Help us shorten our learning curve... What was the dumbest/worst mistake you've made?

[Cruisingdad]

Personally, I have never made mistakes. They were all my wife's fault!!!

[sailingdog]

And I bet you're hoping she never reads that post.. .

[Kacper]

Here are my favorite mistakes so far:

1.

My first time skippering my own boat I was thinking I should reef.

I thought the best way to decide if I should reef or not, would be, to use my binoculars to look at other boats sailing near-by and see if their sails are reefed... That way I could avoid looking like a wimp and rely on the other more experienced sailors in the bay for their professional judgement of the wind conditions...

Their sails were not reefed so I decided not to reef. lol, 5 minutes later the keel was almost out of the water as we were drifting into a rocky lee shore.



2. single handling, motoring into the marina realizing I forgot to tie fenders to my boat... So I let go of the tiller to get the fenders from the cabin, boat steers straight for the shore while I'm in the cabin, I get out, fenders in one hand, and jump for the tiller to swerve the boat to the other direction... the some part of me thought it was absolutely critical that I hurry to get the fenders on the starboard side of the boat...

With both hands I wanted to quickly tie one fender to the life line with a clove hitch... instead of tying the fender to the aft portion of the SAME life line, I decided to WALK up to the center of the boat and tie it there, the boat veered off again to starboard and I jumped back to the tiller again, dropping the fender overboard... DOIH.

I circled twice trying to retrieve my fender by myself in the middle of the channel traffic and a whole water side restaurant watching me. Embaressed I left the scene quickly without retrieving my fender

"Next time I'll just tie the fenders in the cockpit and slide them forward" I thought,

dumb lesson learned lol

there's many more but those are my favourite ones.

[MarkMiner]

Shortly after completing my first keelboat class, I decided to take my brother and sister out for a little sail. I don't remember exactly what kind of boat it was, but it was a small 20 footer of some sort, without an engine. The boat was brought around to the dock, where the sails were rigged. Once ready, I checked the wind and shoved off, forgetting to check the current which was stronger than the wind, and which pushed my boat toward a nearby (and low) bridge. Struggling to regain control, I was barely able to jibe in time as the mast scraped the bridge, with everyone on the dock looking on. Until I ran aground on the way back in, that was my most embarrassing experience.

[equitiman]

Well when I first learned to sail I took a sailing course where we had to sail our boats up a really narrow channel full of other moored boats. On my second lesson we were tacking out of the channel towards the bay and on one tack we were heading straight for a boat on a mooring...I was 100% sure I could feather the boat up into the wind and pass on the windward side of this moored boat.

Well...turns out I couldn't and I ran smack into this boat while my instructor was freaking out and the other students were flailing fenders all around trying to minimize the impact. The worse part is about 5 minutes after the "incident" my instructor said..."did I mention that was my boat you just plowed into?"

Fortunately there was only a little scratch in the gelcoat but I learned my lesson and have never made such a stupid mistake since.

Bob

[equitiman]

Or should I say I have never made the same stupid mistake since...I still make lots of stupid mistakes...

[Waymar83]

Ah those fond memories! I do try hard to forget them but they keep coming back:

One of the first times leaving the dock with Waymar, our 32ft (having moved up from an albacore).....untying the boat from the dock, everything is in order, light wind, no current, engine running smoothly..... got a gentle push from some helpful neighbours to get me backing out in the right direction easing the throttle, the engine picks up RPM but.........I have no steering!?! the boat does not react no matter how much I throttle or move the tiller......and I'm heading straight for the boats docked across with no response from Waymar. The helpful neighbours run across to the other docks, get on the boats to prevent Waymar from hitting one of them. (essentially we were drifting with the wind). Could'nt figure it out. I was sure the prop had fallen off or the transmission failed!

No, nothing as dramatic or definitive, we were in neutral....

[georgetina]

Entered the Cardiff (UK) sea lock with a strong following wind and failed to get the stern warp on. Bow warp secured so I just went sideways across the lock. The lock was 30 feet wide and the yacht also 30 feet. Being a Sunday there were about 50 spectators. The control captain came to my aid with a megaphone giving instuction to use full rudder and lots of power. Got alongside and secured after a struggle. Control gave me a generous 4 out of 10 for the approach and 8 out of 10 for the recovery.

[pigslo]

Getting married the second time.
pigslo

[PBzeer]

All the mistakes I've made can be attributed to lack of proper thinking ahead. Probably why I was thinking of naming the boat 3rd and Last.