What's your biggest bonehead move sailing?

[PatrickMcHugh]

WOW. What boat was that in?

[johnshasteen]

Originally Posted by PatrickMcHugh

WOW. What boat was that in?

That was our '79 Bristol 29.9 that we've owned for many years. The March '08 storm was the second Force 10 storm we've been through with her - but in the first storm, back in the 90's, we didn't loose the engine or tangle up the sails - it was a bit less harrowing - we ran before that storm as well, but that time, by choice - we had 300 miles to go to Vera Cruz and it was blowing us in that direction anyway, just a bit faster than we had planned on.

[sww914]

I pitch-poled my Nacra in the shallow back bay, solo. The boat was very difficult to right by myself. I didn't get it turned around facing the wind fast enough and the mast started sinking. I had to rig a line to sit on and lean back to right the boat, it too about 10 minutes of swimming this way and that to get it back up. After it popped up I saw that the whole top of the mast was covered in mud. I had been swimming around for 10 minutes and didn't realize that I was in 3 feet of water!
I could have walked over to the end of the mast and just lifted it up!

[SecondWindNC]

As an inexperienced teen sailor, took a girlfriend out on a Balboa 20. Turned out she was pretty unsure about the whole thing to start with and spent most of the sail huddled in the cockpit sole wearing her bright orange life vest.

Then the weather turned ugly, quickly (doesn't it always?). She was unable/unwilling to hold the tiller for even a moment (as she had done while I raised the sails in light air on the way out), so I had no one to take the helm in order to get to the mast to drop the sails.

At that point she moved down below to get out of the rain and resumed cowering, while I did the best I could sailing the overpowered little weekender on its ear in the pouring rain, trying to make it back to our more protected creek where there would be less wind and I could get things under control.

Ultimately there was no harm done, although needless to say, that was her first and last sailing adventure. And I learned my lesson about crew: having somebody else aboard doesn't do any good if they can't at least steer the boat, and and I can't steer and be at the mast dropping halyards at the same time!

[j34035]

I will not tell the whole story, but it began while stepping to the pier while docking and ran a lifline stanchion up the leg of the shorts I was wearing. You fill in the details............... I did get wet!
DD

[jinjyr]

SecondWindNC, my story is close to yours. I was with my wife,who hates coming out with me,on my Pearson 26.Probably on a Broad reach in too much wind with too much sail. I told her I would put it into the wind and drop the jib.As I came closer to the wind I came as close to a knock down as ever I experienced. She was hysterical and catotonic i just cant remember in which order.

[Flybyknight]

Putting the fore stay where the back stay goes and vise verse before raising the mast.??
Did not notice the mistake until after the crane had left.
Talk about rake!

[SecondWindNC]

Originally Posted by jinjyr

SecondWindNC, my story is close to yours. I was with my wife,who hates coming out with me,on my Pearson 26.Probably on a Broad reach in too much wind with too much sail. I told her I would put it into the wind and drop the jib.As I came closer to the wind I came as close to a knock down as ever I experienced. She was hysterical and catotonic i just cant remember in which order.

You know, I never thought to look, but I bet you could find fingernail marks in the cockpit gelcoat and the galley countertop on that old Balboa! That girl was not a happy camper! (And I have to admit, I was pretty concerned as well. I wanted those sails DOWN.)

[montenido]

Hi all, thought I would share some new bonehead moves that I did last weekend at Santa Cruz Island with my two sons. We made the trip over without mishap, but did change our destination due to high wind. Had a great first night, and as I woke earlier than the boys, I pulled the anchor and decided to motor to our original location, farther North and much less sheltered.

I didn't bother checking the weather report because it was calm where I was and I didn't want to wake said sons. First mistake. And since I was only going about 6-8 miles, I decided to tow the dinghy AND the kayak. Second mistake. And since it was really such a short putt, I left items inside the dinghy such as kayak paddles and life jackets. Third mistake.

As I rounded the island and became less and less in the lee of it, the wind began to increase. No problem, as I was motoring bare-poled. Well, the wind kept getting higher and higher directly off the bow, and my speed under power began to fall off dramatically. When I reached 30 knots of wind and zero knots of forward speed, I began to get a bit nervous. My 150% genoa decided that this might be a good time to begin to unfurl near the top of the mast, even though the lower section was securely wrapped. My son Cody poked his head up and asked if I needed anything. I told him to stay down below and I would call him if I needed him.

I decided (a bit late) to abandon my plans and to head back to our original anchorage. So, heading dead downwind I checked the dinghy and noticed that one of the kayak paddles was gone. A few minutes later the kayak was upside-down and doing its best submarine impression. Well, I eventually made it back to the sheltered anchorage and dropped the hook. I'm pretty sure that I chugged a cold beer down in one swig . It took me a while to relax after that, but the rest of the trip was uneventful and fun.

Lessons learned: 1) ALWAYS check the weather report.
2) AWAYS empty the dinghy before moving.
3) ALWAYS bring the kayak on board when moving.
4) See #1.

[pacmaann2]

It was about 3 am and we were just wrapping up after working on yet another small project on his 30' Irwin. I had probably hopped on and off this boat countless times in the current slip, not to mention I'm 20 and this should be a fairly limber, easy operation, but this night something went horribly wrong. It was a rather high tide, and I was pretty tired so I quickly went to hop over the safety line well, this did not turn out like it should have as I hopped over I got one leg onto the dock but instead of swinging the other over smoothly it was a little higher than I thought and I ended up snagging a certain male body part on the safety line rather sharply.
Somehow I got the leg over though, with both feet on the dock, and for a second thought I was going to be OK well that was until I took the first step and crumbled like a rag doll from that well known pain. This time I fell halfway off the dock and ended up one leg in the water barely hanging on bear hugging the dock. Somehow I managed to get back up as my friend came over watching the whole embarrassing thing. Nothing cool about having an awesome looking scar that looks like I was in a sword fight ,but when people ask I have to tell them yeah that's where I fell of the dock.

Lesson learned always step over the safety line onto the boat then try to hop on the dock haven't had an issue since. In hindsight at least it was 3 am so the old drunken British sea salts didn't see me do it.