On Sunday September 1st 2002, I was enroute from Quadra Island to Hornby Island in my 20ft sloop the "Time O'Day". I had been monitoring the weather channel steadily as the strong SE winds I had been enjoying were beginning to shift and the gusts were increasing in intensity. Walls of water had started to stack up on the reefs off Goose Spit as the tide was going out. I had doused all my sails, save for a bit of jib I had showing to aid in steerage with my outboard running. The gusts were registering between 30 and 40 knots. Climbing the rollers would scrub off what little momentum I could gain and then the wind would push my bow off where ever it felt like. My outboard leg would clear the water, with my propeller beating nothing but air. I just could not come around into Comox Harbour! By this time it is almost dark and I should have been on Hornby hours ago! I decided my best option at this stage was to raise my centerboard and beach my boat high up in Kye Bay for the night. The boat is designed to do that and is quite comfortable in that situation. In the morning when the tide came up and it calms down I'd head out with the tide and be on Hornby in a few hours. As I was heading for shore raising my centerboard, the lifting cable broke. Still not a big problem as the board will just fold up as I settle on the beach. Later as the tide comes up I will have to make sure the boat is turned around to face back out to sea, this will minimize the action against my keel. I couldn't get as high up the beach as I had wanted to because my board was dragging but she finally settled in on the flat sandy beach 100 yards from shore just near the aero-dome at Comox AFB. I walked my anchor up the beach a bit and deployed it so that the rising tide should swing me gently around to point to sea while I got some sleep. I did a quick check to see that all was secured and tucked in for the night. I managed about 3 or 4 hrs of fitful sleep, as I would check out the hatch or my door whenever I woke up to just be sure I was safe. By the time the sun was coming up, the rocking of the boat on the rising tide and the sliding of my center board was keeping me awake any way so I decided to make some coffee and refuel my main outboard tank while it was relatively calm in the boat. I could see the big rollers off shore were still hanging around and they would soon be on my beach. I would have to be ready to leave very quickly when those first surges hit. The undertow should be quite strong so I figured I would float quickly and motor out between the reefs. The winds were still strong but nowhere near as bad as they had been all night, the rain had stopped as well. Too my surprise, as I sat having coffee and preparing the boat for departure a gentleman from one of the homes on shore waded out to my position with a thermos of coffee in his hand. He asked if I was ok, he had seen me come in the night before and had reported it to the Coast Guard. They were aware I was there but were unsure of my situation. I radioed the Coast Guard and told them what I was doing and that hopefully I would be out of here on the tide. They asked if I would like constant monitoring till I was out in deeper water but I said no, all seemed to be going according to plan but I would have my radio on standby just in case. I thanked the gentleman with the coffee very much for his concern and he showed me which place was his if I needed anything. The tide had begun to rise quickly now so he waded back to shore before the rollers started to climb the beach. I could hear my center board sliding in and out of its casing as it should, with the odd bump or two as the board would hit at just the wrong angle and it would come hard against its pivot pin. I prepared to raise anchour and depart. Pitching about a bit in the waves I noticed the boat wasn't standing back up as quickly as she always does! She began to loll about on her rolls and should have been free of the bottom by now!" Free Surface Effect ", I said myself? Quickly checking my bilge I see 6inches of water in the cabin under the vee-berth and rising. On further investigation I discover an almost perfectly round hole the diameter of my baby finger punched through the forward, lower corner of my centerboard case. It appears that I picked up a stone off the beach between the board and the case, and when the board went over center it drove the stone through my hull. I turned on my bilge pump but it could barely keep up with the ingressing water. I quickly fashioned a fid from a wood scrap and drove it into the hole. This slowed the leak to a trickle now and all seemed controllable again. Only trouble is, every time the centerboard bumped the fid, it would drive it back out. The board is a couple of hundred pounds of iron and gets a lot of momentum behind it. Every time I drove in the fid the hole got bigger too! Finally I managed to jamb another piece of wood between the top of the fid and the bottom of the vee-berth. The resulting tension would at least push the plug back in by itself without enlarging the hole so much each time. It was then I decided to get a tow around the corner into Comox Harbour where I could make a proper repair. Striking off on my own in this condition would be crazy. I’d be a statistic waiting to happen! This repair would require a grid so I could let the board hang all the way down. I radioed a request for a tow into the harbour and within 35 minutes a Coast Guard inflatable was there to lend assistance. I have only words of praise for the crew who helped me. The tow was not easy through the swells and reefs and as the boat took on more water," she took on a mind of her own" I remember the captain saying once. Once in the harbour tied up next to a fish boat, I pumped the bilge again and tried to make some semblance of order out of the chaos in the cabin. I would need to sleep there and keep an eye on the bilge so getting some bedding dry was a priority. I could see that the grid was empty so I prayed that nobody was booked to use it. The next day, after another fitful night's sleep I still didn't see anyone on the grid so I made my way on to it. I had just missed the drying tide so the grid would not be dry again for almost 24 hours. Oh well, another night of pumping the bilge every 2hrs. Still, it could have been worse! I awoke at about 4:30am, had a quick breakfast and made coffee. I repositioned the boat in the best spot I could and let it settle. As soon as the damaged spot was free of the water I began my repair. I didn't trust the fiberglass resin to set properly in time, so I coated the cloth patch with J.B. Weld (quick setting) and rolled it into a tight tube. Folding it equally in half, I stuffed and pounded the bulbous end through the hole. I smeared more J.B. Weld on the whole patch and weighted it down. While waiting for the J.B. Weld to set up, I cut three strips of glass cloth to cover over the plug. These would have a little longer to set up so I would use resin on them. All went according to plan and the patch worked just fine. While waiting for the tide to rise again, I hooked up my centerboard pendant again and made a mental diagram of the damaged area from underneath the boat. I will make a permanent repair in a few weeks when I haul the boat out for the winter. For now, I have been working on how to improve that vulnerable area so this doesn't happen again. I think I will also use two lifting pendants now, can't hurt! I cannot say enough about how wonderful and accommodating everybody were during those days! The Coast Guard radio Operator along with the crew of the Coast Guard boat exhibited the calm and professionalism they are trained too, under very adverse conditions. The people living in Kye Bay who kept an eye on me and showed their concern. Those great people who run the Government dock who saw my situation and allowed me use of the grid. To all the people and friends from Comox I met on the docks and at that great fish and chip shop (I’m telling all my friends about that little jewel). To all of you I raise the flag from the bottom of my heart.