Com'on, lets own up to those grey hair moments this season!!

T

TheBoatman

Well-Known Member
Joined
12 Nov 2002
Messages
3,168
Location
Kent
Visit site
Com\'on, lets own up to those grey hair moments this season!!

I know that sailing/boating in general is supposed to be a relaxing pastime but in my experience it is definately high on the list of "grey hair moments". Earlier this year, whilst crossing from Ramsgate to Nieupoort the sea was a bit lively but not so much so that I considered it dangerous. Whilst sailing along generally bouncing over the waves I came across one wave that seemed to be steeper than anything else I had encountered - in a split second I seem to drop into a trough and then rear up a near vertical wall - the boat burst up through the wave and then settled back to her normal rythem. It scared the bee-jeezus out of me for a second or two.
The next occasion was today, when I had to lift 2 Twisters from the river to over-winter ashore - the wind was howling and rain lashing and anyone that knows the hull/keel shape of a twister will understand that I had great difficulty in getting the straps set safely - I was accutely aware that I was lifting someone elses pride and joy and after they were safely ashore in their craddles, I swear I was slightly greyer!!!

This boating lark can send the best of us grey at the drop of a hat /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

Whats your grey hair stories?????
 
Re: Com\'on, lets own up to those grey hair moments this season!!

We had a prop fall off a charter boat coming back from Calais towards Ramsgate back in August (A 6 month old Janneau 40), which itself is not a problem as we have sails!, but these are only of use when there is wind!!!

It was a beautiful day, unbelievably calm, an abosolute mill pond, not a wave, not a zephyr of wind!,

We had cleared the shipping lanes by a couple of miles, and stopped motoring to have a quick bite of lunch whilst watching a pod of dolphins play around us.

re-started the engine after 15 mins, put it into gear!! Nothing!!

Shaft turning etc, but no drive!!

We are now drifting with the tide slowly backwards towards shipping lanes with sails hanging very limply!, eventually after an hour there was a small breeze (if you call it that!) that gave us up to a mximum of 2 knots!

It took hours to get into Ramsgate, who were suberb in clearing the way for us in the harbour so we could sail straight into the boat lift!

I was going grey at the thought of having to call a lifeboat to rescue a boat with no prop, but perfectly good sails, that was designed to be powered by the wind!! We were perfectly safe, but it would have been highly embarassing and a waste of a lifeboat resource.

The charter company were superb, paying for the lift out on the phone, getting a new prop to us that day, and fitted the following morning first thing! We were only delayed 1 hour!
 
Re: Com\'on, lets own up to those grey hair moments this season!!

What hair I have left has been grey forever.
The secret of long life is good food, exercise, and frighten yourself at least once every day.
 
Re: Com\'on, lets own up to those grey hair moments this season!!

Two incidents personally and one for my Father ...

Mine >

1) My alacrity had built up the usual layers of old antifoul and needed to be scraped back .... so I decided I would take the "shortcut" ............. She was sitting on her trailer nicely in the yard .... hosepipe ready and brushes etc.
I opened the tin of anti-fouling remover .... sort of paint stripper really ... and liberally applied ... AF started to bubble up and as per instructions I started to scrape away .... no problem. Then applied last layer of remover to really clean up the hull and get right back to bare gel ..... Great. Scraped away and there she was ... but now to wash her off - to get rid of the chemical and stop it destroying the gel-coat .... Turned on water .... S>>>>>>T some b....d had turned of water supply .... Chemical is eating into the gel .... so it was quick hitch onto car ..... drag it all home and hose off in garden !!!!
b) Next boat - same yard but still in small river serving the yard. Tied up to bank. Wait for tide to go out and get uinder boat .... measure carefully fore-aft, side to side etc. OK ... got the spot mapped out. Up into boat and find exact same spot .... get out drill .... and fit hole-cutter. Proceed to cut hole for speed-log. Yep - you guessed it battery drill runs out after first hole cut .... tide coming in and no bin-liner to cover outside hull.
I jump over and start scrabbling around to see under hull .... can't see anything with water appearing now ......
But no water enters boat .... strange ... tide coming in ... boat lifting ... but no water inside.
PHEW !!!! Luckily boat is double skinned !!! I had only removed a disc from inner hull !!!! (Unusually my Snapdragon had an extended inner moulding back past the engine bed .... LUCKILY !!)

Fathers - sailing into Cowes many years ago ... long before the Marina's etc. took over ... when still it was pile moorings of the Corinthian Club ... Wind was fickle and the old Stuart Turner was up to its normal "refuse to play" game. Red Funnel Ferry picks samed moment to want to enter Cowes ... so its following Dad in ..... Dad nearly had heart-attack when the whistle blew 5 short rapids on the ferry .... it was towering over us !! with seaman looking at us over the rail keeping eye on us etc. Dad of course was losing wind into sails now and it looked like we would go under the bow ... Brother was frantically swinging that bloody Stuart for all he was worth and suddenly bang !! it started ......
Mum never forgave Dad for that .....
 
Re: Com\'on, lets own up to those grey hair moments this season!!

