Your most embarrassing moment

[Phil Herring]

What a great day to share an embarrassing story about yourself!

Cmon, everybody has them. Own it. Celebrate it! Share the most humiliating moment you've had on your boat.

After all, we have much to learn from your mistakes.

 

[agprice22]

I bought and refurbished an old US1 while I was in college. Once I had it done, I took it up to Lake Santa Fe, outside Melrose FL., with my wife. She had never sailed, so she was a little trepidatious. I set up the boat on the shore and prepared to launch.

There was a brisk breeze out of the South, and we were on the West shore, in a small clearing behind a shorefront restaurant with people on the deck watching.
The sleeve sail shook and snapped on the mast as I dragged the boat into warm, knee-deep water in a small, sandy break in the tall lake grass. I had my wife climb in the boat and showed her how to release the centerboard. I readied the rudder to flip down.

I turned the boat off the wind, gave it a big shove and climbed aboard and flipped the rudder down. I hauled the mainsheet, and the boat took off! She was heeled about 5 or 6 degrees and accelerating! About 5 seconds later, the rudder popped right out of the gudgeons and slipped the tiller out of my hand!
I looked back to see the rudder quickly receding behind us. In a snap decision, I launched myself after it. Once in the water, I swam toward the rudder and then looked back to see the boat still sailing! My wife was screaming for me when the boat finally heeled over and dumped her in the water. I swam out with the rudder, righted the boat, and got the rudder and my wife back aboard. She was not too happy. I am glad we were both wearing ski vests. I hauled everything back to shore.
Thinking back, I cannot be sure we got to sail that day. As I recall, the spring clip that held the rudder fitting in the gudgeon bent. I don’t think she sailed on that lake with me again, except for maybe one time on a windless day with a couple of friends.
We did have many lovely adventures off Cedar Key, FL., sailing among the sandbars and islands, the dolphin playing around us.

 

[Ken Cross]

It only happens when there is an audience. I'm not sure where to begin.

Ken

 

[bawlmer]

I have had many. I have to think of where to start. Lets see.....
How about getting stuck on the rocks less than 100 feet off of Fort McHenry. I was quite the sight hanging off the boom while the admiral gunned the engine to get us off the rocks.

Or when I was disqualified from the first race I entered because we hit the committee boat.

Or when I was docking and the shift lever came off in my hand while I was in the fairway. Fortunately there was a crowd there to help wrangle me in.

And then there were those moments you knew would be embarrassing before you started like practicing how to dock your new to you sailboat about 8 times one afternoon. Getting applause from the gathered crowd once you got it right.

All character building experiences. There are probably more I have deliberately forgotten.

 

[Will Gilmore]

I'm really really good at blocking those experiences and burying them deep in my unconscious. So, as far as I can remember, I've never had an embarrassing moment.

-Will (Dragonfly)

 

[Brian D]

My boat was in Chula Vista marina. I had just moved to an outside slip and I was no more than a boat length away from the end of the finger. Before, I was usually in the center with multiple boat lengths to the end of the finger.

Just finished a sail and now time to wash down the boat before heading home. Grabbed the hose and started walking backwards to get the kinks out. Well, when I was in the middle of the finger it was not problem. But this time I ended walking right off the finger. And... it was all in slow motion, if you know what I mean.

Splash! I looked around quickly but it looks like no one saw what happened. Back to washing my boat... and me!

 

[dLj]

As Will said, I seem to block out these experiences. However, there is one that comes to mind as I was humiliated for almost 2 hours.

I was sailing into Cabreton, a small port in Southern France. The entrance into the port is up a river and with a sailboat, you need to go in at high tide. Well, I'd arrived at the entrance a couple hours before high tide (now really glad pre, not post). I scoured the charts and figured I could just make it, but had to be really careful near the right turn out of the river into the port. So here we go. I'm going up the river, wing on wing, and full motor as that was needed to counter the current, even on a rising tide.

I'm just at the entrance to the port and a motor boat comes flying out ignoring I'm coming in so to avoid a head-on collision , I swerve to port. There it is, that clear sensation of burying my keel deep into river mud. Plowing into a dead stop. At this point I'm not embarrassed, I'm righteously outraged. That motor boat had not followed proper col regs movement, I'd done everything to avoid a collision I was Mr. cool-having-been-wronged... So I drop all my sails, and then start working the motor in reverse. After a few minutes I come to realize there is no way I'm getting out of that mud. So my wife and I decide to just chill, have lunch, wait for high tide and just accept being stuck.

