Road Rash?

I probably should have titled this post "Things Not to do When Sailing" or "100 Ways to Destroy Your Boat". I tend to call these types of adventures exciting or fun, others may have a different opinion. That being said, this was slated to be a weekend of fun and apparently, adventure. With Orion's Wake all trailered up and ready to go, we headed out for the couple hour drive it took to get to a tucked away coastal lake.  

Upon arrival,we were greeted by a warm fall day. Orion's Wake launched onto the water beautifully and we prepared her to sail.  

The plan was to meetup with Adrienne's parents for an afternoon sail, drop them off at the dock and then find a cozy place to anchor up for the night. With not more that a whisper of wind, we shoved off of the dock and motored out, hunting for wind to fill our sails. Deciding to take a channel that went between an island and the shore, we ran into the one thing that wasn't even on my list of possibilities to run into. Accompanied by a strange sound, the whole boat came to a stop then slowly moved backwards. I thought we ran the swing keel into something like a log and it had pushed the swing keel up a bit and then as the weight of the keel settled back down pushed us backwards. Thinking that was the problem, we cranked up keel and put the motor full speed ahead. It was only at the very last minute, when one of the crew looked up and noticed that for the second time we were about to run the mast of the boat into an overhead line. I quickly put the motor in reverse and the boat came to a stop, putting the boat only inches from the overhead line. At that moment I had an epiphany, that the strange sound we heard had been the overhead line slowly moving up the forestay cable as we pushed harder against it. We high tailed it out of there hoping the island's inhabitants still had their phone and power intact.  

As the sun dropped in the sky, the wind picked up and we got some nice sailing in for the day. We dropped the parents off at the dock, then headed back out to find the perfect spot to anchor for the night. After motoring around the lake for most of the day, the battery that powered our motor was tired leaving us to count on some wind to take us the rest of the way. The one thing that I'm learning over and over about sailing is, you can't count on the wind! By the time we reached our anchor spot, our sails were windless and the battery was on it's last legs. Now this wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't nearing complete darkness and we weren't lacking in the spot light department. We blindly anchored in a spot that felt like it was a safe distance to the shore but not so far out that we would short ourselves on anchor rope.

We made a savory dinner, enjoyed some wine, played a half a dozen games of Uno, read aloud to each other and then tucked ourselves in for the night.

The morning air was crisp and the surface of the lake was laid out like a rippled mirror, doubling the beauty of the autumn lined shore. The only reasonable thing to do with such a morning was to kick on the portable heater and make some tea.

We stayed snuggled in the warmth of the cabin while we waited for the sun to break over
the trees and dissipate the morning dew. On the menu was a luxurious breakfast as far as small sailing vessels standards go; hot sausage, steamed broccoli, and toast. The perfect accompaniment to our morning tea.


By eleven, the dew was gone and a breeze was starting to pick up. We hoisted the sails and headed back to the docks. By the time we got back to the dock, the wind had eased up and I felt confident I could dock Orion's Wake under sail. This is an activity best practiced on light wind days like today. I approached the dock nice and slow, still having both the main and the head sail up and I was in the process of depowering the boat by letting the sails out. This makes the sails flap wildly in the wind, creating a ton of noise. It was a beautiful approach to the dock, right speed, perfect angle and distance. At about three feet from the end of the dock, that's where things went wonky. The wind shifted from blowing on the side of the boat, and moved right behind us filling our head sail. 

Lets stop here for a minute and compare what's going on here to what might be the equivalent in the world of driving a car. Let us say you wanted to park you car along the curb, on street parking is what most of us call it. Just as your lining up to the curb and about to put your brakes on, your car unexpectedly accelerates to about 5 miles an hour and your quickly approaching another parked car along the curb. Only with a car you can always use the breaks to stop yourself. 

Yep, that's about what we had going on at this point. A sane person would have turned, aborted the docking mission and tried again. It's apparent I'm still learning the sailing lesson that goes something like, always be flexible and ready to change your plan. My plan was to dock and I was going to see that plan through regardless of our speed along the dock. Lacking any form of breaks on the sail boat I used the next best thing. We were now moving right along the dock, so I simply held onto while standing firmly on the boat with my left foot, while using my right foot in a Flinstonesque maneuver by planting it firmly on the dock and wedging it against a dock cleat. This did not have quite the desired effect, but it did slow the boat a little.

Road Rash from the dock or is it called Dock Rash?

What it did do was move the boat away from the dock, opening up a three foot chasm between the dock and the boat in which I was now sprawled over and quickly heading for the water. I managed to keep hold of the boat and the dock, only dunking my backside into the lake. Adrienne secured the bow with a dock line and Orion's Wake came to a rest. For the next twenty minutes or so we just sat letting the adrenaline high wear off.

Loading Orion's Wake onto the trailer went without a hitch. We pulled her out of the lake, dropped her mast and strapped her down to the trailer. Once on the trailer, we noticed that the bottom of the boat was being deformed and pushed in at the point where the trailer supports the boat. "Now what?" I thought. We unstrapped the boat, and to no avail tried several times to re float the boat and change the way the trailer support pushed on the bottom of the boat. Chalking that up to just one crazy to add to the lists of craziness of the weekend, we strapped the boat back down and started on our way back home.  

Entering into the home stretch of our trip home, there was a strange sound followed by a thump, thump, thump.  There we were, thirty miles from home no spare tire and a shredded blown out tire on the boat trailer.

Gotta love owning your own sail boat!

~J~