I don't do "grey hair moments".
Doesn't stop it turning grey though
 
Re: Com\'on, lets own up to those grey hair moments this season!!

Every time we lift in or out I get a few more grey hairs. The procedure is to lift the boat with a hydraulic trolley under the bridgedeck and tow it with a tractor to or from the slip at low water. The trouble is the boat is 23 ft wide and the trailer only about 4 ft. Add that to an uneven roadway and it's pretty nervous-making. They haven't dropped it yet though the previous yard did, and punched a hole in the bottom!

Apart from that we had an almost stress-free season /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
Re: Com\'on, lets own up to those grey hair moments this season!!

Approaching Waterford. Well dark, turned into King's Channel to anchor for the night. Couldn't see the unlit buoy. Ran aground. Being of a sound build (about the same as the other two combined), swung myself out on the boom, freed keel from mud. Anchored. Drank whisky. Slept.
 
Re: Com\'on, lets own up to those grey hair moments this season!!

' My Bad Experience' for the year was about a month back when I had just finished a fairly tough week long course at work and dashed straight from Heathrow to Portsmouth, dinghied out to the boat planning a trip down to Lulworth for a few days....

For some reason I thought I had better balance out my 2 diesel tanks which took only a matter of minutes except that I left them both turned off instead off instead of on!!

Natually only got 200mts towards Lulworth before the engine gasped and died.

Driftef toward a bouy which I caught but lost the boat hook in the ensuing battle between 10tons and 1kt of fwd speed..launched the Genny and spent nex 30 mins sailing up n down Farham creek in 2kt breeze to recover boat hook but then drifted onto the mud....jump into dinghy and try to push 10tonne of Mr Moodys best GRP off the mud on a falling tide but discover that 2hp yamaha aint up to that.....
Fortunately there were a couple of kids blasting around in a Dory and I managed to wave 'em down and these kids who 5 mins before had been a bloody nuisance spent the next 30 mins or so dragging me off the mud and really enjoying them selves too in their new roll as 'yacht rescuers'...Actually really nice lads

So all I had to do was bleed the diesel in the (now) dark!

In the End i gave up on Lulworth and did a Southabout IOW trip the next day but Guess what? Anchored at Alum Bay on the way back up the Solent for a swim and closer look at the needles from the dinghy..........when I came to leave the b**** anchor had fouled something and after an hour or so of shunting around with the wndlass nearly pulling out og the deck I had to cut the chain....Result £250 Delta lost and 40ft of chain...thank God I had a hack saw on board...I spose no exactly grey hair making but more hair tearing out making!!

Anyone know a diver cause I reckon I could find the spot again??

Regards Nick
 
Re: Com\'on, lets own up to those grey hair moments this season!!

Coming back to the mooring against 4 knots odd tide, bog all wind, pick up a ball of string and weed round the prop. Few reverse / forward movements and managed to limp on to the mooring, just. Had to go diving to clear it ... bloody cold it was too!
 
Re: Com\'on, lets own up to those grey hair moments this season!!

Sheltering from severe storm in the lee of Cape San Blas (Florida) when in the middle of the night heard very loud roar. I looked behind to see 15 ft wall of foam coming at us. Thought 'This will be interesting'.
To my surprise and relief boat's stern just rose to it and we took about an egg cup full into the cockpit. Turned boat around and took four more like that on the bow, then things gradually calmed down.

Next day discovered that a small (presumably by local standards) tornado had made landfall on the Cape causing quite a bit of damage.Still, I learned something new about my boat.
 
Re: Com\'on, lets own up to those grey hair moments this season!!

None this season, thank goodness. Mrs White insisted that we were to have none. Mind you, I think I bleached a few hairs when the holding tank backfired on our holiday....

The most grey-inducing moments have been the responsibility of the engine, like the time the gear lever coupling failed. It put the gearbox into forward and left it there. We were motoring into a marina berth at Lymington at the time. Slow ahead, kick into neutral, still going a bit to fast as Jane stepped off to secure the bow line, so I gave a burst of "astern" which accelerated us forward. The bows struck the pontoon and three and a half tons of boat reared gracefully into the air, before sliding back into the water.
 
Re: Com\'on, lets own up to those grey hair moments this season!!

Lightning allways scares me.I got caught out in a lightning storm off the Pembrokeshire coast this year.gentle westerly turned into a savage Easterly with lightning all round.

I know the "experts"all say the danger is minimal but I do admit to feeling very frightened.
 
Re: Com\'on, lets own up to those grey hair moments this season!!

Heading down a drying channel in the Waddensea towards the island of Schermonikoog. Went aground (no surprise). Dutch boat tried to tow us off, and freed us, but we gave up and turned round and anchored to dry out (on our bilge keels) on a sandbank. Lovely calm night and day - lovely deserted spot about 1 mile from island. No panic, no grey hairs!

