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I love to learn the hard way!!!

7K views 25 replies 21 participants last post by  NowImSailing 
#1 ·
I am a stubborn stubborn man. I consistently learn all my lessons the hard way. I wish i knew why? maybe it has to do with my ethnicity (French, Portuguese and English) or maybe just maybe it has everything to do with my up-bringing. Regardless I just know that i learn things the hard way and i even learned that the Hard WAY! lol

Here are some of the errors that i have made and have had to correct in the reconditioning of my beloved lady Acrewed Interest (Hunter 25.5). If you learn the hard way this will not help you so stop reading. If not, read on and you may skip a few of these issues/head aches in your endeavors.

Hard Way Lesson 1

Tensioned my rig year 2. Borrowed a loose gauge from my uncle. First time i had ever used one, seemed easy enough... Nope it turns out that my uncles Loose gauge was for a much heavier rig on his J30 and i way over tensioned the backstay and first good sail of the year the headstay snapped in the rollerfurler sending the boat and her crew into a panic. Two of my extremely brave crew jump into action and hold the mast forward with both sails still up. while i run around blowing halyards and taking out the shrouds to lower the deck stepped mast on to the deck.
Mistake 1 over tightening with the wrong tool for the job.
Mistake 2 not having the presence of mind in the emergency to simply run the spare halyard to the forward chain-plate and crank the hell out of it to hold the rig upl Lesson learned!
Mistake 3 drinking a half of a bottle of Sailor Jerry after everything was under control (Hang Over in the morning)

Hard Way Lesson 2

I am sure this one has happened to someone else besides me. I simply shredded a Gib that had came with the boat. The first time it happened it was a tropical storm and i had been away for a while and didn't think anything of take my head sail off of the roller. I said to myself It will be fine others have theirs on still. Wrong! it started flogging @ around 10pm and it might of lasted for 10 mins before it shredded its self. My neighbor ran up the street to my house and knocked on my door and was concerned to say the least. The concern was the boat was going to sail off the mooring and take out other boats. We jumped in his inflatable and tried to get out there to get the sail down once i got on the boat it was far to late and i just left it. The sail shredded nicely and wasn't causing it to sail to badly. Got pretty soaked in the 70knt blow in the little inflatable though.
Mistake 1 don't go by what others are doing... go with your gut every single time, take the sail off.
The second time this happened to me it was because of a bad design by what ever owner installed a clam cleat on the toe rail laying on its side for the roller furler line. Shook loose unfurled and flogged all night shredded in the am. I removed the clam cleat and installed a regular cleat.
Mistake 2 no matter what ALWAYAS wrap your furled sail with at least 1 sail tie and cleat the roller line. This is boating its all about backups.

Hard Way lesson 3

Outboard motor disaster. Got an outboard Evenrude Yachttwin 9.9 long leg on AI. Had some trouble getting it to piss for a while but its running great now. The previous year i had an old peice of plywood on the motor arm real badly rotted and nearly lost the motor because of it. The wing nut style screw clamps that held the motor on happen to be fully extended not tight. I look back one day and to my disbelief the leg is kind of floating up to the side. I look again and i see that the motor is only being held on by one of the clamps. Crisis! all hell breaks loose and i grab a halyard this time (BING! light bulb) attached it to the motor and then jumped in to fix the issue.
So the year goes on and i pull the boat and decide that motor incident is never going to happen again and make a super nice replacement for the wooden piece on the motor mount. I even went above and beyond and plated the mount on both sides of the hull for a super strong low flex mount. Feeling great about the motors performance and its new mount i splash the boat and begin the season. Here comes the Hard way. I was at an event trying to set hook in some chop, backing her down on the hook the motor started cavitating in reverse. On one of the cavitations it decided to turn so when it went back down into the water the prop was sidways thus spinning the entire leg up out of the water and leaving it hooked up only by one clamp again even with the brand new rig.
Mistake 1 Through bolt the damn motor!!!
Mistake 2 Also tighten the pivot point so the motor will not turn on its own. keep it tight but movable encase of a docking issue. It is nice to have stern thrust in either direction while in tight quarters.

well that is all for now. lets here your Hard Way stories...

