I was overmatched. Took me a bit to figure that out though, but at least then I did the smart thing. Yet another cautionary tale:
On Thanksgiving day we had some pretty great weather here in Knoxville. I've had my Hunter for about 2 months now, but spent the best month of that not getting my motor started and my boat out of the marina. After troubleshooting the fuel system and replacing everything up to the carb (before rebuilding said carb and finding/fixing an obvious problem), I had missed the tail end of the season. But the weather was mild for late November here, and my in-laws were eager to get out on their proud son-in-law's new boat. The wind was high.
We got out and made some good headway with the main, so I decided to put up the jib. Problem was we had 6 people on our little boat, and I had my inexperienced brother in-law sitting on one jib sheet and equally inexperienced father-in-law on the other. Not much control of my sails there. The wind picked up considerably and began gusting in a way that made me pretty nervous, as we were heeling about 30 degrees at times. I continued to turn into the wind to dump some off, but without real control over my sail trim I was having difficulty maintaining control of the direction of the boat. Fortunately the H22 was as forgiving as I had heard, and I don't honestly think we were ever in any danger of going over.
After tacking the wind picked up again quite considerably, and at this point I turned so hard into the wind that the momentum brought the boat around unintentionally and the boom across. I then declared I was licked and dropped both sails.
I had all the requisite safety equipment on board and felt myself a fairly competent sailor, at least on a boat this size. My passengers had been briefed on what the dangers onboard were and this directly contributed to no one being hurt by the unintended action of the boom. This could have ended much worse.
Lessons learned:
- crew must be briefed and either helpful or out of the way
- 6 people is too many on my 22
- everyone on the boat must be aware of what the dangers onboard are
- if you don't have direct control of the sails, then you don't have control of the boat (duh)
- I've 'invested' in the $8 local-ordinance-meeting lifejackets, but will now be purchasing ones which people will actually not mind wearing. I'll be requiring the wearing of those for every passenger at all times in the future
- there's no shame in dropping the jib if the main is providing plenty of excitement. We could have continued sailing with just the main up (and possibily reefed)
On Thanksgiving day we had some pretty great weather here in Knoxville. I've had my Hunter for about 2 months now, but spent the best month of that not getting my motor started and my boat out of the marina. After troubleshooting the fuel system and replacing everything up to the carb (before rebuilding said carb and finding/fixing an obvious problem), I had missed the tail end of the season. But the weather was mild for late November here, and my in-laws were eager to get out on their proud son-in-law's new boat. The wind was high.
We got out and made some good headway with the main, so I decided to put up the jib. Problem was we had 6 people on our little boat, and I had my inexperienced brother in-law sitting on one jib sheet and equally inexperienced father-in-law on the other. Not much control of my sails there. The wind picked up considerably and began gusting in a way that made me pretty nervous, as we were heeling about 30 degrees at times. I continued to turn into the wind to dump some off, but without real control over my sail trim I was having difficulty maintaining control of the direction of the boat. Fortunately the H22 was as forgiving as I had heard, and I don't honestly think we were ever in any danger of going over.
After tacking the wind picked up again quite considerably, and at this point I turned so hard into the wind that the momentum brought the boat around unintentionally and the boom across. I then declared I was licked and dropped both sails.
I had all the requisite safety equipment on board and felt myself a fairly competent sailor, at least on a boat this size. My passengers had been briefed on what the dangers onboard were and this directly contributed to no one being hurt by the unintended action of the boom. This could have ended much worse.
Lessons learned:
- crew must be briefed and either helpful or out of the way
- 6 people is too many on my 22
- everyone on the boat must be aware of what the dangers onboard are
- if you don't have direct control of the sails, then you don't have control of the boat (duh)
- I've 'invested' in the $8 local-ordinance-meeting lifejackets, but will now be purchasing ones which people will actually not mind wearing. I'll be requiring the wearing of those for every passenger at all times in the future
- there's no shame in dropping the jib if the main is providing plenty of excitement. We could have continued sailing with just the main up (and possibily reefed)
