Aborted bank hol trip ends up in A+E

BruceDanforth

BruceDanforth

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I managed to break my right index finger today.

The walk in centre was speedy and efficient as was the xray dept and the minor injuries unit. Everyone was pleasant and I was home with some pain killers after 3 hours.

I have an appointment to go back tomorrow morning and it might need pinning.

I was coming alongside a river pontoon and my newbie crew dropped my boathook in the sea. I made the mistake of reaching and grabbing a cleat to try and stop the boat and it just snapped.

I wasn't using my usual outboard just a 2.5 with no reverse and it didn't have enough grunt to take off way.

So I managed 100 yards of the trip from the Tyne to Staithes before injury.

I was surprised how useless I became with one hand broken even though I'm left handed.

Piss_Poor of this parish turned up for a coffee at just the right time and rescued both myself and the boathook so thanks for that.:)
 
I regret hearing of your pain and aborted plans for the best weekend for many months, and wish you swift recovery. I'm also reminded, as if such were needed, of the goodwill and simple helpfulness of other members of this odd community....
 
Hey only pleased I turned up when I did Ed .... Sue was left wondering why I had left the car at such speed after we parked by the quayside .... after bribing Woody (who is not of this parish) with a small bottle of homemade sloe gin I can confirm we will both be there just before slack water to move your boat back from the river pontoon to it's marina berth ...

By the way A+E Costa coffee is not a patch on your boat brewed stove stop expresso ....

PP
 
Does that mean a fortnight lost out of your annual leave? Commiserations either way. Make sure they set it properly. I've got 4 bent fingers because they only bothered to do anything about the two that were most seriously shattered.
 
Thanks for the support folks.

My biggest mistake was letting myself be ruled by the clock. I ran out of time doing some repairs to the main outboard and decided to move to the waiting pontoon before the lock gate closed. I should have finished the repairs and missed the tide. Once in the river the smaller engine didn't cope well with the current and wind and the lack of a proper reverse proved unexpectedly dangerous. Even though the boat is only a 22 footer she carried a lot of momentum. I've been meaning for sometime to make up a permanent strop with an open eye of plastic tubing to drop over cleats for stopping the boat when single handing but never quite got round to it - just grabbing on had worked in the past fr a small boat. I'll have plenty of time to make this over the next few weeks now. Once the boathook got dropped in the errors seemed to rapidly cascade until I got injured> i'd heard of this happening but never really experienced it.

Oh well, at least I didn't break the newbie.
 
Last edited:
elton said:
Does that mean a fortnight lost out of your annual leave? Commiserations either way. Make sure they set it properly. I've got 4 bent fingers because they only bothered to do anything about the two that were most seriously shattered.
Click to expand...

As a Orthopod, I would agree with the above sentiment. Feel free to PM with more details of your injury if you have any doubts

TudorSailor
 
Hope the hand heals ok.
My weekend cruise in company ended in a coast guard rescue for the other sail boat, engine failure and head sail jamed fully deployed,with me standing by while he returned to his mooring.
After 4 hours of hanging around waiting for him to set sail, 2 hours pounding into an unexpected force 5 and 2 hours back, one crew laid low with mal de mere I,d had enough and returned to my home berth. Unloading the weekends supplies on the harbour was a bit embarrasing.
Taking the day off today.
 
Ouch, just the thought of that hurts!

Speedy recovery Ed, our club was full of tales of first outing cock-ups and gear failures last night. I've left my dinghy oars at home so can't go ashore with the mutt, so have to overnight in harbour, even so, a sheet bowline shook adrift on the sail down the Straits, a pal had a steering link fail & another had the jib halliard let go on the RR - which he thought wouldn't matter much as a few rolls would hold it . . . in the end it got in a tangle & was a pig to get down & off.

Typical start to the season for many I guess. I'll bet the RNLI have been busy this weekend.
 
Sorry to hear about the finger - unlucky break (excuse the pun)...

I thought I was going to fall down the stairs this week, and I am off to Levkas in a few weeks. All I could think about was "how can I sail with a broken leg"...

Speedy recovery to you.

Andy
 
Sorry to hear of your injury. When you do get to Staithes, watch out. The seagulls there are the most accurate (and persistant) dive bombers I know!
Lovely little place though. I remember going there by car about 1963, and hearing that a winter storm had breached the wall of the Cod & Lobster. Obviously not a place to sail to in winter.
 
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