O before i post two more.
shrink wrap house is not a good way to dry a boat out over the winter. The cover creates a micro climate. moisture evaporates and then just drips back down.

and when removing stickers on gelcoat with a heat gun be carefull not to pop the finish. getting the gelcoat to hot makes bubbles and they burst ruining the integrity and the finish of the gelcoat.

Sail Wicked Hard!
 
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#2 ·
Mav, dude, I'm right there with you brother. I'm convinced that the hard way is the only way. Your checklist looks like mine. So a toast to you.

But all that really counts is your last sentence. SN raise your glasses to "Sail wicked hard".
 
#3 ·
I find I remember the lessons a lot better when I learn them the hard way. I kept previous boats on a mooring for about 15 years. I had our boat on the beach a couple of times and learned a new weak spot with the way I designed our mooring each time.

Lesson #1: I had a large nylon mooring line that went all the way down to a bouncer block with a float about six feet up to keep the line from wrapping up and chafing. In a blow, the bouncer block got tipped over. Now my mooring line is upside down and quickly chaffed through. So I added a length of chain later on.

Lesson #2. Don't mix stainless safety wire with galvanized fittings. The stainless wire caused the galvanized fittings to wear out prematurely because of galvanic action. Found boat on the beach again and then switched to plastic wire ties on all the underwater fittings.

Lots of other mistakes learned the hard way, but I must try and maintain the little bit of dignity I have left.
 
#5 ·
After working on my boat on the mooring all day I decided to take a break and motor around the mooring field. Got to the far side and saw a shadow in the water. After thinking for a few seconds that, "gee, if this was in the Caribbean I would think that was a reef" Bam-o! Hard grounding in my own mooring field. Arg.
 
#7 ·
First time out on my Pearson Triton after a quick once over I said it all "looked" good, the bobstay broke and we snapped the bowsprit in 35knots as we left an anchorage 25nm from anything. At least I knew by the time we got back that the engine was reliable.

When I changed my mail sail I didn't put lines in for the reefing points because the weather was perfect and we were only going 20 nm. A nasty and unpredicted gale rolled threw and I had to run lines and set blocks in 45 knots.
 
#8 ·
Too bad this post didn't go anywhere the first time. Here's hoping that changes. It reminds me of a short story I read many MANY years ago about a group of doctors who would meet and talk about their patients who had died and what the doctors should have done better. One of them tells his story, receives this group fest of ideas and discussion, then runs back to the hospital -- his patient hadn't died yet.

The moral of the story is to keep the stories coming and maybe the rest of us can avoid getting into the same fixes, though I am positive we will all still have plenty of our own fubars. I take possession of my boat in 3 days time so I will also try to share the mistakes, provided they're not too embarrassing. Actually, now that I think about it, I do have one. It was when the sea trail was almost finished and we were taking down the sails. I had not touched the engine up to this point and wanted to make sure I knew the start up procedures (yes, I'm that new). The broker then told me that forward was in the down position. Needless to say, I turned the boat one way and it starts moving in the opposite direction. At least I got it by the time I docked later, which turned out pretty well. A friend tells me that in one near-panic situation during a docking, he engaged the engine in the wrong direction. I'm hoping that always sticks in my brain, especially during the frantic moments...
 
