Embarrassing moments of 2006

[Brian D]

Well, time to lighten up and if you are brave, list the moments of 2006 in which you, well, went "opps".Allow me to begin...May: I was washing my boat after doing some repair work. As I was stretching out the hose to get the kinks out, I managed to walk right off the dock. Lost my cell phone in the process.December: Yep, just last weekend, I was up the mast adding a flag spreader kit. My arm was getting tired because the drill bit was dull and wouldn't puncher the spreader. So I put the drill in my bag to rest. The bag shifted and the drill took a spill. Down to the deck it when and when it hit, the drill head and battery continued on into the drink. The main body of the drill remained on the deck. It was a multi-tool so I have the other parts, just don't have a drill head anymore. Had to go home and get an electric drill to finish the work.So, did you have any moments in 2006 that would be considered an... opps?

 

[Mike]

Slips and falls

June: After raising the mast on my H22 while i was doing the final inspection to make sure everything was a go and back it down the launch ramp, i slipped and fell right on to the deck, that wasn't the worst. I then rolled and fell another 5 feet onto the ground, so not only did i have the wind knocked outta me from falling onto the boat. I also had a bruised tailbone from the fall, needless to say, I didn't have much fun that day, thankfully i had a life vest that just happened to cushion my bum the right way.

 

[Brian M H23]

High Winds!

Was out with two friends of mine- it was windy that morning, and we waited for the low to pass before heading out. Two relaxing hours, one reef in the main, and it started to get gusty on the way in. One the final approach to the slip a sudden gust blew my bow right into the pier and bent my bow railing in the ugliest way. Well...you learn!

 

[newsailor06]

OK.. I'm game

We purchased a "new to us" Catalina 25 in March. We did get our certification on keelboats from ASA, but you know how that is. Taking classes is no substitute to the real thing. On our first time out by ourselves, I put the Admiral at the helm (tiller) and I ran the boat hook and pushed out the boat. She had the motor in reverse and when it was time to go forward, she put it in forward, but did not turn the motor or tiller. We hit the 30 footer a couple of slips down from ours, but it wasn't very fast. (Most of the damage was to ours and is easily fixed.) However, I decided to jump onto the dock and push our boat away from the other one since we had just clipped it on the rear port side. As I jumped, my left foot caught on the lifeline (which on the C-25 of that year, attaches at the bottom of the bow pulpit.) I did a great belly flop right onto the dock. I was more embarrased than anything, at least I thought so. We left that evening to drive the 1 hour home and about half way there my ankle began to throb. It was almost 2 weeks after that that I could put weight on it.BTW: The Admiral handles the boat hook and push out now. Something she is very happy to do.

 

[CalebD]

An unfamiliar dock at dusk this fall

taught me a lesson on paying attention.We had been out for a late afternoon sail in a J24 and had a wonderful time. We returned to the dock at dusk. The J24 handled beautifully and thought nothing of the currents under the Throggs Neck bridge. It was silly of me to wonder if we should have a motor to get back as we had plenty of wind. The waterfront director picked us up from the moored boat. I was enjoying the post sailing feeling and admiring the fleet of small sailboats the cadets practise on while walking up the dock towards the gangway. I was looking out and not down and my foot found the 1' gap between docks. I found myself nearly sitting on the dock with one foot in the water and an amazing pain shooting from above my knee. A cadet helped me to my feet and I insisted I was alright even though I could clearly not walk without favoring my right leg. Once up the gangway I rolled up my right pant leg and saw several welts inflicted by my leg being abraded by the dock. I still thought I could walk it off. I drove home in pain. Fortunately I have a standard transmission so my left leg did some of the driving too. That night I put ice on the leg and admired the swelling and welts I had received. The bone had been traumatized a bit. I was lucky I did not damage my knee or break my leg. I could not walk for 2 days without hobbling. It took over a week for all the swelling to go away.Moral of the story: you can get hurt in an instant so pay attention to your surroundings at all times, especially on unfamiliar docks at night.

 

[Jack]

Do lost items count?

Lets see. The cell phone went over board while I was pulling in the anchor, I swear I could hear my wife still taking from twenty feet down. The boat hook went overboard and pierced thru the water like a javelin to the bottom. Nice set of vice grips and screw driver went overboard. Part of the new magna gas grill went to the bottom, we had to cook the steak on a frying pan but it wasn't the same.  I unwisely motored forward with the autopilot on to help take tension off the rode and suddenly heard the anchor and prop meeting with a thump,thump,thump.  I sure there is more but all in all it was a great year and no one was hurt. {much}  Looking forward to 2007.  Jack

 

[Tim R.]

