One of my most embarassing moments was when I had a new Hunter 23.5 and sailed out of Oxnard, California to near Anacapa Island, part of the northern Channel Islands. At the end of our sail, we had to get back into the marina to turn in the dock key and were motor sailing into the slips with the main sail still up. I was talking to my friend who had his wife on board. Just as we turned up into the slip and as I tried to slow down with my outboard engine, something seemed terribly wrong! Things started moving fast as my mainsail that I had forgotten to douse, filled with air and we took off. A nice neighbor on the dock yelled to take down my main sail. I jumped up and pulled it down faster than I thought possible, but this did not stop us from bouncing off our slip and heading for the opposite side. My friends wife was on the bow and I yelled for her to push us off the piling, and instead the coward abandoned ship! We next headed for the rocky shore and the prospects of a torn up hull. I jumped off and pushed us to safety, climbed up the swim ladder and motored out to the public launch ramp. My friend's wife walked around to catch up with us. She told us the good samaritan who yelled at us, asked her to tell us not to feel too bad and to lower the sail when we started the engine so we wouldn't make the same mistake again. He, who had a permanent slip at that dock, had done the same thing only he had "twenty people yelling at me all at the same time." So far I haven't made that mistake again. (The swim ladder sure came in handy for climbing back on board. I would not be able to manhandle my 310).