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What's your biggest bonehead move sailing?

214K views 614 replies 265 participants last post by  Michael Lambert 
#1 ·
Tell me yours and I'll tell ya mine ;)
 
#574 ·
Backing out of the slip on the first trip with my wife in our new to us Tartan 30....I had backed about as far as I could in the narrow fairway and had shifted into forward to pivot the boat before shifting back into reverse...
On the Atomic 4 controls, the throttle will advance if you push the handle forward or backward....guess which handle I reached down without looking and pushed all the way backward...you guessed it, not the shift handle, but the throttle. So instead of going backwards at a slow pace, we are wide open throttle heading back into the pier....

She still sails with me.
 
#575 ·
Backing out of the slip on the first trip with my wife in our new to us Tartan 30....I had backed about as far as I could in the narrow fairway and had shifted into forward to pivot the boat before shifting back into reverse...
On the Atomic 4 controls, the throttle will advance if you push the handle forward or backward....guess which handle I reached down without looking and pushed all the way backward...you guessed it, not the shift handle, but the throttle. So instead of going backwards at a slow pace, we are wide open throttle heading back into the pier....

She still sails with me.
Head injury? :D
 
#576 · (Edited)
Crossing over to Port Townsend I checked the engine room Noticed the little nut that holds a handle on the fuel manifold valve had come off.alowing the handle to fall off Thought it had gone in the bilge, no biggie , fix that later. Well ,it was sitting on the Velvetdrive tranny where it prevented the shift lever to find reverse.Made a grand entry into Point Hudson for the !st wooden boat show and a well executed turn and pull up to a big classic power yacht.Elaine took a line onto the vessel along side and made it fast. Realizing something was amiss ,I took a firm grip on the mizzen shroud and grabbed for the hand rail next door. The line came taut and 22 tons of stillmoving enertia tried to turn hard right. Slow motion event .pulled apart like a drawing/quartering demonstration.,feet dangling 4' off the water. Today this would be on the net as science of stupid but fortunately no one noticed and I regained my composure as the greatest captain ever
 
#580 ·
Work buddy tells me he wants to learn to sail... Perfect day, but light air. First I go over all the safety stuff and teach him the names of some lines, etc.

Then I raise the main to sail off the mooring... something I have done thousands of times. As there is an current pushing us forward I start the engine just in case.

Well, the current is pushing us forward so I calmly show him how to back the main.

The breeze is to light and the current must be running stronger than i guessed as we keep moving forward.

Calmly I put her in reverse and throttle up.

Calmly he says he doesn't think we are gonna make it.

Calmly I give it more throttle and reassure him.

Calmly the dinghy painter wraps around the prop.

Calmly I explain that in 20 years of sailing and a lifetime of boating I have never done that as I calmlyl go down below and get the mask, snorkel and knife.

*&^%$#@#$%%^&&
 
#581 ·
Not exactly "while sailing," but I have nowhere else to confess.

I'm on my fourth season with my sailboat, and have dived to scrape growth off the prop at least twice per season. At first I just used a mask, and held my breath for repeated dives as needed. This didn't seem too efficient, so I dug out my old scuba gear and had it overhauled, and also bought a small scuba tank. Using this rig to clean the prop was downright luxurious! For all of these dives I would enter the water by the swim ladder and make my way past the rudder to the prop, working with the prop right in front of my face.

Today the engine was really struggling and I suspected more prop fouling. Rather than forfeit a day on the water, I decided to anchor and scrape the prop, but unfortunately I didn't even have a mask with me. So I figured I'd just hold my breath and go by feel. But since this was the first dive where I wouldn't be able to see the prop as I approached it, I decided to locate it with my feet and/or hands before putting my head under. To reach better I moved around to the side instead of coming in from the stern. And I found the prop with my hand. And discovered that I could scrub it just fine without even putting my head in the water at all.
 
