Stupid move in the dinghy

[JPA Cate]

Posts have been deleted from this thread, as well as posts referring to the deleted ones.

JPA Cate, for the moderators

[kish]

Went ashore to a small boat slip in a small harbour with a 4 metre tidal range.
It was 2pm, just at low tide at low water springs. There was no way to leave dinghy afloat.
To haul the dinghy above the high water mark, would require a dinghy movement up the dry slip of some 10 metres.

A quick mental calculation (and crew muttering about weight of dinghy) prompted my decision to leave dinghy 5 metres up the slip as
we were only going to be an hour ashore!. Fortunately I tied the dinghy painter to a ring on the slip near to its resting place.

The time ashore was prolonged by the need for a beer or two after the shopping.

On return to the dinghy, some 3 hours later, it was afloat and the ring on the slip to which the dinghy painter was attached, was now below water and inaccessible to release.

Fortunately the dinghy painter was 6 metres long and he dinghy was safely afloat.

No panic, back to the pub to await the tide to fall to a level where the painter could be readily untied.
The lesson : don't delay when tidal constrains apply and make sure that you have a long painter.

[patprice]

Originally Posted by SV_Harbinger

Had one of those moments last night getting back on the boat, after partaking in "libations" at the local watering hole. It was flat calm as I approached the boat in the dinghy (Walker Bay 10, with a little Tohatsu 2.5)

I made it along side and got the dinghy tied up on the starboard quarter just like I always do( 2 lines, one from the dinks bow to the midship cleat, and another off the stern to a cockpit cleat) unloaded all the stuff I had in the dink and now it was my turn. I climb myself aboard and figure I'll just let the dinghy bob astern for the night as I'll be needing it in the morning, so I untie the stern line and go to move forward and release the bow line so I can move it back to the cockpit cleat, and no sooner did I untie it I trip on some of the crap I unloaded about 3 minutes previous and drop the darn bow line in the water, then waste time trying to reach for it over the side with my little T-Rex arms, obliviously I couldn't grab it despite doing a sort of a combat crawl along the toerail when DING the light goes off in my head, that I have a wonderful tool onboard for just such an occasion. So I go and grab the boat hook and it's just barely not long enough now as the dinghy has drifted further away by now, so naturally I try really leaning out while holding on to the backstay in one hand and the boat hook in the other, still no good...it's about 2330 and now my damn dinghy is taking an un-approved excursion without me.

Fortunately the wind took it only maybe about 100yds before it went up on the beach. So off go my shirt shoes and pants and in the water I go, swim ashore fire up the ob and come back to the boat again, this time a little wetter...

Very annoying! But you did do it in the dark and escape the judgement of fellow yachting who are generally somewhat unreserved in these situations.
Believe me, any yachtie beyond the apprenticeship stage has done similar. If not then probably telling fibs.

[mowerandy]

Hearing you Jaqun - my bestie did the same thing on my boat but without the foresail activity for an excuse (I think beer was his excuse).
Stepped down an open hatch - for ten stitches if my memory serves

[Sea Venture]

I could write a best seller on my dinghy mishaps. I do get a strong feeling our dinghy doesn't like me for some reason.

Am new to this sailing / cruising lifestyle but OMG , I can just imagine what other cruisers think when they see me doing things.

I've fallen out of the dinghy on two occasions. In the one occasion I managed to saved the beers before I went under the yacht, hubby thinks am an absolute hero. The fact that I hit my head on the yacht was forgotten about when he tells the story. It's the fact that I saved the 6 beers that counts .

Other occasion , we all on the beach having sundowners. Time for us all to head back to our boats. Hubby gets in , starts the motor. Says ok push off, I do and try get into the dinghy at the same time. It wasn't a pretty right , to say the least. On a positive note, I did get a standing ovation from all still on the beach.