Self poisoning?

I removed my holding tank, hoses and toilet a few weeks ago. My holding tank had been flushed with fresh water so I put in a gallon of 50/50 mixture of Muriatic acid, sloshed it around and let it sit. This weekend I went to finish cleaning the tank and before emptying the muriatic acid mixture, I dumped in some bleach and started scrubbing. Then I noticed a strange smell and a strange feeling. I threw a running hose into the tank and got away from it. My head was a little screwed up for a few hours along with some coughing. I wonder how many brain cells I killed? I em shor eye em fine now!Tim R.

 

[Scott "On Eagles WIngs"]

In Front of the Dinner Croud

Our outboard was giving us some trouble and would sometimes stall when we shifted from forward to reverse. We were coming into our slip a little hot becuase the wind, waves and my fifteen year old son who knows it all determined that would be a good idea. Well I thought I would jump off the side onto the finger and catch the bow before we hit just in case the motor stalled. Well just as I jumped the boat pitched, my son through the motor into reverse (wich did not stall this time ) and flew like a bird into the vacant slip next to ours as if I had been thrown by a catapult. Our slip is in the front of a resturant and on a Friday evening I had quite an audiance that were laughing histerically. Climbed out of the water all full of weeds and who knows what than took a bow to the dinner croud. Its about all you can do at a moment like that. Worst than facing the croud was facing my 15 year old son who dispite my flying act made a perfict docking without my help. I still rember his expression looking down at me in the drink from the boat, it was a proud moment for him that I would not change for a moment. God I love sailing! Can't wait to get her back into the water. Stories like this make life worth living. Sail on my friends see you all in April.

 

[CalebD]

