A LONG story.....

[George B.]

Congratulations!

Congratulations are in order for you, Susie and Gary. First, for your new boat - May you enjoy many a pleasant day sailing on her. Second, for your first cruise - It doesn't matter if it is three hours or three years, casting off into "mare incognito" is a cruise. And third, for the great sea story! Welcome to the fraternity! You can now go to that watering hole where sailors congregate at the end of day and swap stories with the best of them. I personally like to swap sea stories in the cockpit at night under starry skies with a good bottle of wine. Give Gary some slack. His ego and pride have taken a pretty big hit. I, for one, think he acted properly. Skippering is a lot different than crewing and it is good to know that he is careful and cautious. It sounds like the boat was never surveyed or test sailed before purchase and that you had to move it right away. Gary was right to be suspicious about the rig - after all, if the owner wasn't maintaining his auxiliary, why would you think he was maintaining the rigging? If the rig went, you go from sailboat to expensive barge in a heartbeat. Dropping anchor was the right thing to do in your circumstance. Unfortunately, your reservoir lake is probably many times deeper than the average depth of Chesapeake, and it probably doesn't get shallow until you are right on shore. I am surprised at the caliber of the power boaters on your lake. Either one could have towed you to safety without too much inconvenience. Heck, I even towed a power boat with my sailboat one time. I guess the big moral of the story is to always carry more fuel than you think you need and to be self sufficient as help will always be slow in getting to you. … Regarding sea stories… Have I ever told you about the time when we put a 1960 Choy Lee ketch on the beach at Drake's Bay?GeorgeS/V C34 'Freya'

 

[Susie]

No, George, you haven't....

but I'd love to hear it now. Is that Drake's Bay in the BVI?

 

[R.W.Landau]

Come on George,

I want to here it too!r.w.landau

 

[George B.]

Drake's Bay, A Sea Story

Now, I told you sea stories are best done in a bar. So go get a glass of your favorite libation and come back, I'll wait… OK?, Now this actually happened to me more than a few years ago and it takes a little time to tell so here it goes:In 1579, Sir Francis Drake beached the Golden Hind in a tiny cove twenty miles north of San Francisco Bay in order to clean her bottom and provision her for the long voyage home. Four hundred years later, I and two others inadvertently did the same to a 1960 Choy Lee ketch.This particular Choy Lee is a wooden boat constructed out of teak and mahogany built in the old Hong Kong yard. Full keel and wooden spars, she's a tribute to the shipwrights art. A far cry from the fiberglass ones being molded in Taipei these days. I get a call from my friend one Friday night. "Hey, do you want to go to Drake's Bay? I get the boat this weekend and a friend is in from France and would love to do some sailing." I'm always game for some sailing so I accepted and quickly packed for the weekend. I get to the boat early the next morning and there is a ton of things to do before we go. My friend owns her through a partnership of five. Each owner gets the boat every fifth weekend (except holidays when they all share). Everyone wants to have fun on their weekend and consequently there is a lot of deferred maintenance that needs to be done before we can go. We work fast, as we have a long ways to go, and although the old woodies are pretty, they're just not particularly fast.The sail out from Sausalito was great, short tacked through the Golden Gate and rounded Point Bonita. Our course took us right across the Potato Patch. Man, those old woodies love to dig in those seas. We're sticking the bow every third wave and spray is flying everywhere. The skipper and I have sailed together for many years. We've crewed together in the Master Mariner Regattas and cruised up and down the coast many times. We're hanging out all the laundry that day - Jib, Forward Staysail, Main and Mizzen. She's firing on all eight cylinders and we're loving it.We arrived at Drake's in the afternoon. The Bay has a broad crescent shape and completely open to the south. It is protected to the north by the Pt. Reyes headlands. It has a gently sloping sand and grass bottom. "Local knowledge" our skipper said as we motored past the few yachts and fishing boats anchored near the old landing pier. "We're going to drop hook further in, close enough to be completely in the lee of the headlands." "Those jokers out there are going surge on their anchors all night." We find a suitable site, a little shallow, but the Northerly will keep us blown towards the center of the Bay (you're never really out of the wind at Drake's). Just to be on the safe side, let's check the tide table. What, no tide book? Five owners and no tide book? What was the tide when we left Sausalito this morning? Was it low? Rising?  "No, I'm sure it was falling. Adjusting for location, we should be at high somewhere near dawn. All night on a rising tide. Besides, we'll turn on the depth sounder alarm."Now, if you ever get the chance, go sailing with a Frenchman. My skipper's friend was a genius in the galley. Gourmet food from a twenty year old alcohol stove and oven. Fantastic. During dinner the cockpit, we swapped sea stories and drank fine wine. About this time we started to get dive bombed by pelicans. It seems that they found a school of anchovies. The fish went for the only safety they could find - under our boat. Needless to say, every time they went under the sounder, the alarm would go off. Our skipper went down to turn it off. "While I'm down here, how about I open another bottle of that excellent Cabernet?" We drank that one and perhaps another as well. I slept that deep sleep that you only get from being all day in the fresh air and eating rich food.KABAAM! What the… Where am I?… KABOOM! I'm in a boat and that's not a good sound! Meanwhile, our skipper was up in a flash. He opened the companionway just as another wave was breaking into the cockpit. Cold water cascaded everywhere. No time to get dressed, just grab some foulies and it's up on deck. Sometime during the night the northerly died out and the Bay was smooth as glass. With nothing to hold her back, our boat slowly worked her way over the anchor and headed bow first onto the beach. We were caught in the sea break. Every time a wave came by, it would pick up the stern and drop it violently as it rolled past. The engine was useless, we're to hard aground. The skipper tells us the only way is to kedge ourselves off. "No problem," he says as there is a life raft on board that we can use to row out and set a second anchor. Now this life raft had only on previous owner - The US Navy, and was only used once or twice - IN WORLD WAR TWO! This raft was pretty ripe - years of storage near the bilge isn't kind to rubberized canvas. Only one slight problem though, we had a raft and two oars but no pump! Although we were still getting hammered, as long as we stayed perpendicular to the surf, we were salvageable. If the boat shifted and broached, then she'd probably roll and take on some serious damage. We had to set that second anchor! We proceeded to blow up that @$#*!% raft by lung power alone. Now you can only get 2-3 PSI out of your lungs and a raft could really use about 20. It barely floats with the skipper, anchor, chain, and about 200' of rode. He rows out, sets the anchor and comes back in like a man possessed. The raft has a leak and needs to be blown up again. While the skipper and other crew work on the raft, I begin to winch in the anchor on one of the primary winches. They reset the first anchor and do the same on the other primary. Soon, those two anchor lines were tight as bow strings but we were able to keep the stern towards the waves. As dawn broke, our situation stabilized. A commercial fisherman had also came in during the night and was close enough to reach in the leaky raft. Once again the raft was blown up and our skipper rowed out. We could hear the conversation very clearly over the water as the awakened fisherman proceeded to dress down our poor skipper, letting him know just how lowly he regarded us yachties. He also said that he would gladly tow us off latter that morning at high tide! It appears that the commercial fishermen let their boats settle on the bottom in order to get a good night's rest - now that's local knowledge.As the tide began to fill in, we began to get more purchase on the anchor lines. Now, as the waves lifted the stern, we'd get a little movement to seaward. Two more hours of this and we were floating again. We check the rudder and it's O.K. Fire up the engine and we're out of there! Let's go before anybody we know sees us. The trip home was not nearly as fun as the one out.George B.S/V 'Freya'

