Greetings! New to the forum, and new to sailing bigger boats than 14ft or so. Not new to the lakes and rivers here in TN... Shoulda known better:
Step 1: don’t clean fouled depth finder
Step 2: go out on your boat when the lake’s down 4 feet from summer
Step 3: allow helpful friend to man tiller
Step 4: stop paying attention for awhile
Step 5: spend 30 minutes getting boat unstuck from bottom
Yeah… That was yesterday. I generally ignore the channel markers, but not the logs sticking up from the bottom. My friend thought they were floating. Nope. We’d had good wind, and if we were moving (or under motor power) we probably would have just bumped and kept going. But we were becalmed, and just kind of drifted onto the bar. First clue we were in trouble was when we stopped moving with respect to the logs, despite the sails filling. We tried to motor backward, but not before thinking to bring up the keel, which probably just dug it in deeper. I had to get out in water up to my waste, work the boat back and forth till it was pointing towards deeper water, then push. It was getting a little dark too (fortunately I had purchased an airhorn and spotlight the day before. At one point I considered signaling the next fishing boat that sped past). But it worked out, so it was just a little excitement. Bottom was all mud, so I don’t think there was any damage. Bilge is still dry (!).
As Pogo said, "live and live", I guess.
We've had a great time with our new Hunter 22 so far. Second best decision I've ever made (first being marrying the Admiral).
Step 1: don’t clean fouled depth finder
Step 2: go out on your boat when the lake’s down 4 feet from summer
Step 3: allow helpful friend to man tiller
Step 4: stop paying attention for awhile
Step 5: spend 30 minutes getting boat unstuck from bottom
Yeah… That was yesterday. I generally ignore the channel markers, but not the logs sticking up from the bottom. My friend thought they were floating. Nope. We’d had good wind, and if we were moving (or under motor power) we probably would have just bumped and kept going. But we were becalmed, and just kind of drifted onto the bar. First clue we were in trouble was when we stopped moving with respect to the logs, despite the sails filling. We tried to motor backward, but not before thinking to bring up the keel, which probably just dug it in deeper. I had to get out in water up to my waste, work the boat back and forth till it was pointing towards deeper water, then push. It was getting a little dark too (fortunately I had purchased an airhorn and spotlight the day before. At one point I considered signaling the next fishing boat that sped past). But it worked out, so it was just a little excitement. Bottom was all mud, so I don’t think there was any damage. Bilge is still dry (!).
As Pogo said, "live and live", I guess.
We've had a great time with our new Hunter 22 so far. Second best decision I've ever made (first being marrying the Admiral).
