{splash} !@#$%^ &*!!!

Feb 10, 2004
3,917
Hunter 40.5 Warwick, RI
I lost a nearly new $100 Chartkit in a plastic envelope. It blew off my cabin top where it obviously wasn't secured very well. Discovered it missing much later. At a time in my life that $100 bucks was a serious loss.
 

ToddS

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Sep 11, 2017
248
Beneteau 373 Cape Cod
Not sure it's the MOST infuriating thing... but it's the only thing I've lost that makes for an interesting story. I was visiting Martha's Vineyard snorkeling with the kids, and found a pair of sunglasses in the shallow water, completely undamaged, and in perfect condition (and really nice). Nobody was around to claim them (or return them to), so I rinsed them off, tried them on, and they were PERFECT. I raved all day about my new all-time-favorite sunglasses (while wearing them) and approaching our mooring at the end of that same day (a few hours sail away), I got down on hands and knees at the bow to pick up the mooring pennant with boat hook in hand and... PLOP... Poseidon giveth, and Poseidon taketh away. Never recovered.
 
Aug 27, 2015
58
Cal 2-46 Whitianga. New Zealand
We have a very powerful magnet for “drop overs” that are metal. So far got back a Vicegrip and a very expensive drill.
We dropped a 15hp outboard out of a carrycart on the pier. My son dived several times but no go. So we used a boat hook on a spinnaker pole to tap tap till it “clunked@. He then dived again with rope and hook. The OB had sunk one metre into the mud.
Flushed with fresh and then ran meths through the motor and then 2 stroke gas. Ran it for 2 hours. That was 15 years ago. It still runs perfectly.

Pete
 
Oct 19, 2017
7,732
O'Day 19 Littleton, NH
My wife and I went camping on the beach of Marco Island with a friend, Matt and his new bride. It was off season and the island was deserted. We sailed, Matt and Charlotte, on his Hobie 16, Linda and I, on our Hobie 18.
Matt was envious of the eighteen and anxious to give her a try. I crawled out of my tent in the morning to find Matt shoving off with my boat. I joined him.
I was standing on the port wing, hand on the shroud talking to Matt while he put her through her paces. A wave picked us up and dropped us into the trough except not in the same place. I just went straight down, feet first into the water. Didn't even see it coming. I reached for my glasses. They bounced off my finger tips :(.
Matt took his time coming back. He's not good at MOB drills, I guess.
Come to think of it. He did push suddenly on the tiller and yank hard on the main sheet just as we reached the crest of that wave o_O. You don't suppose... ? Nahhh:snooty:, he's my oldest and dearest friend.

-Will (Dragonfly)
 

Bob J.

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Apr 14, 2009
773
Sabre 28 NH
Back in the 80's, pagers. Some people would have just turned them off & not given it a second thought. Not me, couldn't turn it off so after several pages while out fishing, I toss it over the side, problem solved. One summer I sent six to the bottom. Walk into Motorola Monday morning, the staff would see me coming & start laughing.
 
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Oct 24, 2010
2,405
Hunter 30 Everett, WA
What did we lose? Parts of a dead chicken! I'm not much of a chef, so the dinner guests were not too concerned and pizza was ordered. The rail clamp on the grill was not up to the task and we watched in horror as the grill tilted over the stern and the meal hit the water. If the rest of you are honest about this you also lost a dinner or two from the Magna Grill that you never really wanted on your stern rail. Or, maybe this loss is so common that no one even mentions it anymore.
been using 2 different Magma grills for about 15 years. Never (yet) lost a meal off of it.

Ken
 
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Apr 11, 2010
946
Hunter 38 Whitehall MI
More things that I care to admit but worst for me were my prescription glasses.
Wife lost a 2 week old iPhone. Slippery bugger shot right out of her hands and cleared the boat without so much as a nick. Sank like a stone.
 
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Jun 2, 2004
3,390
Hunter 23.5 Fort Walton Yacht Club, Florida
This morning I bought an iPhone X from AT&T I then went to Target to buy a case for it, they did not have the one I wanted. I figured I'd order it direct from Otterbox. While there I got a call that the kids coaching our summer lessons needed to fuel up one of the coach boats. Rushed over to the marinas fuel dock met the coach pumped the gas and while walking up the dock to pay the phone jumped up out of my pocket and skidded across the dock. Only because I have been living right the brand new phone still in its protective cellophane wraper did not take the extra bounce and go splash. I may have to go to church this evening only to see if I don't struck get by lightning like my wife says I am bound to be.

