By Lew Trautz
I engaged the
autopilot for the first time that day since leaving Atlantic City at dawn. It had been a hard sail all day beating into the wind. The current did ease after Point Pleasant. but with the waves coming on the nose in the three-foot range. I could not use the auto pilot and sail. If I had more money I would have used the motor or come up the inland route, but I was living off unemployment. I only use the motor to get into and out of port. It is a long hard slog from Atlantic City to Manasquan in a 25-foot sailboat. I had been on my boat for six weeks and although tired I was used to being on the boat.
I reached over my shipmate—a 100-pound Black Lab called Dammit—lowered the motor, and started it. The sails needed to be lower in the ocean before entering the narrow Manasquan inlet.
I went forward to lower the sails. In order for the
jib and the
jib boom to sit on flat on deck the first two hanks had to be undone. Before I could reach the forward stay, the boat lurched and I stepped back. My foot and my weight landed on the wet glass
hatch and I slipped backward with enough momentum to keep me moving across the deck into the lifelines, or as someone said about a 25-foot boat, trip
lines. Then I was in the water. The
autopilot was set, the motor running, and the sails still up.
I have read a lot of singled-handed sailors’ stories and the precautions applied in case they fall off their boat. With no autopilot the boat would round up if the tiller was free and would stop. I had tried the recommend long polypropylene line drug behind the boat, but people were always hailing me telling me I was dragging a line and it just got aggravating. I finally choose a harness and a jack line around the boat. After all this is the best way to keep one’s self attached to the boat.
My head went under the water and I knew this was a big deal to fall off a boat in the ocean attached to a harness or not. What I did noticed, after a while, was that I was not righting my self and my head was under water a long time. I used force on my back to lift my head out and grab a breath of fresh air. I notice that the harness’s painter had slid back and was against the main stay and I was backward. The angle saved my feet that were still on the deck, my knees just over the lifelines.
This position forced my body down and my head under water. Unless I strained my back to keep my head up I could not get air. The angle was such that I could neither pull my self up, neither stay in the position nor unhook my feet. From my waist up or down on how you want to describe my position I was under water being drug along at three to five knots half underwater.
I was feeling desperate and what seemed like my only chance was to take a deep breath and go back under water and try to straighten my legs and unhook my feet. This took two attempts one for each foot with a really awkward and difficult position with one foot on deck and it being against the stay. With concentration I was able to unhook my foot and swig around until I was now head up but not out of the water.
At mid boat where the stays attach to the chain plate it is not the best place to climb aboard any boat. I was able to swing one leg up and under the lifeline and then the other and squirmed back on deck with my harness twisted around the stay and the lifeline. I sat up, unhooked the harness and crawled back to the cockpit. My partner stopped his self-entertainment of licking himself and looked at me as to say “Oh you done playing around?!"
I disengaged the autopilot so I could regain my composure and recuperate. I crawled to the mast and dropped the main and jib halyards and sailed in with the jib flogging around. I lowered that in the small inlet of Manasquan. I motored around to the Shrimp Box Restaurant and tied and changed for dinner.
Had I not had a harness I most likely would have lost the boat and maybe my life. It just one of those things to realize there is no forgiveness on the ocean and to take that seriously and take all precautions to give one self the best chance against mishaps.
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