The only damage being a bit of scratched paint in docking at 4:00 AM in total darkness and my pride 
Let it be known that I am not to proud to admit stupidity!! The other day we went over to the boat with the alteration to the rudder to keep it down. We finished a few minor choirs that had not been completed prior to launching.
I thought it would be nice to motor out from the docks to the ocean so that we could get a feel for the course and time it would take. Our first mistake was not getting OpenCPN up and running on the laptop. It was light out and 5 PM so we had lots of light and new the channel was buoyed (albeit not by the Canadian Coast Guard). This channel has 2 very sharp turns (90 degee's) in it. Well as it turns out I made the first hard turn at the wrong set of buoys. Everything seemed fine as water depth was what it should have been as we motored along. Then the rudder kicked up and depth dropped to 0M. Problem one the rudder dropped back down but only till it bottomed out and resting on the bottom. I didn't want to put the motor into reverse fearing that I might damage the rudder. By the time we got the rudder secured (second mistake) I lightly gunned the motor thinking I was in reverse NOT!, so I drove us aground onto the sand under us. ( It was the keel box ) that grounded at this point. We tried in vain for 10 minutes to back off to no avail.
Ok so we're grounded and the tide is on the out. Nothing to do but wait for the incoming tide to float us again then carefully back out. The problem with this being that it was now 6:30 PM and we were sitting in about 22 inches of water. It would be pitch black when the next high tide arrived and the buoy's are not lite up and we don't have a search or flood light aboard. So sasha takes a reading with the handheld gps as we can see what appears to be safe water just 70 feet to the north of us and can see the buoys that I had mistakenly turned on so work out a course to at least get us into deep enough water once the tide comes in to wait for early morning light to see the buoys and make our way back to the dock. Well the water kept dropping and around 9:30 we were sitting high and dry sitting on the keel box and listed hard over to the port hull.
Let me inject at this point that I have NEW FOUND RESPECT FOR ANYONE THAT ENDS UP BEACHED ON A BOAT. With the boat heeled over at 45 degree's its impossible to easily move around inside. I started CPN to check the nearest tidal station to us to find out when the high tide would be. I found out that it would not arrive in our location until about 3:00 AM. Ok so we break out the stove and prop it up so that its sitting more or less level and make some coffee and food. I toyed with getting out and setting the anchor as we both intended on trying to get some sleep, and I didn't want us to be asleep and start drifting at the high tide. In the end I didn't as I figured that one of us would wake up as the boat started to right itself on the incoming tide. Trying to sleep in the v-berth laying accross the beam does not work lol way to cramped. Both of us kept sliding down toward the port side, so had to kinda use our feet to push back to the starboard side. Sas gave up about 12:30 and got up and I followed her about half an hour later. Around 1:00 AM or so the sand we were sitting on again began to be covered by water. By 2:00 AM the port hull was starting to float once again and it was begining to be a bit easier to move around inside as she went from 45 degree list to 30 or so. We now decided to sit down and get the chart plotting software up and running. The problem was that our gps usb puck antenna's native mode is to transmit data in the SIRF format which OpenCPN doesn't understand. Finally we figured out the proper sequence of commands to get it to transmit in NEMA sentences and OpenCPN finally recognized the data and showed our position on the chart. As it was we were about 0.17 nm east of the channel before the first hard turn and about 80 meters north of the channel in that short leg of it between the two hard turns in it. By about 2:45 she was righted once again although we were still aground. We decided to start up the outboard to give it time to warm up as we figured that in the next 15 to 20 minutes we'd be floating and able to back off.