[mowerandy]

Lovely day at the beach - had the Windrider 16 tri out for a play with the kids. Offshore breeze of about 15 knots over high cliffs. One youngster on each tramp and towing my oldest (about 15 at the time) on her inflatable kayak. sailed past a gully in the cliffs, and whammy - 40 knots straight out of the hole in the wall.
So the kayak took to the air, making significant altitude before Tara fell off into the sea spraying dive gear in all directions. I luffed the boat but between the drag of the towed kayak and the machine-gunning main we were driven promptly onto the rocks by the back-eddying wind. That is no big deal for a windrider (rocks - meh), but in climbing out of my comfortable cockpit to wrestle the boat to a sensible heading I stepped down a sharp hole underwater and skinned my shin - now cussing like a proper sailor, I climbed back on board, put my youngest down in the safety of the enclosed cockpit, furled down the main with great difficulty (still blowing like stink from every different direction at once) and set off to collect Tara, still bobbing around about 50 yards offshore.
Turns out she thought that this was the best fun she EVER had (not what I was expecting, but then she has been around sail boats and foul breezes since she was three weeks old). Young Chrissie recovered from the ordeal alright, but my son Adam vowed never to sail again....and I'm still working on that....

[nogawyks]

Only reason i don't have lots of stories about how i screwed up sailing is because I haven't had the opportunity to sail much. So far, the worst is on charter, first day, first sail, I trip a clutch on a line and attempt to hold said line (loaded sail) for approximately 0.5 seconds until I realized that wasn't working. Spent the rest of the 10 day charter applying hydrogen peroxide and bandaids to the divot in my hand. Still have a scar.

Wayne

[AKA-None]

Mine didn’t involve a dingy but the main reefing lines that weren’t actually tied on after a sail change. This was noticed when I went to reef the main in 30 knots of wind that “came up suddenly “ and in view of all.

[Big Macca]

Following a business conference, wife and I flew to our 45ft cat for some R&R, forgetting (until they arrived the next day ) that we'd invited friends and their two kids to join us. We were both suffering from what turned out to be a dose of Legionnaires Disease, but being good hosts we soldiered on for a couple of days with what we thought was just a bad bout of flu. At anchor, I agreed to take the kids ashore to the beach to give wife some peace and quiet. I climbed into the 3-metre dinghy, which had an 18hp Tohatsu. Standing, leaning over the engine (in my defence I was very sick) I fired up the engine with the throttle on full, lost my balance, reached down to steady myself on the outboard and maybe to twist the throttle down. Whatever. My hand hit the gear lever. Dink shot forward at full speed, I departed over the back, the dink ran up the outer side of the sugar scoop, the line connecting dink to cat went boing, the dink flipped elegantly in midair like an F18 before rebounding inverted into the water. The engine finally drowned, which at least stopped the prop spinning. No one except the outboard was injured.
And that was the point I called the cruise off and we paddled ashore to go find a doctor...

[SV_Harbinger]

Well at least I'm not the only one who has a dinghy that treats them with a mild form of distain and in regards to the comments about the swim, I consider myself a pretty fair swimmer, but it took what felt like forever to get from the boat to the beach and by the time I got there I had to just sit in the shells for a bit and recuperate.
Some other really "smart" things I've done would include boarding the wrong boat (first night in a new anchorage, and I WAS moored right next to an identical Catalina 30 so I wasn't that far off, also i was stone sober for that one)
Forgetting to release the "yellow mooring line"
Bringing the dinghy ob to the mechanic because it wouldn't start (I was hooking up the lanyard incorrectly)
Replacing the propane bottle, only to have the stove still not work ( I hooked the dead bottle back up)
Also somewhere under my mooring there has to be about 10 phones spanning the last 10 years, it seems I can't go a year without loosing at least one.
So far I've been lucky though and have saved all my injuries for when I'm at work.

[Suijin]

Just two days ago I left my dinghy at a dinghy dock all day while ashore doing errands. Came back to find it wedged almost fully UNDER the dock with the tide coming up. No way I could get it out without deflating it at least halfway, to get the transom past an interior beam on the dock.