Lightning strikes twice

It is bad enough that I hurt myself once this season but to have two posts to add to this thread is mildly humiliating. After all, if you do not make mistakes how will you ever really learn anything?On a passage from Yonkers to LI Sound on a MacGregor 26s last July we encountered some rough weather. A tropical system had just missed us out to sea a day or two before. The weather was alternately sunny and threatening. When we reached the East River off LaGuardia airport the sky had gotten a thick, dismal greenish gray and the wind began to pick up dramatically as we heard not too distant thunder. By the time the gusts reached around 35 we were being surrounded by lightning bolts that seemed to hit the land everywhere around us. I am not sure if I could feel the hairs on my body stand up from the electricity but I reminded myself not to touch anything metal. There were 4 of us who were old high school friends and sailors of various stripes. With the sails flapping (no, we did not reef in the main, that would have been too sensible) and the pelting rain the cockpit started feeling a little close and chaotic to me. I decided to leave the cockpit and hopped down into the cabin and finished a sandwich (it was so stressful I had to do something!) as I listened to the sounds of the lines smacking the deck punctuated by thunder echoing in the hull. My friend kept his boat going by spilling air all the way under the Whitestone Bridge. One of the other fellows suggested we drop sail under the bridge which was an idea I had thought of and rejected. I spoke to the owner later, who was at the tiller at the time and his comment was: "They don't tell you to stand under trees on the golf course, do they?"On a related lightning note, I purchased a 19' Lightning on a trailer this summer in the hopes of interesting my nephew in something, anything. It was rigged for racing and it took me a while to wrap my mind around all the lines running around under the decks. I knew that I could handle this boat with the main and jib up as I have another smaller centerboard boat that is simplicity itself. It had been over 20 years since I had halped a friend launch his Mariner 19' from a trailer in Deltaville, VA. I still thought that this would not be problematic. During a dry run of stepping the mast with my nephew the commodore nearly got knocked out by the spar hitting her on its way down. That was quite alarming and a harbinger of more fun to come. The next day we launched at the gravel ramp inside Lloyd Neck. The mast went up easily enough. I got her rigged and put on the jib alone. Big mistake but I was worried about all the real estate the sail would take up and I had my sister, nephew, myself and the commodore to fit in the cockpit. When we launched there was sunny blue sky to the east and a gray threatening sky to the west. I was dripping with sweat from the exertion of setting the boat up and wanted to sail in the worst way so we set off. This was to be her maiden voyage yet somehow I cant help but think that she is not a maiden anymore. We kept getting pushed into the shallows without the main up and I had to hop overboard 2 or 3 times and push the boat and then hop up to the deck, landing on my chest. I did crack a rib or two doing this but that was only a minor pain. I finally got the main on and we sailed for about 15 minutes before we started hearing thunder and witnessed a white wall of rain approaching. I reluctantly headed back to the launch ramp after my sister insisted we head back. The lighting strikes were getting quite close and we saw a couple that were within a mile or so. The ladies swore that the hair on their arms went up in sympathy to the electricity all around. We beached the boat. I took down the main and pulled the boat up on the gravel a few feet, noting to myself that this was fine as long as the wind did not pick up. The pelting rain and lightning prompted me to urge the entire crew to get into my car and relative safety (we were all dripping wet and the ground water was rising quickly). We all piled in and I turned on the AC and the AM radio to listen to all the lightning squelch. In a few moments the rain was coming down at an angle and I realized that the wind indeed had picked up. I bolted from the car and ran 20 yards down the ramp only to see my Lightning ghosting away about 30 yards from shore. A moments hesitation (and a lightning bolt) reminded me not to jump in and swim after her. I went back to the car even more soaked than before. Some 20 minutes later the cell had passed us to the NW and I again went down to the water to see if I could see my Lightning gently nudging the shore somewhere, I hoped. Instead, about 100 yards away was the unmistakable sight of a white hull with baby blue freeboard seemingly floating but more like 120 degrees from vertical. We swam out to the boat and jumped on the centerboard and nothing. We grabbed the PFD cushions, cooler and whatever else did not float away (new unused boarding ladder, 1 PFD). We swam back to our launch ramp and were exhausted and it was only 2 pm. It was also high tide so I resolved to try to go back down at low tide to see what was up. At 6 pm we dragged my niece down to the scene of the crime with the rest of the crew and a few shovels and 2 x 4's. Since it was low tide we had to walk through the muddy sand with all our gear. A few shoes were lost to the sucking mud but we finally got there. Only now could we figure out what had happened. The mast had been driven into the soft mud by the light waves of the storm as the hull faced into the wind direction, SW. We tried jumping on the centerboard again and nothing. We ended up digging out the mast under about a foot of water and 2 feet or so of mud. In the process we unearthed many piss clams and a juvenile lobster and released a dark cloud of mud into the water. After about 30 minutes of digging the mast did finally come free and the boat righted herself. I pulled her through the water to the pier by the launching ramp, bailed her and breathed a sigh of relief. I bailed her with a bucket and we went home hoping that the wind did not work around to the north otherwise she would be banging on the dock. The next day was also a gorgeous high summer day and I had the bright idea of trying to reward the crew for their hard work by taking them for a sail. I tried rigging the main but could not get the main sail to go all the way up the mast (at least I tried to rig the main before leaving the dock). The main would not go up more than about 2/3 the way. There was grit in the channel and on the sail rope. Foiled again! I had to put the boat back on the trailer, take it home and hose off the mast and sails. An inauspicious start for what one day will be a fun trailer sailboat.On a brighter note, I had a great season in my Tartan 27' doing the wednesday night beer can races at my club in Nyack with no incidents to report other than we never came in dead last!Sorry to share so much. This is no post, its a novella. Stay tuned. Live and learn.

 

[NautiDuck]

I fell in

I was washing my C22 when the wash bucket fell overboard. I wanted to grab it before it sank. I leaned under the lifeline and, kneeling, leaned out to grab the bucket. My momentum resulted in a nice "dive" into the water. After dragging myself up onto the dock, not an easy thing, the damn bucket floated right over to me.

 

[Ken Honeycutt]

T Boned

Secured to my mooring after a days sail, noticed I was drifting towards a boat adjacent to my mooring because I had some forward momentum left. So I semi panicked, ran back to the wheel, gunned the engine thinking for some unknown reason that I had left the transmission in reverse.. You guessed it, I was in forward and quickly accelerated toward the other boat, luckily the mooring lines grabbed just enough to slow me down so that it was only a minor bump to the other boat with me standing there with a deer in the headlight look. Of course this was right in front of a large group of people on another boat. (Note to self: ALWAYS make sure you're in the RIGHT #$&#*& GEAR!)Other then that was a great sailing season and my only major goof.