#582 ·
Not exactly "while sailing," but I have nowhere else to confess.............To reach better I moved around to the side instead of coming in from the stern. And I found the prop with my hand. And discovered that I could scrub it just fine without even putting my head in the water at all.
Now THAT's funny! Especially since I was cringing while reading the story, anticipating it was going to end with a trip to the ER and stitches!
Unfortunately, I think you will need to get your head wet to scrub the rest of the hull, which will slow the boat down as well. If you find a way to avoid that (besides hiring a diver) please post!
 
#583 ·
I just accidentally clicked on the first page of this thread and had to laugh while I cringed when I read the OP. :eek
 
#584 ·
Two stories, two fingers busted.

If you have dropped your centerboard for maintenance, and leaned it on a stick to keep it roughly vertical for scraping, do take the time to pick it up and reposition it when you go to scrape the other side.

I did not.

As soon as I applied pressure to the "down" side, the stick was unloaded and fell down. The board then fell towards my hand and broke my finger.

Another time, I was stupidly wearing gloves while working with anchor chain. My father was at the wheel of our old full-keeled ketch. I had cleated off the chain for the stuck anchor and had my hands lightly resting on the chain while he used the engine to try to break the anchor free. Instead, the chain broke free of the cleat, snagged my gloves, and pulled me towards the pulpit. I ended up with a longitudinally split finger tip and a trip to the Miami Hand Institute (They have great care there!).

If I hadn't been freed from the glove by my finger coming apart, I would have been dragged through a pair of stainless steel tubes just under shoulder width apart. Laying on the bottom with two broken shoulders while the keel attempted to part my hair would have been much worse than the finger damage.
 
#585 ·
Another pair of goofups

I was lowering my mast of my Siren 17 while talking to one of the homeless men who hang out at Dinner Key Marina ramps. He said something and I turned to look, losing control of the fore stay and dropping my mast through my cabin top.

I got a lot of practice with fiberglass repair after that goof up.

Then there's the time I left the paper charts on top of the car. By the time we realized what had happened, my wife had driven away. My buddy and I completed our three-day journey from Chatham to Boston without proper charts. We had some printed-out excerpts from a cruising guide and some iPad charts. Those only covered our expected route and did not include our unscheduled but necessary stop at Oak Bluffs. Did I mention we arrived at night, with a nearly dead spotlight, and jury rigged clamp-on running lights? Oh, and this was the first time I'd ever sailed this new-to-me boat. That story is full of bone-headed mistakes. I could fill a page with posts just from that trip.
 
#587 ·
Hi all!

New member here, and like many others, I decided to make my first post in this thread.

I just finished a 2 month solo trip on my Pearson 26 from Windsor Ontario, up Lake Huron, then westward across the North Channel to Lake Superior. Many opportunities for bonehead moves. Let me tell you about one....

I just finished the northbound crossing of Lake Huron on the Canadian side and decided to anchor in Tobermory's Big Tub harbour for the night before continuing into town the next day, as many people do.

I heard that there were shipwrecks in the area and consulted my charts very carefully. The LAST thing I wanted to do was drop a hook on a national heritage.

The charts said the wrecks were at the far end of the cove, so I dropped the hook midway and I was pleased.

The next day, my plan was to motor over to Little Tub harbour, anchor in the cove outside of the marina and row the dink down the 1/4 mile fairway into town. I figured this was my best option to avoid a boneheaded move. I really don't like docking single handed in strange marinas.

It's a busy harbour. Very busy. You got pleasure craft, dive boats, glass bottom tour boats, commercial and sports fishermen, kayakers coming and going and I even saw one idiot swim across the fairway pushing a small child on an innertube.

The place is like a circus and I didn't want to be the center ring attraction. Not a good place to practice single handed docking, but it's an irresistible stop for provisions. The grocery store and liquor store are a stones throw from the docks, great restaurants and the prices are fair.

So I motor over to my planed anchorage outside the fairway and when I get there I see some uncharted white buoys. They look like swimming buoys or "No Wake" markers that you often see. Maybe there's a rock there?

