[hertfordnc]

I've never posted on this forum. I'm too ignorant, all i can do is lurk and learn, but this thread finally gives me something to contribute.

This story is filled with dumb things, you pick...

Out for a quick sail in New York Harbor with a boatload of clueless guests (more clueless than I) I had too much sail up when it started gusting. The guests responsible for the genoa sheets had let them go and all that sail was flapping loudly when there was an even louder noise from the top of the mast.

By the time I figured out what it was, the mast had become a bowsprit and the genoa was now a giant sea drogue in the current where the Hudson meets the East River.

Time to start the engine. Not sure what happened at this point but the engine shifted on its mount to about 45 degrees with the prop well out of the water and ---- here's the dumb part-- I did not have the key to the padlock and no way to loosen the bolts and set the engine back down.

We drifted onto the rocks in one of Brooklyn less than safe neighborhoods.

Once I got all the screaming woman off the boat it was a simple matter of swimming to a piling with a line and winching the boat off. no damage. The wife never sailed with me again and we were divorced a few years later.