Next morning, engine started, prop didn't do anything. Dried out next tide to find the problem. Prop turned freely on shaft - courtesy of a fishing net in the channel (no longer round prop). No chance of repair unless we went to mainland - 5 miles away along long winding, very narrow, very shallow withied channel. The wind happened to be precisely against us for most of the route. That was the grey-hair sail - tacking in about 3 or 4 boat lengths, whenever the depth showed less than about 20cm below our keels. We did it, and wiped the sweat off our faces as (coincidentally) the same dutch boat towed us through the lock to a friendly helpful marina, where the prop was replaced.
 
Re: Com\'on, lets own up to those grey hair moments this season!!

[ QUOTE ]
II came across one wave that seemed to be steeper than anything else I had encountered - in a split second I seem to drop into a trough and then rear up a near vertical wall - the boat burst up through the wave and then settled back to her normal rythem. It scared the bee-jeezus out of me for a second or two.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wen through the very same thing two years ago. Aug 29th 2003 - Ostend to Ramsgate. 15NM E of North Foreland. Two of them, one after tthe other. Except, we didn't go throught them, we went over them.

That was about as scared as I've ever been on a boat.
 
Re: Com\'on, lets own up to those grey hair moments this season!!

This last summer we found ourselves moored in Queensway Quay Gibraltar stern in. Normal marina bow line off down into the oggin and two stern lines to the jetty.

Awoke early to strongish 25 knot across the decks, blowing us hard against the leeward yacht. We had the one slot upwind empty - and wishing to slide out without grazing our leeward pal at this early hour - we dropped the leeward stern line and first allowed the bow and windward stern line to edge us off our combined fenders.

A nod to Sue on the bow and I slipped our single stern line whilst she dropped the bow line. A short burst on our new bowthruster and also the engine saw us begin to slip out nicely with no apparent issues.

As I pulled back to tickover and Sue wandered aft - we smiled at such a smooth manouvre - and as our stern cleared the leeward yacht - it was then I felt this invisible anchor line pull on our bow. We gently slid to a standstill and began to round up to windward - just missing the leeward yacht as we swung out into the middle of the marina.

It took about 2 nanoseconds to realise we'd sucked in the tail rope of the bow line into our bowthruster - and in the next second I saw us being trapped by this line underwater - and being swung back and forth in the strongish breeze to be bashed against the other moored craft on either side.

I guess the vision lasted only a second but if felt like minutes as I considered the 'do I dive over / fend off / power up / power down' type options that rushed through my mind.

Fortunately, God smiled - and as the bow was blown away from the orginal quay I felt and heard the line slip - applied a tentative bit of forward power - and she came free.

A later inspection showed no damage to plastic truster blades in its retractable housing - but the whole episode was a very 'grey moment' for me.

And if Queensway Marina staff were wondering what may have caused any severed tail line one early June 05 morning -sorry guys - we're the cause.

Obvious lesson learnt. When using the thruster have never again dumped a bow line to windward!

Cheers
JOHN
 
Re: Com\'on, lets own up to those grey hair moments this season!!

RSYC Mini Triangle, leg 2 Deauville to St Peter Port. Almost no wind at the start but a nice little northerly slowly built then backed NW and built to 20 kts on the beam. White sails only and v. cold. Could see Barfleur when the wind veered and looked liked like easing, time for a kite. Ho ho thought the gods. Which one asks the Cabin Boy, hmm I think, it's dropping so put up the big one. I reply. Bad move! As it fills the heel of the pole shoot down and the outboard end shoots up, broachy broachy here we go. Wind then pipes up a bit and we are pinned down, boom in the water and all hell breaking loose. Flying Fish, half a mile behind us and now rushing past enjoying the spectacle enormously ( nice bit of sea anchoring Rupert mentioned later) . I have never been over on me ear that long before as we slowly got rid of the gennie and managed to get the pole sorted, a brief lull and the main frees from the briney and off we go trimmed and going like a rocket. Cabin Boy not remotely speaking to me, he had put his cold weather kit on just before the incident and was now dripping from all the exertion and then I realise that we are now not going to clear Barfleur, St Vaast more likely! Time for kite down, mutiny from the boy so I get it down and back to white sails to get some offing. 15 minutes later time for the little kite. Do it your self and best of effing luck from the Cabin Boy. Fortunately this time things worked but the 15 mins lost cost us the leg, the boy wouldn't speak to me for at least an hour and I was complterly knackered for the rest of the leg. Maybe it's time to rethink all this 2 handed stuff!
 
Re: Com\'on, lets own up to those grey hair moments this season!!

Slipping off a pontoon in Calais this summer... rafted up 2 out, and a bit tight with rafted boats fore and aft..... pushed the bow out hard, gave it quite a bit of throttle to clear the boat in front, and grabbed the tiller to push it hard over and realised that I had forgotten to unlash from the previous evening when it had been making a noise, and so was thoroughly lashed up tight....now doing 2 knots straight ahead...... hard astern just avoided a crash... but did nearly Sh!t myself....
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Other threads that may be of interest

Baggywrinkle
Test run of the Lithium system that has been sitting in my cellar for most of this year.
Replies
16
Views
618
Baggywrinkle
Baggywrinkle
stu9000
Which route to Vlissingen?
Replies
9
Views
273
MoodySabre
MoodySabre

Share this page

Top