When I get up close to buoy, it says "No Boats". What exactly did that mean? I wasn't making a wake, there were no swimmers and I was well off the fairway. I figured it must have something to do with stupid powerboaters.

I put the engine in neutral and coasted in at 1/2 knot looking for rocks until I was 300 feet from shore then set the hook in about 10 feet of water.

I relaxed a bit and was pleased with myself. I took some video of the 364 foot Chi-Cheemaun ferry landing across the harbour. It opened it's bow like a whale and I watched all the cars and trucks drive in.

When the excitement was over, I made something to eat and boarded my skiff and casually rowed the 1/4 mile down the fairway into town just like Joe Cool.

I was just about to rope off at the far end of the harbour near the grocery store when a marina guy comes up and asks me if I'm from the sailboat Josephine.

I proudly said, "Yeah, I just rowed all the way down the harbour from her."

He says to me, "The Harbour Master requires you to move your vessel because you are anchored on top of a shipwreck maintained by Parks Canada." "We've been trying to hail you on the radio for the last hour."

I said, "Oh F@#%". I felt just horrible. I did exactly what I didn't want to do.

I apologised and spun the dink around, sunk the oars deep in the water and powered the oars like never before. I didn't want to make a scene because I knew everyone in the harbour within earshot of a VHF was monitoring the situation.

That's when the oarlock broke free from the gunwale on the power stroke and I went ass over teakettle, banged my head off the transom and nearly did a backwards summersault right off the stern.

The gaggle of girls in their kayaks nearby were laughing their butts off at my predicament. One was taking a video. I felt like I was dying inside.

The gentlemen on deck of the Coast Guard ship moored to the wharf didn't look as impressed with my performance. The dive boat owners and glass bottom boat captains and all the other locals who knew the area expressed similar disgruntled looks. It was like someone pulled the plug on the drain and I was going down.

I tried to jury rig an oarlock by lashing the oar to the broken nub on the gunwale without success. I tried to paddle the dink like a canoe, but I just spun in circles like a one legged duck. I actually felt my soul departing from my body.

I was NOT going to ask those girls to tow me to my boat with their kayaks.

With dire determination, I managed to wobble back to ship paddling with an exaggerated J-Stroke technique.

It took forever to get back and every eye in the marina was focused on this idiot the whole time.

I hoisted anchor and thanked God there were no sunken ship parts hanging from it when it surfaced.

I figured that it might be best to reprovision elsewhere and got the hell out of there before any more damage was done.

Lessons Learned:

1. Those white buoys that say, "No Boats" might mean you too.

2. Undersized fine threaded screws should not be used to secure an oarlock to a gunwale.

3. No fail is complete until some young girl uploads a video of it to her Facebook page.
 
#589 · (Edited)
Let me tell you about these 2 boneheads I met a few days later...

I was anchored in the harbour at Thessalon. It's a designated anchorage on the chart. The city marina is in the harbour. You can tie up for free during the day to do your shopping. Grocery store and liquor store are close by. Then anchor out in the harbor for free.

The marina guy told me that I couldn't tie up anyway because a racing fleet was arriving and they booked the entire marina for the night.

I was quite content being anchored in a protected harbour. Had a few beers and used my binoculars to watch for the approaching fleet.

I finally saw a boat approaching the harbour under sail. The winds were strong and I was expecting some action.

But the approaching vessel didn't look like a racer. It was too small and they only had a mainsail up.

Maybe they were just having fun sailing around all the breakwalls? The more I kept looking, the less fun they seemed to be having. Once they got a bit closer, I could see one guy on the bow, one guy on the stern, both wearing bright red life jackets and waving their arms.

I pulled my anchor out of the mud and motored around the breakwalls and towed their sorry asses to a finger dock in the marina. I lashed off to the next dock over.

I went to see how these guys were doing and the captain slapped a 50 dollar bill in my hand. I wouldn't accept it. I told him that this is what sailors do. He insisted, and I accepted. Didn't want to offend him, and besides, now that I'm lashed off, I might as well go to the liquor store anyway.