Now the river is pretty narrow here and there is a promenade running down the side. We became the "monkeys in the cage" that everyone walking by would gawk at and make comments. There was one family with a little boy that asked his father "Daddy, why is that boat just sitting there in the river and not going into the port?" His father responded, "Sailboats have a long keel and that boat is stuck in the mud because he got out of the channel." All of my righteous indignation was useless, I was fully humiliated for being stuck there and still had quite some time for high tide to arrive... There I was, the idiot exhibition for all to see...

dj

 

[Ward H]

The Barnegat Municipal Dock has a great, roughly 300' long, dock/boardwalk where people fish, crab and watch the action at the public ramp.
I happened to choose the busiest day of the summer to launch my Newport 17' for only the 3rd time. I was the only sailboat, the others were either power boats or jet skis.
There was one line for launching and one for recovering. Of course getting a sailboat ready to launch takes longer than power boats and jet skis so the ramp guy took pity and let me sit to the side while getting set up. My wife waited on a bench right next to the ramp.
I had a lot of trouble getting the mast up, attaching the forestay, sails on, motor on, etc. After about 40 minutes I was ready to launch . The ramp guy had to make a break in the launch line, then I backed down the ramp. I had trouble getting the boat off the trailer and soon had a lot of helpers telling me how to do it. Finally in the water and tied to the side dock I told my wife I would be back to help her into the boat after I parked the truck and trailer.
Of course being the busiest day of the summer I had to park a block away from the ramp.
When I got back to the boat the helpers had my wife on the boat and had moved it out of the way so others could launch.
Then I tried to start the motor. It would start and die. When it started people would applaud, when it died they let out an auhhhh.
Finally got it running and headed out towards the bay. Got to the other end of the dock and it died again. Got another auhhhhh.
I had been using the internal fuel tank so I switched to the external tank and got it running again but I was wiped out. I turned around and motored back past the dock and ramp to our new slip at the marina, again getting applause as I passed the ramp.

We tied up in the slip and left for home. On the way home my wife shared several of the comments made by the spectators while I was getting the sailboat set up and into the water, many not very flattering. I asked if they new she was with me. Her reply was a quick "Hell No"

 

[kappykaplan]

Well, my most embarrassing story didn't have an audience . . . I was coming back up the Patuxent River after a glorious solo day sail. Naturally, the wind shifted to be blowing up the river. I furled the jib, not really paying attention to the crab pot field I drifted into. Started the engine to head farther up the river before turning into the wind to douse the main. I put the tranny in gear - clunk, engine dies. What the heck. Started the engine again, put the tranny in gear, engine dies again. Then I happened to look over the stern to discover a crab pot marker attached to my stern. Long story short, I went swimming twice to disentangle my boat from the marker. Thank goodness for a sharp boat knife and swim mask. Turns out I was attached to a string of pots which explained why the boat didn't move while I was swimming. Never again! (I know, never say never.)

 

[jssailem]

Daddy, why is that boat just sitting there in the river and not going into the port?"

That is when you shout out... We are enjoying and celebrating a fine California wine... You know the country that brought you root stock when you lost all your grape vines... Or "We thougt we would sit here and give a toast to the time we saved your butt.. What was it 1944?"

 

[dLj]

That is when you shout out... We are enjoying and celebrating a fine California wine... You know the country that brought you root stock when you lost all your grape vines... Or "We thougt we would sit here and give a toast to the time we saved your butt.. What was it 1944?"

That would have been rather confusing at that time.

I was flying a Spanish flag as I was sailing out of San Sebastian, Spain. Hahahaha

dj

 

[jssailem]

Yes even better. Ha

 

[31seahorse]

How do I embarrass me? Let me count the ways!
(1) Unexpected front flip off the starboard bow after leaning on the lifeline that was no longer attached at the stern of the boat.
(2) Insisting (well, strongly encouraging) our son's girlfriend to take the helm to enjoy sailing. I was enjoying seeing her enjoy the experience and I waited too long to tell her to tack. Bumped the bottom, bumped again, stuck! In waters I had sailed for about 10 years! Friendly jet ski operator took son and girlfriend back to the dock. Eileen and I sat on an ever more leaning boat until high tide returned. Tried not looking at passing boats whose crews were definitely looking at us.
(3) Wearing dark soled water shoes on a club member's boat. Supposed to be non-marking. They weren't!

