Running Aground

[RTB]

Be aware that a grounding can be dangerous if you have crew on deck. Last Friday after crossing the finish line for the Harvest Moon Regatta, the skipper calls for us to drop the sails. While we are tidying things up he runs out of the channel and grounds us. I took a fall and cut my hand on an uncoated lifeline. Another crewmember is slammed next to the companionway. If he had gone in, it would have been a bad deal.

On the return trip up the Texas ICW, a boat ran onto a shoal and grounded hard. Funny, he was out of the channel and about 8 boats following blindly behind this guy. When he went aground, you should have seen all the followers turning all around trying to figure out where to go. Word to the wise, the guy in front may be lost. Be careful, and know where you are.

[MsActiveCaptain]

When in and around our home port of the Penobscot Bay, Maine we absolutely never touch. There's no such thing as a soft grounding on rock and a ten foot tide means you could be there for quite some time. But then there's 40 feet right off the town dock and less than 20 we call shallow.

It took us several trips south before we could relax with depths below ten feet. We occasionally bump the bottom and once ran aground and easily wiggled off. Soft sand and mud are quite forgiving.

Of course, back home a cruiser "from away" who ignores the Middle Ground buoy on an outgoing tide is known as entertainment...

[JamuJoe]

Actually, the two types of sailors are those who have run aground and those who lie about it.

My only good advice about running aground is to try to do it gently. When uncertain about depth, navigation or anything else, Rule #1 is dead slow ahead with a bow watch. Rule #2 is to have thought about and talked through an emergency plan.

Sure we've run aground. The only time that we did serious damage was some 25 years ago, with our first sailboat, a Hunter 30. Motoring in calm water out of Pascagoula Channel, we headed for the cut (soft mud bottom) and struck a poorly marked submerged dredge pipe. The hull cleared, but when the keel struck the pipe the boat hobbyhorsed wildly as the speed went from 4 kts to 0 kts in an instant. I checked the bilges, then headed right back up the river to tie up at a shipyard. There was no damage to the hull, but the force transmitted to the mast deformed the compression beam, which had to be replaced.


This year we cruised the coast of Central Ameria from The Bay Islands of Honduras to Isla Mujeres, Mexico. This included many miles of poorly charted but very beautiful territory inside the Mezo Amerian Barrier Reef. There were a few puckering moments, as the reef along Belize can go from 200 ft to 6 ft or less in a heartbeat. Also memorable was making the unmarked cut at Xcalak, Mexico through the surf before sunset (line up on the short tower at the foot of the dock, which of course is dead into the setting sun). In Ambergris Caye, Belize and Majahual, Mexico, we had to spend a few extra days at anchor waiting for the surf to calm enough for us to depart through the cut.

Rule #3. If conditions are bad and bottom has potential to hurt, wait it out!

Originally Posted by houseboy

Ok, so I have been reading and browsing about running agound which is my biggest fear. Yes, you should be paying attention to your surroundings, tide charts and local conditions. I read somewhere that there are 2 types of sailors, ones who have run aground and the others who have not yet run agound.
But how many people have actually had it happen to them? How was the experience other than scared sh*t out of you?

[nknowland]

It will happen. Get unlimited TowBoatUS coverage ... or SeaTow.

[zeehag]

Originally Posted by nknowland

It will happen. Get unlimited TowBoatUS coverage ... or SeaTow.

LOL--even better-- relax, have lunch, wait it out, inspect your hull underneath water line, make sure you're kedged out and wait for the waters to return....sail away without loss of bottom paint.

just make sure isnt a surf line condition.....

[wolfenzee]

Originally Posted by nknowland

It will happen. Get unlimited TowBoatUS coverage ... or SeaTow.

Unless I am doing days sailing, I am sailing in BC waters...my plan soon is to take off to place way beyond the reach of seatow

[zeehag]

see toad and vessel adrift are good for it you have not the patience to do the penance for running aground..

[wolfenzee]

My father was retired Navy so we had lots of "drills", growing up sailing on the Chesapeake where running aground wasn't an issue, I learned how to get off being aground. Here in the PNW we have a 10' tidal drop, so if the chart says it is wet at MLT I have plenty of room at high. Vessel Assist, Sea Tow etc...will not always be available. Look into the legalities of towing too....if you take a line from a tow boat they can claim salvage (and they are legally responsible if anything happens). But if you give them your line at most they can charge you a tow rate. Vessel Assist will charge you through the nose if you take their line, but charge an hourly tow rate if you give them yours. This is international maritime law, I found out after I towed a fisherman in Canada. I didn't charge him, I let him decide how much it was worth, he gave me $100 and I am still treated better by the fisherman there than a "yachtie' usually is.

Maritime law is pretty twisted and convoluted so am not sure about the exact interpretation. As it is law that you must provide assistance to a vessel in need of assistance, a tow boat can't refuse your line just because they make more money if you take theirs.

[Cormorant]

We actually try to run aground on a regular basis . . . on sand flats and beaches, where we let the tide go out and the kids get out to run around. But we have a peculiar boat. . . .

[Reckless]

Ran aground twice this weekend taking the boat to the marina to have her halled out for the winter.

Channel markers were removed from my home marina, thought I knew the channel well enough, but about 50 yards out with low water levels we ran aground, thank fully it was just a sandy muddy bottom, just missed a nice big rock by about 2 feet.
Put the motor in reverse and backed out.

Then when I got to the new marina, there was a 38' Bene stuck at the entrance to the channel, they drew 6'6" I draw 3'3" they waved me past, I gave them a little room on the port side, but I guess the 30 foot wide channel was much shallower on that side because I ran aground again. Thank fully more mud and sand, didn't take much to get me out.

Tow boat came and pulled the Bene out, the river was getting busy with other boats trying to get down the channel. Once the Bene was out I made a second pass with another boat behind me, little too close for my liking, it I ran aground again he would have been right up on me, but we made it through just fine. Turns out the currents just made a nice little mud bump at the entrance to the channel. The Bene, pulled back and came in full speed plowed right through and made it in just fine.

[ato]

i've been helping to tow off a sailboat that struck the rocks between the north and south channel at sarimbun island recently. on 30 October they went aground an hour before high tide. from what i know they tried to take the north channel, but went in the middle between the channel markers and hit the rocks. a dinghy tried to pull them off, without success. i tried it with my jet ski and 200 hp did the job within one minute.
just to let you know, jet skis can be useful too

[zeehag]

Originally Posted by ato

i've been helping to tow off a sailboat that struck the rocks between the north and south channel at sarimbun island recently. on 30 October they went aground an hour before high tide. from what i know they tried to take the north channel, but went in the middle between the channel markers and hit the rocks. a dinghy tried to pull them off, without success. i tried it with my jet ski and 200 hp did the job within one minute.
just to let you know, jet skis can be useful too

lol so ye found one of the only GOOD uses for jetskis..lol... sailboat antigrounding aids..LOL.. goood work!!!! i KNEW there HAD to be a GOOD use for them some where in life..LOL

[wolfenzee]

In the Chesapeake Bay, some of the sand bars change so often you can't rely on "proper" navigational aids, usually sticks in the mud put out there by locals. My favorite read "If you can read this you are probably aground". It was in a creek that had a sand bar at the mouth that went alllll the way over to the other side, where there was a very narrow channel then opened up, sometimes it was on one side some times on the other.