But he did tell me his story, and this is what happened:

They were coming down current from Sault Ste. Marie following the race fleet. They wanted to get ahead of them and decided to travel at night. They rounded a green marker on the wrong side and properly grounded themselves.

They tried to rock the boat like a car stuck in the snow by putting the motor in forward then reverse until the gearbox blew apart.

They had 2 anchors that they tried to throw from the boat to pull themselves off. They were stuck there for 8 hours until the wind kicked up and blew them free of the sandbar. They cut both anchors loose.

The guy didn't want to go into much detail after that, but I can just imagine these guys at night without reliable navigation, no power, no radio, no lights, no anchors, no motor and snotty wind kicking froth up.

To add insult to injury, the marina guy reminded us that we couldn't stay there because the race fleet was approaching and I hooked off into the harbour.

These poor guys couldn't move and soon found themselves surrounded by huge 50' racing boats and lots and lots of sailors. A normally empty marina became full in an hour. All these guys could do was hang a tarp over their boom and hide until it all went away.

Not much I could do except file this one under the "Glad it wasn't me" category.

Lessons Learned:

1. Navigate at night only when necessary.

2. Carry 3 anchors if you think you might lose 2 of them.

3. If all else fails, don't forget to bring a tarp.
 
#591 ·
Started out of my berth with shore power still hooked up. Fortunately I heard it behind me and stopped before I ruined anything except my pride.
I'm pretty sure most stink-potters have done that at some stage.. and I notice many shore-power connections these days are designed to disconnect easily without damage for just such an occasion. :)
 
#593 ·
Now another real stoopid one but thankfully with no damage to man or boat. We were hauling the boats yesterday and the marina operators had us rig lines around the hull at the lift points so they could simply pull the slings around with no messing about time. I had done this a couple of days ago and had then worked on a bunch of other stuff like winterization and so on. As they called my turn I ran over to my slip from helping others with their boat and hopped on to pull around out of the harbor and into the area outside where the crane was picking us up. The friend who pushed me off yelled as I was about a boat length off that I was trailing a line under the boat. The basin is docks on two sides and rocks on two sides and I am now drifting with the wind and momentum towards the rocks about 2 boat lengths away. I couldn't understand where the line was from so I threw her lightly in reverse to slow momentum thinking I had to avoid the rocks. A second later she stalled when the line wrapped the prop and I really was now stumped as to what to do. I found the line which was a tail off the sling line and could not pull it free as people are yelling and running to help keep me off the rocks. I shifted the control into neutral, started her, and gave the tiniest shot of forward I could then back into neutral. After some struggling the line came free and I was able to pivot after freeing the line my helper had heaved to shore where a few people had gone to fend us off the rocks.
All is well that ends well I suppose but I cannot imagine ever letting that happen again....though I did try to leave the slip with the shore power on once more!
 
#594 ·
I had bought new bronze wheel from Edson, and chained it to the helm station padlocked it , then came the next day to go sailing , cast off the dock with engine in reverse, backed out of my slip when I realized the wheel was still chained, lol!
Luckily the key was in my pocket, so no harm done ......
 
#595 · (Edited)
In the days before electronic navigation or 'reliable' weather forecasts, I encountered a tropical cyclone at sea off Fiji in the SoPac. We were only about 25 miles west of Fiji's western reef, so we had no choice but to keep some sail up and try to work to windward away from the reef, or at least not go backwards too fast.
As we entered the eye some ten hours into the storm, it was suddenly very calm and quiet and being near sunset, there was an eerie yellow light all around. We came on deck and began cleaning up the mess; broken stanchions, the main boom broken in two places, cockpit locker lids broken or missing, etc.
It was such a wonderful respite that I gave no thought to what I should do and unfortunately I allowed us to reenter the dangerous semicircle of the storm again. What followed can only be described as another four days needlessly spent in hell.
The proper move would have been to power across the eye and reenter the back side of the storm, leaving us only a few hours more trauma as the storm moved away from us.
But as proper as that would have been, how many of us could intentionally drive back into the maelstrom?
 