 

[John Nantz]

Good

That was really good! Thanks, George for being a stand-in. I was really looking forward to episode II but there wasn't any so this really helped.Was this one of those 35 footers I think they called "Frisco Flyers"? Those were really nice boats.For Susi, or anyone else for that matter, I have a recommended good read:"Cape Horn, One Man's Dream, One Woman's Nightmare" by Reanne Hemingway-DouglassThis is an absolutely great read. Probably not in an Oklahoma library but maybe available through an inter-library loan.They pitch-polled off the coast of Chile and they're still married, albeit with a large trawler now.Book Reviewer by a reader: Denise from USAI recently had the privilege of meeting Reanne and her husband, Don (and knowing absolutely nothing about her book beforehand). This book was written in such a way that you almost feel as if YOU'RE experiencing everything - you feel like you're in Reanne's mind during the whole adventure. I couldn't put the book down. This book gets into the brutally honest nitty-gritty psychology of how people react to each other during normal times as well as life-and-death crises. Reanne tapped into and shared her most intimate thoughts during the most critical time of her life. Reanne told me that when she tried to get this book published years ago, the publishers wanted to her fictionalize the story and that it was too emotional and too psychological. Wake up publishers! Survival IS a psychological situation! As a sailboater, I totally admire and respect Reanne for what she went through and for "not selling out to the publishers" and sticking to the truth of their adventure, through her eyes. Reanne, you're so awesome!Link below to Amazon

 

[Susie]

Gimme a break!

John, hopefully, part II will not occur for a while. In fact, I'm sure of it, cause we don't plan to go "motoring" again till the weather eases up. However, that wine and cheese party IS comingup, so you never know. (However, Gary DID tell me he wanted to respond, but DON'T believe a word he says!!)George, loved your story and I actually could follow it, even though it was written in Sailorese. Gee, lots of new terms to learn. I thought I just needed to worry about boat parts, but looks like I need to worry about verbage too. This is like learning a whole new language!!