We had lifted the outboard bracket to the up position as the tide waned to prevent the leg maybe being damaged. Its a PITA to get it down so we left it up. In this position the cavatation plate is only about 6 inches under water so you have to motor pretty slowly and changing from forward to reverse or visversa causes cavitation. Ok so the outboard is running although still not ideling very smoothly and prone to stalling when the revs drop to low. The bow finally starts to swing around with the incoming tide so I back us up into what we know to be safe water (depth). Sas is in the cabin watching the chart and directing me as to steerage ie port or starboard to get us back into the channel again. Once we're back into the channel she keeps giving me directions to keep us in the center as we motor back to our dock. After about an hour we are suppose to be back but can't see the docks as its still dark out. The current pushed us slightly north so we turn and begin motoring south towards the light in the parking lot. My concern being that there is a boat on a mooring and I didn't want to hit it. After a few minutes though we could see the only other boat in the water at the docks and new where we were relative to our own dock. Of course the motor stalled in docking and darkness!!
Nothing serious but a PITA anyhow. Finally tied up again we unload and head home for some sleep.
Lessons learned (relearned):
1) Always check the tide before leaving
2) 2 feet of draft might as well be 5 feet (don't be arrogant about floating in shallow water)
3) Always have at least a gallon container of water on board. ( Our water tank only had about 8 gallons in it and when heeled over and dried out the water pick up was sucking air only.
4) Always have food onboard (we did but not plentiful amount)
5) Always have at least 1 extra gas tank for the stove
6) Have a high powered flood or spot light on board
7) GPS can only be trusted to 60 feet or so as to actual position.
8) OpenCPN is reliable software and the CM-92 charts we have are pretty accurate. (better in fact then the paper chart we have of the area)
9) Always have a second set of clothes on board even for a short short trip.
10) have sweaters sweatshirts etc aplenty on board
11) have a shovel so that if this happens again we can at least go clam digging
12) our msd doesn't work when the boat is laying on its side!!
13) a deck light is handy when its dark even on a small boat.
14) always have the charting program running before leaving the dock.
15) when in unfamiliar waters use the charting following feature to capture your course during daylight hours and save it rather then relying solely on the displayed charts and gps location.
16) don't rely solely on your engine when docking.
I am sure there are other things here as well. All in all an interesting day on the water/SAND. On the plus side the aft locker drain plug had a minor leak due to not seating well, which I was able to repair while dried out lol.
Brina
Let it be known that I am not to proud to admit stupidity!! The other day we went over to the boat with the alteration to the rudder to keep it down. We finished a few minor choirs that had not been completed prior to launching.
I thought it would be nice to motor out from the docks to the ocean so that we could get a feel for the course and time it would take. Our first mistake was not getting OpenCPN up and running on the laptop. It was light out and 5 PM so we had lots of light and new the channel was buoyed (albeit not by the Canadian Coast Guard). This channel has 2 very sharp turns (90 degee's) in it. Well as it turns out I made the first hard turn at the wrong set of buoys. Everything seemed fine as water depth was what it should have been as we motored along. Then the rudder kicked up and depth dropped to 0M. Problem one the rudder dropped back down but only till it bottomed out and resting on the bottom. I didn't want to put the motor into reverse fearing that I might damage the rudder. By the time we got the rudder secured (second mistake) I lightly gunned the motor thinking I was in reverse NOT!, so I drove us aground onto the sand under us. ( It was the keel box ) that grounded at this point. We tried in vain for 10 minutes to back off to no avail.