I have lost two other cell phones, a pager (remember those?) an army of hats and enough sunglasses to outfit three dozen Kardashians. No tools though and I have retrieved several with magnets I bought at Harbor Freight, more than paid for itself in beer from the guys who dropped the tools.
 
Oct 22, 2014
20,989
CAL 35 Cruiser #21 moored EVERETT WA
Rick. I am thinking it might be a good day to buy a lottery ticket.
They say good luck comes in threes. Or is that BAD LUCK... I can never be sure.
 
Jan 22, 2008
763
Hunter 340 Baytown TX
I've lost dozens of hats and sunglasses like everyone else and I've lost two of my POV cameras. I had one on a plastic extension painting pole way out that snapped in half. The other, I lost a few months ago in close prestart maneuvers in this video. I now have flotation on the new camera and a break away lanyard to the rail.
 

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Quint

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Jan 22, 2008
22
Catalina 380 220 New Orleans LA
A few years ago, while racing, the owner of the boat (which has since become my boat) was on the foredeck attempting to stow the spinnaker pole immediately after a take-down of the huge symmetrical chute. I was at the helm and witnessed his actions. We were actually doing pretty well at this point, getting ready to round the leeward mark and head back upwind to the finish line.

The owner unclipped the pole’s topping lift, downhaul line and all sheets/guys. He had the pole grasped with both hands, intending to carry it a few feet aft and stow it in the chocks/brackets mounted on the port stanchions. As he started to reach out with the horizontal pole, it slipped out of his grasp like a slippery, slimy wet fish and was launched overboard like a wimpy javelin. It went vertical before before hitting the lake surface and bobbed up and down upright as it apparently was filled with air.
From the helm, some 30 feet aft of this spectacle, I smiled but also gasped as I watched a c. 16’ aluminum pole, costing about $2k, bob up and down like a navigational buoy as we continued sailing past it.
As we continued forward, I continued to watch the still-bobbing pole get closer and closer to me. Without any hesitation—or sense—I let go of the wheel and leapt overboard in an attempt to grab the still-floating pole which appeared just a few feet off the port side. The boat kept moving and I grabbed mightily with open arms as I descended in the vicinity of the wayward pole.
Needless to say, my 250 lbs and gravity pulled me down many several feet below the surface, given that I jumped feet first off the aft quarter of a boat deck sitting some 5 or 6 feet above the water’s surface. Also, needless to say, I never touched or saw the pole as it apparently chose to shoot straight down like a falling javelin roughly at the same time as I attempted to reach out and grab it in my arms.
Once I finally made it back to the surface, I realized that not only had I lost my mind and the elusive swimming spinnaker pole but also my contact lenses and my ride. The crew had apparently been more mesmerized by the unexpected spectacle of the otherwise quiet, conservative, fully-clothed helmsman suddenly jumping overboard mid-race than I had been by the dropped pole. As they returned to reality, they turned around to retrieve me, as I now bobbed up and down treading water in the middle of the race course.

So, all total, I lost a $2k spinnaker pole, my contact lenses, my mind and an otherwise good race all in the matter of a few minutes. I did, however, end up with a great sailing story and a lot of laughs, then and to this day, about what might be important enough to make me relinquish the helm in a good race. :waycool:
 

leo310

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Dec 15, 2006
635
Catalina 310 44 Campbell River BC
On vacation boss phones then phone in the drink but I did have the lat and long if he wanted the phone back.
 
Mar 26, 2011
3,399
Corsair F-24 MK I Deale, MD
Anchor. I was transferring an anchor from one rode to the other, had two anchors and two rodes all tangled up on the fore deck, and then released the wrong one. Anchor and 20 feet of chain. We were re-anchoring at ~ 3am and I was not fully awake. My daughter then wrote it up and submitted the article to a sailing magazine.

Kids just love satirizing their parent's foibles.