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Subject: TWL: Fw: TWL- My Wife's Worst Boating Adventure
From: Andy Clark (slowboat@XXX.XXX)
Date: Mon Jan 07 2002 - 21:35:24 EST
> Garrett wrote:
> We didn't have any bad boating adventures last year, but Bob
> Austin's
> tale of woe reminds me of a similar one many years ago.
> -----------------
Garrett may have opened the flood gates here. We didn't have a
"worst" this year either, but many years ago in our first power
boat...............
Whenever I see someone screw up a docking maneuver, I am reminded of
my own transgressions, and reflect on how boat handling (and in my case,
crew handling) skills develop as a result of learning from our mistakes.
This is part of the boating experience.
A case in point that sticks in my mind occurred several years ago
with our first power boat, a 24ft Campion.
My wife and I had intended a fun afternoon on Puget Sound, enjoying
our new (to us) boat. As we cleared the shelter of the marina, it became
apparent that the wind, which was coming out of the NW, was stronger than
we
had anticipated. Since we did not feel confident enough to venture out, we
decided to tie up at the visitor's dock and wander over to the restaurant
for lunch.. Our marina is about 1/2 mile up a major Washington river and
during the ebb, the river flow added to the tide results in a fairly
substantial current. The visitor's dock is immediately adjacent to the
river
and approximately parallel to it. The river current flows from
approximately
NW as it curves into this outer portion of the marina.
Having set the stage, you need to remember that the wind and current
are coming from the same direction.
Not having had too much practice at the time with maneuvering a
single-engined planing hull (doesn't handle like my old Catalina 27), I
decided that the best course of action was to put the bow up to the dock
and
discharge my wife over the bow rail with a line. She successfully
negotiated
the 3 foot drop to the dock with only minor loss of knee skin.
At that moment the engine quit.
The boat began to move smartly astern, carried by the wind and
current, while wifey was trying to scramble to her feet with the mooring
line clasped firmly in her hand. The concrete scrapes on the seat of her
jeans were fairly extensive.
By this time I was becoming less and less calm, having failed to
coax the engine back to life, and watching my crew do gymnastics on the
dock. She obviously did not understand the seriousness of the situation
quite as much as the people on the moored boats towards which I was rapidly
drifting.
In as level a voice as I could muster I yelled at her to wrap the
line around something. With the rapidly deteriorating situation now quite
apparent to her, and much less of the line on the dock than before, she
chose the closest solid object and took two quick wraps around it. The
dockside power pedestal was not designed take such loads and began to lean
at an odd angle.
This time my voice took on a more commanding tone (some say I
yelled) as I directed her to untie it. She did so before the power pedestal
contacted the water and then assumed the classic leaned-back, heels-dug-in
stance with the six inches or so of line remaining in her hand.
The windage on that boat was quite substantial, and she was rapidly
dragged towards the water. I don't remember what I said at this point.
Witnesses will contend that I swore and yelled at her to do something. She
did. She responded in a very un-ladylike manner and dropped the line. How
she made that universal gesture with her hand BEFORE letting go the line I
still haven't figured out.
At that moment I was able to get the engine started. In my
heightened state of mental acuity, I was able to rapidly calculate that the
30 feet of bow line now in the water was of sufficient length the reach the
prop of my 24ft boat if I attempted to go ahead.
My turn to do the gymnastics.
Over the front of the flybridge onto the bow- retrieve the line-
back onto the bridge by the same route. The scuff marks on the gelcoat were
not too bad, however the people astern were not amused by this display,
having by this time lined up on their boats with boat hooks and fenders in
hand.
Well, the upshot was that we managed to get back to the dock and tie
up safely, although there was a definite chill in the air as a tried to
explain to my crew where HER errors had occurred.
The story does not end there, unfortunately. After a suitable period
of nerve-calming, we elected to go back to our slip and call it a day. I
overshot the turn into the slip (only very slightly, I might add), and with
crew standing on the foredeck line in hand, I backed up to take another run
at it. As I reached over to the shift lever to go ahead, the sleeve of my
jacket caught the throttle lever.
The rearward lurch was quite pronounced.
The bow rails on that boat were about shin height. Their only
purpose seemed to be to ensure that you went into the water head first, and
I can report that they worked exactly as intended because the last view I
had of my wife was the soles of her deck shoes as she took a header over
the
bow rail. My concern changed to relief as she surfaced next to the dock
with
the mooring line still clutched tightly in her hand. What a girl!. The
weight of the water rapidly infiltrating her clothes prevented her from
hauling out on the dock, so she hung on to the side. With the wind trying
to
push me down on her, I could not leave the bridge to assist. She did not
understand why I yelled at her to secure the line and again said something
very un-ladylike. Most out of character!
Fortunately help was at hand and she was pulled from the water by
two passersby who had witnessed the entire event. I said that she looked
like a "drowned rat", but she still had the mooring line in hand. This was
not, incidentally, the right time to use this descriptive term, as was
pointed out to me shortly thereafter.
All's well that ends........! That was many years ago and we still
laugh about it. Especially the part about going to the restaurant for lunch
afterwards, and the looks we got from what had apparently been most of our
audience during the first part of that day's saga. My wife looked great
bundled up in my quilted one-piece snow suit ( she's a lot smaller than I,
but they were the only dry clothes we had aboard). We had a nice lunch.
That
power pedestal, until quite recently, exhibited a definite bias towards the
water.
We now travel at a much more sedate pace in our trawler with, I
hope, fewer mistakes (like trying to turn into our boathouse with the
autopilot engaged- but that's another story), although from time to time
when the pitch of my voice rises in response to a real or imagined urgency,
I get this look from my crew which says it all!
Andy Clark
ANTARES
CHB 34
Homeport, Everett Washington
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