#597 ·
My biggest boneheaded sailing experience. I was young. Doing deliveries up and down the east coast, to the Caribbean, worked for a sailmaker with generous leave times etc. I get a call from a racing and drinking buddy. His younger brother and his trophy wife with some friends want to charter a boat to cruise Buzzards Bay, Elizabeth Islands, Martha's and Nantucket. The charter company wasn't comfortable with their experience level and he asked to send them my resume if I could do it. I agreed. It was all great. Nice people. One single lady guest took a shine to me which kept me from sleeping on the cabin sole.

My mistake was they insisted on being in Cuttyhunk Harbor for a night. We arrived late after dark and it was blowing 18- 24 out of the Southwest. I had been there before and thought we will just grab a mooring and pay in the morning. No moorings. They beg to stay. I want to go anchor back outside the harbor entrance. I give in and drop anchor in the far northeastern corner. With 5 to 1 scope our stern was 50 or 60 feet from hitting the breakwater. I stayed awake the whole night with my hand on the ignition key thinking we would drag on the breakwater.

In hindsight I should have ignored their pleas and anchored safely outside the harbor entrance. Those that know Cuttyhunk know what I mean. I literally get goosebumps every time I think of that bad decision. Total bonehead.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
#598 ·
Have been reading this thread with some amusement, but of course the value in it is the vicarious experience it has lent. Among other things it has saved my mainsail from instant destruction due to improper reefing technique, but I digress. As per the former, it should be clear that I am a sailing noob, having just bought a small boat after some days of looking it over where it is moored. I have already made at least one boneheaded mistake.

The motor in the boat is an inboard two-cylinder diesel which comes with a hand-crank to start the thing should there somehow be no battery power available. Having never owned a diesel motor before I am thus an expert in all aspects of its operation. I attempt to use the crank once, but it is not as easy as it looks. Noticing that the flywheel has a third v-groove free I immediately understand that I can simply put a couple of turns of thin rope and obtain considerably more leverage than that offered by the manual crank. Two turns and then one mighty heave and lo and behold it immediately starts. I shut it down and wander off with brain overflowing with New Information. The next day I give it another go with my improvised pull-starter, perhaps for no good reason other than a desire to hear its manly throb. Two turns on the flywheel and a mighty heave.... and I immediately hit the Wall of Compression and it stops dead. Hmm. Well, I'll just have to add another turn on the flywheel, won't I? Another mighty heave and it starts. One small problem: there is four or five feet of rope at the bottom of the bilge right next to the flywheel. I'm told the motor weighs 140kg, but I'm fairly sure that is only the weight of the flywheel. I got the loose rope out of the way rather quickly and without incident, but it could have been bad. Unlike the first attempt, I had unthinkingly wrapped my end of the rope around my hand before giving it a heave. If the rope had become ensnared by one of the v-belts I would have surely become wrapped around the engine as it happily idled. I doubt it would have noticed much.

Lesson learned, and quite cheaply at that. I'll be takng it out before long and taking those baby steps towards becoming a sailor. If fortune continues to smile upon me from above, I will surely have fantastic auto-bonehead stories with which to entertain you all.
 
#600 ·
Frogc... one of those memorable moments of our US Yacht 27 was the day she was commissioned. They could not get the motor started as the batteries were dead. no room to run a line around the flywheel, but the ambitious commissioning crew just KNEW you could hand crank that little volvo 13hp!

Well when a diesel cranks over, you best get your hand/arm out of the way fast! AS when they decided a hand crank was in order, that handle did NOT come out, and the hand ALSO did not get out of the way fast enough. With a mighty WHACK, he broke his thumb. I do believe that the handle quickly flew off the motor as well. Love to see that on a brand new sailboat no?