#9 ·
The wife and I set out after church on Sunday to spend a night swinging on the hook at the local lake. The winds were pretty high (for us) but they were to abate somewhat so we hung out at the slip for awhile then headed out to sail a bit then find a nice cove for the night. With the winds and the Labor Day ********* parade the water was a mix-master. Even anchored back in a cove we got a good share of sloshing about. We finally move further back into the cove the lessons began (yes, this all happened on one trip):
1. When using a cheap halogen light for an anchor light, never pull it up to hang from the jib halyard. The wave action soon has it spun around the mast, main halyard, and stays. Dang. How will I get that undone in the dark?
2. When the main halyard is tangled with the jib halyard due to #1 never take it loose from the mainsail and pull. Now it's a real mess. No sailing now until we putt back to the dock with the aid of Mr. Johnson's 4 40 year old horses.
3. Remember back in coves there are underwater trees and snags. In the cool 50 degree morning one cannot pull up an entire tree with the anchor rope. It requires an upside down swim down the rope to fix it. Brrr.
4. Mr. Johnson's horses need fuel and when the tank gets low, it requires a tilt to keep the gas flow to the horses.
5. The trailer you stored at the marina to have ready to pull 'er out in the fall is never where you left it. The help shows you where it's at-in the bone yard.
6. Remember to put the box receiver hitch in the truck. You can't pull the trailer with out it. Good thing we only live 10 miles from the marina.
7. Old outboards tend to die an the most inopportune moments. Like motoring from the slip to the dock to put the boat on the trailer so the mast can be un-stepped to fix #1 and #2.
8. Starter ropes break on old outboards at the most inopportune moments.
9. Boats with no power move with the wind to the nearest shore when one gets frazzled and forgets to throw the anchor. It always has rocks.
10. Old outboards have a backup method to start using the broken rope on the flywheel. They will start after a few pulls (figured as ambient temperature x frustration level of the captain x length of the boat). But...old fuel line fittings on old outboards tend to break off.
11. While one is fussing with how to get the boat to the dock through the underground rocks, he finds out about the famous weak tiller connection on O'days when the swing rudder he forgot to pull up hits same rocks and snaps off the tiller.
12. Those rocks next to the shore are hard on shins while one walks the boat to the dock.
13. He finds that other sailors are very kind and helpful to get his boat out of the water, onto the boat, and the mast un-stepped. The even admit to having the same things happen rather than ridicule him.
14. Tires on trailers left at the marina tend to rot and fly apart on the way home. Thankfully the air stays in and he can limp it in since (see above) he's only 10 miles from home.
15. Be grateful for God's grace and the help of complete strangers. These are important lessons to learn because...
AS SOON AS I GET ALL THIS STUFF FIXED---WE'RE GOING BACK AND DO IT AGAIN!!!!
 
#10 ·
We decided to take the new to us boat for a test trail.
It was a beautiful August day. NOT a ripple on the water, literally. You could have drop a quarter and seen ripples for 50 feet. Zero wind; not even one knot. A truly freakish day. The fastest i've ever motored this boat.
We go out about 6 miles and go for a swim.

On the way back in; BANG! My transmission grenades! (didn't know it at the time) I was 4 miles out. My wife looks at me and says what do we do? It was about 2pm; i let her know the wind would pick-up right before sunset.
Lucky for me; my marina neighbor came by a half hour later and gave us a tow back with his Catalina 400. He happened to recognize me from a distance.

Lessons learned:
First - Never ever take anyones word for nothing, check it yourself. The transmission had "just been serviced"; 2 hours on motor. Discovered no fluid! My fault; should've checked.

Second - Don't call ahead to the Marina to ask for deck hands in case you need them for docking.
I felt like a rock star coming in. Camera's and video rolling as i had a truly roaring reception. I listened to this for the rest of the year.
 
#11 ·
I spent This Sunday past working in my mooring field swapping the barnacled up ball with a new one. What I did not know is how much strain was on the ball at flood tide. The wind was 48 degrees cold and at a steady 18 knots. I was by my self on this project. I should have had someone along, if for nothing else, someone to reach me tools. I did get it done. Now I can find the mooring. The ball is now on-top of the water instead of just under it as it was. Here are a few shots of the work before and after.
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#12 ·
Out on a Spring sail with friends who are experienced sailors. We knew(?) there was an unmarked ledge around, but unfortunately were chatting and not paying attention. Then, bump! Another boat buck for repairs.

Evidently, that ledge is infamous for getting boats at mid- to high tide. Lesson - someone always needs to be paying attention commensurate with the situation.
 
#13 · (Edited)
Last year a friend and I (The friend that got me hooked) were out in a good blow on his Irwin 44 and we went to fire up the diesel when the prop was fouled. A couple of shots to try and free it up and suddenly...BANG and it was free.

Of course the bang was one of his stanchions ripping out of the deck. It turns out that we forgot to stow the main halyard and it was running over the lifelines and was dragging behind the boat. That was what fouled the prop so it was an expensive lesson learned.
 
#15 ·
Actually, this is a great idea for a thread. Bare all of your boneheaded mistakes to the world if you dare!
However, I will note that this idea has been used before and there is one whopper of a thread where lots of members contributed their input on this exact subject: http://www.sailnet.com/forums/seamanship/35108-whats-your-biggest-bonehead-move-sailing.html

Like most I've been involved with enough embarrassing boating incidents to have my own thread on the subject - instead I have my boat blog.
Some general things I have learned from all of my unmentionable experiences:

- Never, ever be in a hurry to leave a slip or mooring. You are likely to forget something like that extra dock line hanging off the stern that will get caught in the prop. If on a mooring you discover that the engine will not start once you have cast off the mooring lines and you are now drifting about in a crowded mooring field near other peoples expensive boats.

