Well since nothing much interesting seems to be happening here at the moment I thought I'd give you all a laugh at my watery adventures earlier today.
It all started when I went down towards the docks this AM topick up the Sunday paper. FYI...we are in the remnants of TS Barry here today and have 35K winds out of the south with a heavy chop. As I get down near this lighthouse dock:
...I notice that off to the right the mast of my buddy's sailboat looks closer to land than it should be. Getting closer, I see my friend in the water up to his tummy and trying to climb into his 23' Columbia day sailer (keelboat) as it bucks up and down. He is about 60 and is having no success in the wind, waves and rain. So...I take off my docksiders and blazer (
) and get in the water and wade out to help...on the way finding an 8 foot deep hole
.
I gave him (totally exhausted) a boost up into the boat and we got his little 4hp stern mount tohatsu lowered and going but the boat was aground and I had to push it around 180 degees and edge t back toward that 8 foot hole.
I then had him head the boat in low gear and let go of his buoyed anchor line. This is all happening on the right side of the lighthouse above as you look at it and the wind is on his nose whipping straight ahead from behind the lighthouse which is south. As I walked/swam back to shore I watched in horror as the boat took a hard left heading for the pier in front of the lighthouse at full speed as my friend scrambled on deck and tried to steer.
To no avail ...as a few seconds later his headstay hit the decking of the pier and the rig went slack as people came running to help him.
I got out of the water and headed up the pier which is about 6 feet above the water. The boat was thrashing about wildly and the backstay was gone. The mast is keel stepped but a one foot gash in the deck had already been created where it had been knocked off its step by the impact. The immediate need was to secure the boat and try tokeep the mast upright and stable. As I held on to his spreader wires with one hand and the dock with anothr I managed to also lose my footing and I tumbled off the dock and fortunately I was able just to direct my fall enough so that I landed between the boat and the pilings. I wrenched my shoulder that I had rotator cuff surgery on last year and slammed my butt into the bottom and have a nice bruise to show for it. I am hoping that I didn't rip my shoulder again but it will take a few days to see if the damage is temporary or will require another fix.
Anyway...since I was once again in the water I was able to help hold the boat off while others got things stabilized a bit and tied her off. As I had to wade into shore along the pier my feet banged into all kinds of debris and I was wishing I had those docksiders on.
My friend was totally exhausted and could only tell me that all of a sudden the boat turned sideways to the wind and nothing he did with the tiller could get him pointed back into the wind and he couldn't get the engine out of gear (probably because of the high throttle). My own surmise is that the outboard itself got knocked sideways and with the wind...the tiller could not overcome both. In retrospect theright thing to do would have been to let the boat go downwind at speed and try to round up or simply go aground in the mud...but he was fighting exhaustion and had no time to try an alternate approach when his first reaction did not work.
Anyway...back on land I found that I had several pretty good cuts on my feet along with a bunch of minor lacerations and I was bleeding like a stuck pig. Guess the adrenalin kicked in and I had felt little pain.
I hope the boat is still there in the AM as the mast was still grinding a bit and we had no ability to do anything more with here in the conditions we had. Hopefully tomorrow we can get the mast down and see how badly she is hurt.
Incredible as it may seem...despite GALE warnings being posted for 36 hours or so...there were 3 other boats tied up to this lighthouse pier on the left side. One 20 foot runabout was secured by TWO 1/8 inch lines and NO fenders. The LARGE outboard had its housing destroyed as it floated under the dock and pounded up and down on the wood. His port rub rail and a lot of glass was gone too.
A cuddycabin daysailer was also left with the sails simply tied to the boom loosely and with fore and aft thin lines which broke during the storm. the boat drifted free until it hit other dock and the mast crumpled and it continued to pound itself into the docks. Thee last boat was similarly poorly secured but was in an inside slip and when it was overwhelmed by waves breaking on it, it was only in 2 feet of water. This one was bailed and saved this AM without any apparent damage though the outboad gota pretty good dunking. How can people treat their boas like this?
Anyway...hope that was somewhat more entertaining in the telling than it was in the doing. I'll be in my Laz-y-boy for the next few days I think!
I may be safer at sea than on land!!
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