 

[jeff s]

1985 ofday anniversary 26 ftr

THERE WAS THIS 1 BEAUTIFUL DAY WE WENT FOR A LONG SAIL AND A SWIM,LUNCH,GLASS OF WINE FINALLY RETURNED TO THE DOCK UNDER SAIL.ALL WENT WELL HOOKED UP AT THE DOCK DROPPED THE SAILS CLEANED UP DISPATCHED THE CREW,SAID HELLO TO A BUNCH OF PEOPLE AT THE DOCK AND SET OFF FOR THE MOORING .THIS TIME WITH THE MOTOR ,I ALWAYS STATR IT FIRST BEFORE SETTING OFF MY DOCK LINES ALL WENT WELL ICAST OFF ALONE GOT OUT MAYBE 10 FEET.SHE DIED O S--- i SAID THE WIND IS PUSHING ME BACK TO THE DOCK AND OTHER BOATS AS WELL AS THE LAUNCH RAMP,NO WAY TO STEER THE SAILS ARE PUT AWAY.THE MOTOR STARTS AGAIN WHEW I SAID 10 MORE FT IT STALLS WHAT THE F--- I SAID. A FEW MORE TRYS SAME RESULT FINALLY I PULLED OUT THE ROLLER FURLER ON THE JIB AND SAILED TO THE MOORING. WELL AFTER ALL WAS SAID AND DONE I FOUND THE CAUSE OF MY PROBLEM i HAD UNHOOKED THE GAS LINE EARLIER WHILE UNDER SAIL AND RAISED THE MOTOR, WHEN I DROPPED IT BACK DOWN I NEGLECTED TO RECONNECT THE GAS. WHAT AN EMBARRASSMENT,THANKFULLY NO OONE SAW OR AT LEAST I THINK NO ONE SAW.

 

[Brian D]

These are great...

And I thought I had a bad day. Please keep them coming, even if you have to sign in as anonymous. Some of these have me laughing and some (like the keel-less boat) shocked me.More, more, more, more...

 

[Tom Brown]

We give an award

The sailing club I belong to (Glenmar Sailing Association, Middle River, MD)gives out an annual award for this type of thing. I have been nominated once but have never received it (knock on mahogony). My nomination came a few years ago after a raft-up party. I was getting ready to leave the raft-up and row back to my boat. I put the dog in the dink and started backing down the transom. When I got to the dink I sat down hard on the center seat and momentum just kept me going on back. I flipped the dink and dumped the dog in the drink in front of a raft-up of club members. Alcohol MAY have been a factor.For the past 2 seasons I have been the Rear Commodore so it was my decision who received the award. Naturally, it wasn't me but the position has passed to another so I guess I better start paying attention again, I'm fair game.Toms/v Orion's Child

 

[Brian Hanna]

Late night swim

Motoring into a very busy public mooring field (Put-in-Bay) late on a Friday night, I spied the last open mooring. Because there were a few other boats also looking for a mooring ball, I decided not to head around and pick it up coming up into the wind. Heading downwind, I had the admiral pick up the ball along side, with my intention being to tie up at the stern. I had taken the way off the boat(I thought), shut the motor off (stupid), and stepped onto the swim platform (hunter 336). I took the boat hook from the admiral and realized at that moment that between the stong breeze and the boat's already forward motion that I need to grab onto something QUICK!! The first thing I grabbed was the wooden flag staff. As the boat continued moving, I was getting stretched out further and further, just trying to hang on. It was at this point that the flag staff broke and I ended up in the drink!! To top it off, I still had my foul weather bibs on as we had come through a squall on the way. For a split second I watched as my boat drifted away in the dark, knowing the admiral didn't now how to start the motor (she has plenty of experience now). Thank goodness, I am a strong swimmer and managed to swim back to the boat, pull myself up and start the motor before we hit anything. I lost a boat hook, flag and hat, but count myself very fortunate as it was a very inexpensive lesson learned. And because it was night, no one from any other boat saw me. I just look back now and laugh at myself!!!