Then had to “row” it upwind 300 yards to the boat. Must have looked comical.

[belizesailor]

Painful lesson re-learned, never get your hand between a boat and the dock, even for the worthy cause of saving a case of beer! [emoji37]

[mowerandy]

Ouch - sorry about your finger, but GOOD SAVE!

I once saw an invited guest (landlubber) volunteer herself as a human fender when the boat she was about to board (43 feet and 15 tons) was approaching the marina dock a little wide and got caught by a decent gust. As it accelerated towards the pontoon she quickly put her back against the pontoon piling and stretched out her arms ready to catch the fast approaching gunwhale and fend off.
I managed to cover the ten metres between us in about two seconds, to shoulder charge her clear of harm just as the gap closed out. She face planted the pontoon, and was really pissed with me. Boat ground the pontoon with considerable force thereafter.

I have never been sure if the skipper wasn't really pissed with me too, since the "human fender" was one of his own rather annoying employees who I suspect he would rather have sacrificed to Neptune than his topcoat -

[Ted and Relinda]

Years ago in our Hunter 30, I remember the night I messed with the anchor Relinda had set. Saw a good storm coming from the south and thought maybe I should let out another 10 feet of rode or so. Didn't notice dead still water and we had we had come up over the anchor. I just dropped the line in and went back to the cockpit. Later we went below and sacked out. Storm came and all was fine till I heard a knocking on the side of the hull. Went up to find dingy trying to pass us. Storm raging pretty good and as I looked around found we had drug across the Anchorage past a dozen or so boats without disturbing anybody but we were into the mangoves and bouncing on the bottom. Crap, I quickly started the motor to get us out of there. Forgot the painter and the motor suddenly stopped dead. Figured out my stupid move and had to go overboard under the bouncing boat to cut the line loose from the prop. Second line on dingy held and it floted free. I was able then to get the motor started and worked our way back out between bumps on the bottom. Back over to our original spot and no one else ever knew what happened. At least two things learned that night. Don t mess with Relindas anchor and check where dingy is before starting the engine.

[SweetTeaSailor]

I can't believe I'm going to tell this as it's still really raw! Last month, we went for a quick cruise to the Keys for a shakedown after re-rigging post demasting by Hurricane Irma. As we know, often it's ONE miscalculation that sets off a cascade of problems. We have a dog so we try to anchor close to shore. Checked the tide, yup. Took the dog in for potty break. Then settled in with a cocktail. Yup. Awhile later...bump....bump. Yup. Got the anchor up but no go. Checked different tide info and made plan to move at 2230 with higher tide. Up to now no one is bleeding! After dinner, my man is checking something on the port stern sugar scoop when the boat finally lurches over from balancing on keel. He takes a huge chunk out of his heel which was deep enough to need stitches but so thickly callused no needle would go through. I patch him up best I can and we wait. 2230 comes and we pull anchor making for deeper water at 2-3kts max. I'm at the helm so, when I hear/feel something not right, I look around to see our dinghy and its' OB flipped and dragging behind us. YIKES. The dink had been in the water across the stern and on the davit moorings. Should have been safe to tow it slowly for a short distance, right!? NOPE. The stern clip on the split harness closes to the boat had failed. We knew it had a tendency to twist and we planned to engineer a solution when we returned home. Got the boat safely anchored. But, the last thing a lady wants to see in the middle of the night is her wounded man precariously balancing on a tiny foothold trying to flip all that mess back over. Thank God he is strong! Killed the OB dead. Yup. So he rowed the dog in the next morning (bless him) while I scrubbed the cockpit and deck which looked like a murder had occurred. Three days and $$$ later, a mechanic was able to save the OBE. We decided we had learned enough so we headed home! So, so many lessons. We can laugh about it now; even say "it lurched" when we do something, anything stupid!
On the positive, the boat sailed great, even through a 37kt squall. Engine ran better than ever. Nav and autopilot worked good. We caught some tuna and generally ate (and drank) well. I love my boat! My man, too.