 

[Revv up]

I bought a Flying Junior as my first boat from a town 150 miles away, on the way home I suggested to my girlfriend that we stop in Sicamouse and give it a try. Set it up and launched it with little drama but we had to go under a highway bridge to get to the lake.

Wind was blowing decent so I headed towards the bridge to check if we were going to make it under.....looked good.... deeper under we were in complete wind shadow and thats when the boat stood up and the mast hung up on the structure and the rodeo started.

Somehow we got spit back out the way we came in so I tucked my tail between my legs and loaded it on the trailer to go home in front of the small gathering crowd.

 

[Timm R Oday25]

I used a 20 foot long,2" square steel tube as a trailer tongue extension . Heavy and solid . About 3 feet from the end
I have a 2" trailer ball mounted .It slides into the trailer coupler.
I backed the trailer and extension into Lake Michigan and loaded the sailboat. When I went to pull the trailer out the ball came out from the trailer coupler .
I had to remove my jeans and wade into the 40 degree water and reattach the extension. I never got a second date with the young lady who accompanied me

 

[Scott T-Bird]

I asked if they new she was with me. Her reply was a quick "Hell No"

That's priceless!

 

[lehighsail]

At a Caribbean resort with 3 other couples and I was the only one with sailing experience. We all took out little cats and, of course, I was the only one to capsize. We were coming about when a power boat wake and gust came at the same time and we couldn't move to the windward side of the craft fast enough.

 

[Captain Larry-DH]

I was having a beer with a friend and told him I'd never go to Block Island on July 4th or Labor Day weekend. He told me that Labor Day is nearly empty now that most New England schools start the week before the LD weekend. So being gullible isn't the embarrassing part. We made plans to meet our son and daughter in law in CT (they came up from Brooklyn) and sailed over on Saturday, arriving about 1:30PM. Hahahhh
Forget about getting a mooring, the anchorage was wall to wall boats, so you could almost walk across Salt Pond. We anchored no less than 8 times in various places (the Admiral counted) and each time we settled back into our scope the spacing was too risky (keeping in mind the wind was forecast to veer 180). Every possible opening was explored, from shallow to deep, and each boat's owners watched carefully with consternation to see who was threatening an invasion of their space. There was simply no room for "normal" spacing. We were an unwelcome show, with all eyes on us as we anchored and departed each time.
I picked the final spot; and as we settled back on our rode and I decided it looked viable, the owner of the 60+ foot power boat next to me came by in his dinghy to say he had 90' of rode out (in 7' of water) and if I interfered it would be on me. I said "90' in 7-foot depth? Really?" Well, he said, he has 6' of freeboard at the bow, and "you can't have too much scope". I smiled and then after we launched the dinghy I asked each boat on 3 sides how much scope they had, let out as much as I dared, and after the wind veered that night I still had at least 20 or 30 feet of space between my boat and every other around us.
Fortunately the winds didn't go above about 15k and every boat around us held. A 6-boat raft-up nearby didn't swing with other boats when the wind changed and they came within a few feet of a trawler near them. (I hate being near raft-ups. But that's for another thread.)

 

[Captain Larry-DH]

I never got a second date with the young lady who accompanied me

And you are blaming the 40 degree water?

 

[karena]

Two friends and I were taking my Nacra 5.0 catamaran off a Minneapolis city lake in October, in a VW Rabbit convertible. The size difference alone made us kind of funny. But we had concerns about if the trailer was on the ramp or not. The driver of this stick shift vehicle hopped out to take a look, without setting the parking brake. Boat and car rolled back into the water. All the stuff in the car - sail bags, mail, sunscreen, and passenger floated out. Passersby had us out of the water within a few minutes. The cat went on to sail for several more years before I sold her, and the car actually did a few more launches and haul outs. But the fishy and algae smell never went away.