Lesson learned... hand cranking a diesel to start is to be used as a last resort only kind of thing. I think I'd even wait for a solar charger to get the batteries up first :)
 
#601 ·
Shnool,

I could see that if one loses grip of the handle while releasing the valve lifter with the other hand, leaving no hands to support the body while crouched over the engine in the e.c. In my boat (PY-26) the only access to the motor is aft and opposite the forward mounted flywheel, so it is quite precarious even without the necessity of getting an arm right down to the crank. By all accounts the Volvo is fairly bulletproof, but the electrics are situated immediately to port which means the flywheel will dip into water if the bilge has a few inches of water in it, and of course spins so to spray batteries, wires, terminal blocks, relays with corroding salt-water. PO or POx2 seems to have allowed this to occur for a time leading to a motor which looks great on the LHS, notable rust on the RHS, and some min or intermittent operation of electrics. I can envision a situation in which a large wave temporarily fills the cockpit leading to salt-water in the rear bilge and non-functioning electronics. Add weather conditions which require using the motor and a situation could easily develop in which manual starting remains the only option.

The solution is to (obviously) make damn sure that (a) the crank handle is always available in a known location, (b) the bilge remains bone-dry, and y (c) familiarity with the manual start procedure such that one does not have to struggle to crank the silly thing in deteriorating conditions. The first two are relatively easy to assure, but anyone with small stature or injury could quite find themselves incapable of turning the crank quickly enough to accumulate sufficient momentum to ensure a start.

I suppose the take-away is that events can conspire to put a boat in peril without regard to the skills of the pilot or state of the equipment on-board. All one can do is minimize risk and be aware that all eventualities cannot be anticipated. To that end I have a metric buttload of work to do.
 
#602 ·
Can you make a splash shield for the electrics? I'm thinking of something along the lines of the heat shielding in auto engine compartments - a bent piece of aluminium plate or similar.
 
#603 ·
SloopJonB,

A shield made of some sort of plate should be practical, but I would be inclined to use acrylic instead of metal.

I intend to re-do much of the electrical system; which means soldered connections, shrink-wrap tubing, and dielectric grease everywhere it needs to be. I will also consider epoxy to waterproof splices if they are unavoidably located at low-points. Check this out: the cabin's automatic bilge-pump wires are spliced into wire that runs in the bilge from just behind the mast-step and under the floor-liner to the e.c. The connections are protected with bog-standard electrical tape. This is no big deal as long as the only water in the bilge is leaking fresh-water (fixed), but I expect salt-water to result in a blown fuse (if there is a fuse) or a dead battery...
 
#606 ·
Therapy23,

Way back in my misspent youth I did a school project demonstrating electrolysis in salt-water, so I know there is going to be current draw with + and - soaking in the drink. Perhaps not great gobs of power, but certainly something. Lacking a great deal of experience with marine 12V systems, I don't know offhand how much, but I would be surprised if it is negligible.

Disclaimer: Not an EE.
 
#611 ·
A little new to this life at the dock after being on a mooring for years. It's really tight getting out so I use a spring line to get the boat turning in the right direction before casting off.

Girlfriend on the bow, looking smoking hot in those shorts and inflatable PFD, sporting a boat hook like a harpoon. Leaving on our first vacation cruise together. Extended forecast is hot but beautiful, block Island here we come!

We are idling in reverse with an aft spring attached that helps push the bow off the dock. Ice in the box, packed enough food, beer, wine and clothes for a month. I got her a copy of Sailing for Dummies. What could possible go wrong?

I go to neutral and release the spring, forward gear....nothing, we are stuck to the dock, feels like we are aground. She looks back at me with this look that says "I thought we are leaving?" I'm looking around like a dumbass as she points with the boat hook and asks if the stern line should still be on the cleat behind me. Bow has now fallen back to the dock so we start again.

Reattach forward spring line, revers idle, wait for the bow to come up off the dock, this time I the remove stern line then the spring and away we go...not.

Again I get the look, "are we leaving?" as the bow comes back to the dock. I look around dumfounded, are we aground?

Another point with the extended boat hook, this time at the forward spring line, "don't you have to unhook that before we go?"

As she stands on the bow and stabs at my mistakes with a harpoon I can't help but wonder who needs the book more.

OK, lets try this again...
 
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