- Never ever, ever expect someone else to do something that you told them to do, even if you think it was an order. You will find out later that the raw water valve you asked someone to open was forgotten when your engine overheats 20 minutes later. Besides, it is never their fault as it is YOUR boat, right?
The corollary is: never take anything someone else says for granted no matter how convincing they seem. If you have a mechanic work on your engine you should ALWAYS double check their work. A mechanic may have drained the oil out of several engines that day and just thought he refilled the oil reservoir but actually forgot to.

- If you think it is time to reef then it is probably already past time to reef.

- If a little voice in the back of your head tells you something like: "We should head back now." or "We should pull the boat out for the season this weekend." it usually is absolutely correct. I can't tell you how many times the little voice has been right and I have been wrong.

- Always approach a dock at the speed you wish to hit it.
 
#17 ·
OK. Here's mine...
Moral of the story - when you run aground don't do a bunch of stupid stuff which will make it worse.
Details - I'm the only guy in the race with a working depth gage and I ran aground. I only draw two feet with the board up so I was sure it was no big deal to push my 23 footer off. This is not true! We tried to skull, sail, lean, and motor our way off to no avail. All we did was dig a hole in the bottom of the lake with the hull. We ended up kedging off with the anchor over the stern with the rode to a winch. An amazing amount of force was required - the bow started to lift up out of the water before it began to break free.
What should I have done: immediately take the sails down and try to back off the same way I came.
Now I know...
 
#18 ·
Second - Don't call ahead to the Marina to ask for deck hands in case you need them for docking.
I felt like a rock star coming in. Camera's and video rolling as i had a truly roaring reception. I listened to this for the rest of the year.
We were in Naniamo a couple years ago parked nose in at the end of a long alley. It was time to go and there was a fresh crosswind blowing through the marina. Nikko doesn't back well at all and I was nervous about getting out. I thought maybe I could use assistance, but I'm not the kind of guy that asks for help. So I was standing there surveying the situation and the skipper parked behind me asks me what my strategy was. I respond in a matter of fact voice "well, first I'm going to bounce off that boat, then that boat and that that nice one at the very end until I can get enough speed to get some steerage". I got all sorts of offers for assistance right after that and the skippers on all my targets were on deck to fend if needed.
 
#20 ·
Lesson #1 — Start the outboard on the dinghy before you untie the line.

The wind started to carry me out of the bay while I was fiddling with the choke and fuel cap and the transmission. By the time I gave up on the motor and looked at my surroundings I had drifted quite a ways out and was nearly into the chop.


Lesson #2 — Inspect backup systems before the primary system fails, even on a dinghy.

Having given up on the outboard I decided to row in to shore, only to find that one of the oarlocks was broken.


I ended up doing sort of a crab-walk row back to shore, against the wind. One good stroke from the oar with the lock, then two or three half-assed strokes from the oar without a lock.

Apparently the whole bay was quite amused by my progress, or lack thereof. My wife got on the radio and asked for assistance and was met with replies like "Does he have bribe liquor on him?" and "Don't rescue him too fast, we have money on this."

Of course the problem was that the outboard was flooded, so by the time I was done struggling back to shore it was fine. A friend waded out to meet me, hopped in, and started it with one pull. He gave me a look like "So what's the deal?"
 
#21 ·
Got another! :)

Return trip from Cuttyhunk MA to Bristol RI. Wind N 12 knts

This story takes place while rounding Sakonnet point. The leg from CH to the point was great sailing the wind was perfect and could not ask for a better experience. This would turn into a long motor up the Sakonnet river which was expected but we had the tide with us so it was not so bad.

We were passing West island and there were maybe 30 fishing boats hunting the not so illusive black fish when we started the motor and got ready to head nose up into the wind. Just then my first mate and I noticed my shoes were sloshing around in the cabin sole. "That's odd I thought" I was sure we had a clear bilge when we left. The water was very clean and I suspected it came from the freshwater holding tank which it did. One of the hoses had come off the tank and spilled out about 12 gallons of water into the bilge.