 

[Colin]

Multiple oops

Having spent most of last year living aboard while cruising the eastern seaboard, I've learned to embrace embarassing moments as charcter-building experiences...yeah, right!One cold morning last fall we were in Thunderbolt, GA getting ready to continue south on the ICW. My wife and I got up in the pre-dawn gloom and went ashore to use the facilities which consisted of two concrete-block bathrooms. Being reasonably well-aquainted with each other, we decided to share the sink and shower in one rather than occupy both so we sepped in and closed the door. The door was bent slightly and the latch didn't quite engage the latch plate correctly so I pulled the door util it flexed slightly and the latch clicked into place...oops! When I tried to turn the knob to open the door, it was no longer connected to the latch...plans for an early start vanished as we contemplated spending the next several hours in the bathroom until the marina staff came in to work...Fortunately, some other boater decided to take an insanely early shower and was curious about why we were pounding on the wall and yelling. After he retrieved some tools from his boat and managed to slide them under the door, we were able to disassemble the latch and escape, slightly abashed.In the spring, we left our boat in Norfolk, VA for a month while we went to deal with shoreside things for a few weeks. As a precaution against storms, we'd taken our sails down and stowed them so, on our return, we needed to put the genoa bck on the furler. I clipped the halyard to the sail, threaded the first few inches of the luff into the furlerfoil, and went aft to grind the winch while my wife fed the sail onto the furler. As I ground away on the winch, hunched under our dodger, I listened to the steady stream of comments from my wife about how awkward the sail was and how it didn't seem the right shape and I wondered how anybody who had sailed more than 5000 miles could possibly know so little about her own headsail...Finally, my daughter who had been wandering the docks came back and said that the headsail really didn't look right and I really should come and look at it. Grumbling about the lack of faith in the skipper, I grudgingly climbed onto the dosk and looked at our headstay...sure enough, I had clipped to halyard to the tack and hoisted the genoa upside-down as a giant, 50-foot high, An-Idiot-Is-Docked-Here signal.A few weeks later, we were sailed across Long Island sound in a nice fresh breeze when something red float past the leward side. I was a bit surprised because I hadn't seen the float coming, but pleased that I had missed it by enough that there was no danger of snagging it. When I glance at it a moment later as it dropped astern, I realized it was a nice speherical fender and commented to my wife that somebody upwind hadn't exercised proper care in securing their fender but that we were sailing so nicely that I didn't really feel like running about adjusting sails to go back for it. You could almost feel the beat as the boat lengths ticked off before it finally dawned on me and I looked at our own foredeck...yep, one of our two spherical fenders was missing!

 

[John5961]

What car keys?

A few months ago, My lady friend and I stayed on my Hunter 27 until after dark to have dinner and a glass of wine. So around 9:00 or 9:30 that night we locked the boat (combination lock) and walked to the car. oops! I left the car keys on the boat, hanging on a hook in the cabin. Walked back to the boat, and to my chagrin, realized I couldn't see the numbers on the combination lock. Told my lady friend, no problem, I have a flashlight in the car. She looked at me like I was crazy. OK, I admitted that doesn't help since the car is locked and the key is in the boat. Duh.We ended up walking the docks for half an hour looking for another boater that hadn't left yet. Finally found a small group of folks on a big power boat that loaned us a flashlight so we could open the boat and retrieve the keys. We now have a flashlight in a non locking lazerette in the cockpit.

 

[I dont think so]

Bump in the night

I had taken several members of the family out to watch the firworks on July 4th. A great time had by all but the grandbabies getting very tired and grumpy and started to go back to dock. About the time the anchor was straight below the bow one of the little ones started screaming like only a 2 year old can. I quickly snubbed the anchor and went to check out what had happened. After finding only a tumble down the steps into the galley and a bumped head, I finally got mother and child both calmed down. I then proceeded the start the engin and headed in. Wondering way the boat felt funny I noticed something in our wake. Yep, forgot to finish raising the anchor. Did you know a Danforth can water ski in the right conditions? Still don't know how I missed the prop.

 

[newsailor06]

I've Got Another

My son and I spent the day sailing and after returning to the dock we began the clean up. While doing so we had the CD player cranking out tunes. We had a hank on jib at the time so I removed it and returned it to the sail bag and locker. Also did all the ordinary stuff that you do when shutting up the boat for a few weeks. Tied up all the lines neatly, put the main sail cover on, tied down the tiller, put away all of the equipment locked the lazarette, shut the front hatch and dogged it down. I put in the hatch boards and locked up the main hatch. After that, I put the tarp cover over the cabin front and part of the cockpit to keep the rain and weather off of the teak. Then I started to leave.Yep.. you guessed it, my son says; "Where is that music coming from?" From my CD player where else. Another 10-15 minutes untarping and unlocking the hatch and going into the cabin to shut down the electric panel.

 

[Ferg]

Ouch ….

While easing the main, I simultaneously reached across the lazerette to grab my refreshment and got my hippy hair caught in the lower mainsheet block, interesting tactical problem that lead to a haircut…Ferg