 18:07   #67
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Re: Depressing Day for New Sailor

I have had two Hunters a 36 and 41 just loved them both. Just remember they sail faster flat and you should have a great time of it.
I now have a 11.6 mt cat which are great too, but do miss the lovely feel of the mono,s that the Hunter had.
I am lucky enough to get steer a Farr 40 racing now and then to remember the feel.
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Old 02-07-2012, 19:11   #68
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Re: Depressing Day for New Sailor

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1. Backout of the slip
2. Exit Marina
3. Point into the wind
4. Set sail
5. Have fun

I WOULD ADD -- before #3, look to see where the halyards are hanging. Those suckers like to mate with shrouds, I think.
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Old 02-07-2012, 19:14   #69
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Re: Depressing Day for New Sailor

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Not saying what I did but. From early spring till now I had to remount a solar panel, untangled a mooring pendant, replaced a vetus water muffler. Just thinking that I have a lot of sea time and can so botch up when I'm not vigilant.

I know a guy who has sailed for decades -- and a darned good sailor, too -- but he had a BF (brain F--t) and a lapse of judgment -- and hit a bridge. He's very lucky that he didn't do more damage than he did. He's lucky he didn't lose his mast.
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Old 03-07-2012, 05:18   #70
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Re: Depressing Day for New Sailor

If no-one saw, and nothing was broken, it didn't happen.
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Old 03-07-2012, 05:23   #71
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Re: Depressing Day for New Sailor

Yep, I feel right at home.
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Old 03-07-2012, 05:47   #72
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Re: Depressing Day for New Sailor

Well Navy, Zeehag is right. Aviators say "any landing you can walk away is GREAT landing." I think ex-calif said - and sometimes the airplane is reusable also good advice.

I fyou want sad but true: I finally convinced my "never-have-been-sailing-in-my-life wife that we should own a sailboat. Off we went, bought a nice little 22 footer and went to sail it home in the middle of Mach(this is Denmark, meaning there was slush ice in the harbor, water temp was just over freezing and air temp was about 40 degrees fahrenheit) Beautiful sunny weather, great boat, we needed to sail about 30 nautical miles. Wind was about 15 knots and I decided to put up the spinnaker and away we went. A heavy gust grew us over to one side but we recovered nicely. Next gust was stronger and it became a knock-down, mast top in the water, both of us hanging on.

So what happened? Wife never sails again? Actually she's pretty tough and got over it (This is a family site so I will not put in writing the terms of endearment she spoke so sweetly to me after the boat righted).

Today we have 40 footer, she's a Yachtmaster off-shore and we are planning our circumnavigation. When I think how wrongly all that could have worked out because I decided to get smart at set the spinnaker......

Yoiur day sounds pretty average for a beginning sailor
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Old 03-07-2012, 06:11   #73
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Re: Depressing Day for New Sailor

the next time you go down to the sea take a really good long look, there is something to measure your real size in the world against. Ive been doing it for 40 years and i keep making new mistakes and learning from them but i have a pretty good idea what size i am now.
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