Telling on myself again

[mwrohde]

The last time I posted here was to poke fun at myself for falling out of a canoe.

This time is to tell you I got myself trapped in my boat. I had opened my port lazerette to do some work underneath. I had myself laid down and spread out down there, wiggling from here to there. There was a gust of wind that blew the lazerette shut, slamming it hard and leaving me in the dark. I thought "That was a little startling". I wiggled back to underneath the lazerette and tried to push it open, only to find it had latched when it slammed shut. There was no one anywhere near to hear me call for help and I was looking at the possibility of sitting down there for hours until someone missed me and came looking.

Luckily, my cell phone was in my pocket so I called my wife (who was already mad at me) to beg her to come rescue me. 40 minutes later I had been freed. Fortunately, I could reach my wine in the cabin through a little 4"x6" sliding hatch.

[kennya]

I come close, after crawling into the sail locker to clean and retrieve the object that I had dropped last year and could not reach. I found that a person of my stature needs a skinny young person to do those sorts of jobs. I finely escaped after twenty or so minutes, but not without many scrapes cuts and burses

[TrueBlue]

mwrohde,
Funny story. I'd love to have seen the expression on your wife's face as she opened the lazerette's lid, only to find you in a contorted pose, clutching a bottle of wine.

[Jotun]

It's funny when it happens, but getting locked in a lazarette could mean trouble. Imagine if you didn't have a cell phone and no one knew where you were.... A surveyor once told me to always tie lockers open with a piece of shock cord or line if you are working inside them. Good advice I think.

[mwrohde]

Originally Posted by Jotun

. . . tie lockers open with a piece of shock cord or line if you are working inside them. Good advice I think.

Excellent advice, I'd say.

I usually don't have my cell when I'm on the boat. Normally, I take everything out of my pockets and put them in a hanging bag. If I had followed normal protocol this time I'd have been locked down there for several hours before she'd have started calling me telling me to come home. It would have been several more before she'd have come looking for me.

[sailingdog]

That's why the hasps are supposed to be on the bottom, so that they can't close accidentally. They have to be flipped up to close... if they're installed the other way... they're bloody dangerous.

[Faster]

Indeed... some years ago a slip neighbour with a Bene 37.5 was getting into the cockpit locker - the hatch was a monster that encompassed the cockpit seat AND the bulk of the coaming. A gust of wind caught it and slammed it on his head - causing a severe scalp laceration and the copious bleeding that results.

Fortunately there were others around, he was not knocked unconcious, but it could have been much worse.

Rest assured he (and I) now routinely tie off or bungy such hatches open!

[kananumpua]

I'm just imagining the original post. Absolutely HILARIOUS

[Cruisingdad]

HAAHEEEE. Very funny. You should have used the Force to get back out. I tried it once... to little avail. However, my mind was focused on holding other parts of my body together!!

[Sabre66]

A few years ago there was a story in one of the sailing mags about a guy who was racing, solo, somewhere on the great lakes on a tartan 37. He went down below, through one of the seat hatches, to rotate the prop shaft so the twin blade would be tucked behind the keel. While he was below the boat rolled causing the hatch to close and lock. He panicked and started punching the bottom of the seat breaking his hand. Finally he remembered a trick he and his wife used to open the window of their summer home when they forgot the key. He gently rapped the bottom of the seat while hitting the front at the same time, eventually this shook the latch loose and he climbed out.
When he came out all of the other sailboats in the race had disappeared. He kept on trucking, found the landmark that represented the w/w mark, rounded and eventually finished the race only to find out that he'd won. While he was locked below the other boats had rounded the wrong mark and followed each other like Lemmings. Had he been on deck he speculated that he would have followed the others.
(I forgot to state the obvious, he had the auto pilot on)