Mate took the wheel and I grabbed a bucked and pump and went to work. I also switched on the bilge pump and that was doing its share as well. I wanted to pump directly from the bilge but that the floorboard was blocked because we had the dinghy motor lashed under the table and the leg was hanging out holding the floor board closed. I then realized I could pump most of the water out from the bilge if I removed the stairs and exposed the engine compartment. Pumping was going well, I was pumping the water into a bucket and then emptying it into the sink.

Now all canvas was down and we were motoring N into the wind. Bucket after bucket. I was gaining on the water when the boat took a large swell just as I was transferring a full bucket to the sink. Bucket slipped and dumped on the good ol' A 4 putting it out in an instant. I looked up at my lovely blonde first mate through the companion way and said "Oh, #*&@".

Many things went through my mind at this point but I kept relatively cool. I got some towels and started to dry the motor soaking up all the spots I could get at. I then had her crank the motor to try and start it... Nothing... Dead. I really did not want to tack all the way up the river to then have to side tie the dinghy to get through Tiverton Basin. That sounded exhausting and frankly we didn't have that kind of time.

We put the sails back up and did some upwind sailing while I continued the drying process. The motor was warm so it was drying. I hit the cap, wires and coil with WD-40 and let it sit a few mins and the motor fired right up.

Few that was a close one. We finished the journey without further incident.

So since the carb took a big gulp of water through the air filter it took the motor started to idle poorly. I have since pulled the carb and dipped it and put it back on. The other thing I did was cleaned things up with salt away. Even though it was fresh water that leaked it still mixed with the little bilge water that was in the bilge.

So what did I learn. Be careful with slippery buckets around the motor. Make sure to stay calm when the poop hits the fan and never leave home without WD-40.

Sail Wicked Hard!
 
#24 ·
Here's a lesson I learned the hard way: Things blow downwind.

Yesterday I was sailing my Catalina 22 on a little city lake. I noticed that a boat that turned out to be a Melges M-16 had capsized and they were having trouble righting it.

If my wife knew how to sail we could have just buzzed by them and I could have jumped off to give them a hand, but my wife can't sail so I had to come up with an alternate plan. I decided to anchor upwind of them and then let out anchor rode until I was nearly upon then, then swim over to help.

By the time I got anchored a guy in a canoe had helped them right the boat. However the boat was completely swamped and I could see that all he had for bailing was a little beverage pitcher, and it appeared that water was pouring back in as fast as he could get it out.

So I put on a PFD, grabbed my hand pump, and dove in to swim the pump over.

But... Now the boat was upright with sails exposed to the wind. It was blowing away downwind nearly as fast as I could swim one-handed! Doh!

Canoe guy back to the rescue, he paddled over and got the pump I was swimming with and delivered it to the M-16. Now free of the pump I was able to swim faster than the wind and caught up to the boat. By this time another Melges scow buzzed by and tossed over a bigger bucket. Between the bucket and the pump we were able to dewater his boat and get it sailing again, and he sailed me back to my wife waiting in our anchored boat.

Anyway. Lesson learned. Things blow away downwind. Possibly faster than you can swim.
 
#25 ·
Lack of preparation... lack of forethought... is there a difference?

Re-caulking without having stuff on hand to clean off excess... makes for a poor finish afterwards

Working with West Epoxy and not having cloth out to protect the deck... Surprise... Stains are left over...

Working always on more examples and need inspiration...
 
#26 ·
Be weary of 'its all set' moorings

bought my first sailboat in August did a little bit of work to her and finally got it in the water. I was very very excited, a nice sunny Thursday I sailed it from New England but works to the Mount Hope basin.

A ' friend' said feel free to use our morning for the year. We brought our boat up to mean, it's been insane and it's all set!'

inspected to him probably meant he tugged on it and it didn't come out, the next day my brother calls me up and says hey how's the sailing? I was very perplexed seeing as I was at home doing some chores. Well come to find out the mooring broke loose and the boat drifted like a ghost ship across the bay and landed over on the shore in Bristol. We were able to get her off the rocks and back over to Portsmouth. ..only to put it on my other friends mooring. Or so I thought. It was the wrong mooring.

I learned to be weary of the 'it's all set' mooring and double check the mooring numbers !
 
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