Ok so we're grounded and the tide is on the out
. Nothing to do but wait for the incoming tide to float us again then carefully back out. The problem with this being that it was now 6:30 PM and we were sitting in about 22 inches of water. It would be pitch black when the next high tide arrived and the buoy's are not lite up and we don't have a search or flood light aboard. So sasha takes a reading with the handheld gps as we can see what appears to be safe water just 70 feet to the north of us and can see the buoys that I had mistakenly turned on so work out a course to at least get us into deep enough water once the tide comes in to wait for early morning light to see the buoys and make our way back to the dock. Well the water kept dropping and around 9:30 we were sitting high and dry sitting on the keel box and listed hard over to the port hull.Let me inject at this point that I have NEW FOUND RESPECT FOR ANYONE THAT ENDS UP BEACHED ON A BOAT. With the boat heeled over at 45 degree's its impossible to easily move around inside. I started CPN to check the nearest tidal station to us to find out when the high tide would be. I found out that it would not arrive in our location until about 3:00 AM. Ok so we break out the stove and prop it up so that its sitting more or less level and make some coffee and food. I toyed with getting out and setting the anchor as we both intended on trying to get some sleep, and I didn't want us to be asleep and start drifting at the high tide. In the end I didn't as I figured that one of us would wake up as the boat started to right itself on the incoming tide. Trying to sleep in the v-berth laying accross the beam does not work lol way to cramped. Both of us kept sliding down toward the port side, so had to kinda use our feet to push back to the starboard side. Sas gave up about 12:30 and got up and I followed her about half an hour later. Around 1:00 AM or so the sand we were sitting on again began to be covered by water. By 2:00 AM the port hull was starting to float once again and it was begining to be a bit easier to move around inside as she went from 45 degree list to 30 or so. We now decided to sit down and get the chart plotting software up and running. The problem was that our gps usb puck antenna's native mode is to transmit data in the SIRF format which OpenCPN doesn't understand. Finally we figured out the proper sequence of commands to get it to transmit in NEMA sentences and OpenCPN finally recognized the data and showed our position on the chart. As it was we were about 0.17 nm east of the channel before the first hard turn and about 80 meters north of the channel in that short leg of it between the two hard turns in it. By about 2:45 she was righted once again although we were still aground. We decided to start up the outboard to give it time to warm up as we figured that in the next 15 to 20 minutes we'd be floating and able to back off.
We had lifted the outboard bracket to the up position as the tide waned to prevent the leg maybe being damaged. Its a PITA to get it down so we left it up. In this position the cavatation plate is only about 6 inches under water so you have to motor pretty slowly and changing from forward to reverse or visversa causes cavitation. Ok so the outboard is running although still not ideling very smoothly and prone to stalling when the revs drop to low. The bow finally starts to swing around with the incoming tide so I back us up into what we know to be safe water (depth). Sas is in the cabin watching the chart and directing me as to steerage ie port or starboard to get us back into the channel again. Once we're back into the channel she keeps giving me directions to keep us in the center as we motor back to our dock. After about an hour we are suppose to be back but can't see the docks as its still dark out. The current pushed us slightly north so we turn and begin motoring south towards the light in the parking lot. My concern being that there is a boat on a mooring and I didn't want to hit it. After a few minutes though we could see the only other boat in the water at the docks and new where we were relative to our own dock. Of course the motor stalled in docking and darkness!!
Nothing serious but a PITA anyhow. Finally tied up again we unload and head home for some sleep.
Lessons learned (relearned):
1) Always check the tide before leaving
2) 2 feet of draft might as well be 5 feet (don't be arrogant about floating in shallow water)
3) Always have at least a gallon container of water on board. ( Our water tank only had about 8 gallons in it and when heeled over and dried out the water pick up was sucking air only.
4) Always have food onboard (we did but not plentiful amount)
5) Always have at least 1 extra gas tank for the stove
6) Have a high powered flood or spot light on board
7) GPS can only be trusted to 60 feet or so as to actual position.
8) OpenCPN is reliable software and the CM-92 charts we have are pretty accurate. (better in fact then the paper chart we have of the area)
9) Always have a second set of clothes on board even for a short short trip.
10) have sweaters sweatshirts etc aplenty on board
11) have a shovel so that if this happens again we can at least go clam digging
12) our msd doesn't work when the boat is laying on its side!!
13) a deck light is handy when its dark even on a small boat.
14) always have the charting program running before leaving the dock.
15) when in unfamiliar waters use the charting following feature to capture your course during daylight hours and save it rather then relying solely on the displayed charts and gps location.
16) don't rely solely on your engine when docking.
I am sure there are other things here as well. All in all an interesting day on the water/SAND. On the plus side the aft locker drain plug had a minor leak due to not seating well, which I was able to repair while dried out lol.
Brina
