Daft thing you've done ---- while sailing / on boat !

Wansworth said:
Bitter end of chain was not lashed to ring in anchour locker.........let out full scope,literally!
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I didn't mean to seem 'clever' - its just unusual to hear someone lose it all !! So wondered if you got Bitter End mixed up with the shackled stock.

I've seen a ships anchor and cable rip out bitter end ... that is something you hope never to see .... the damage it does is truly mind blowing.
 
Painting the boat one season, me and misses half way round, I sent daughter to get another tin of paint, she came back saying that they don’t make our color anymore, for some unknown reason we started painting faster! With what we had left.


another big mistake was trying to sail a fireball on my own, the wind was light on shore, but blowing further out.
finished up sailing down wind till I could get ashore.
 
Not me but an old, wise fisherman: coming through the inside channel in the rocks at the Lizard, to avoid heavy ground sea outside. The sea was still getting to them, so, 25ft wood boat, he prepped a couple of half hundredweights on short ropes attached to the after thwart. As a dangerous looking swell came up astern he dropped them both, and watched the thwart disappear over the stern....with the mizzen mast attached.
 
Refueler said:
I didn't mean to seem 'clever' - its just unusual to hear someone lose it all !! So wondered if you got Bitter End mixed up with the shackled stock.

I've seen a ships anchor and cable rip out bitter end ... that is something you hope never to see .... the damage it does is truly mind blowing.
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That’s alright,it’s a sort of confession,managed to re. Anchour with spare anchour and rope rode!
 
rich said:
Painting the boat one season, me and misses half way round, I sent daughter to get another tin of paint, she came back saying that they don’t make our color anymore, for some unknown reason we started painting faster! With what we had left.


another big mistake was trying to sail a fireball on my own, the wind was light on shore, but blowing further out.
finished up sailing down wind till I could get ashore.
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Borrowed the clubs fireball ,me and my brother out of Litttlehampton in a strongish sw ......ended up down wind and tide as could not hold the bugger down so cobbled up a reef in the main and fought our way back............class captain,for it was her,admonished us but she was as heavy as us both together,although I didn’t say,being a gentleman!
 
Much younger. Jumped from deck into solid dinghy to go ashore. Feet straight through bottom of dinghy, which rapidly filled. As I was on my own on a remote mooring getting ashore was interesting, and damp. Turned out the dinghy had just enough buoyancy to still float with me in it, with about an inch of freeboard all round.

Ran out of diesel once, at which point it ocurred to me that it must have been several years since I'd put any in the 4 gallon tank that fed the 7 hp engine. Sailed onto mooring.
 
I've a horizontal Quick windlass with wireless remote. It turns out that if you leave the manual handle in the clutch, then try to let out some more chain remotely, the clutch/gypsy will do a half turn, the handle will hit the deck and stop, the clutch will then undo and evey meter of chain and rope will launch itself uncontrolably... For maximum visual effect, the best time to do that is approaching a busy anchorage with lots of people watching...
 
BlueChip said:
Rowing back to the pontoon moorings with my wife midweek after an evening in the Folly Inn.
It was a beautiful night, not a breath of wind, neap tides, nothing stirring on the river.
As we neared the pontoon the lights of the Folly Inn suddenly disappeared as if a curtain had been pulled across. WTF? I looked up and to my horror saw the steaming light of a coaster as it slowly passed up river crossing our wake where we had been seconds before.
Only after it passed did we see hear the slow thump of the engine and the trickle of it's wake.
That got the heart pumping!
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I know that gravel boat that picks up from a dock in Fareham and takes it to Newport. It is so silent that sometimes I have looked back in Portsmouth Harbour and there it is right behind me. Quite scary.
 
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One of out first sails on Marcus our old Macwester 26 was to Fishguard via Aberaeron from our mooring in Shell Island/Mochras. Entering Aberaeron Harbour was a bit fraught as it seemed narrow to a novice and there was a bit of a sea running across the entrance but plenty of power saw us in ok and then lots of astern to slow looking for a berth alongside to port. I was intenly looking for a space between some moored boats when daughter only 8 years old says"Dad look up" and when I looked up I was about to clatter into a tourist cable chair ride across the harbout which I was oblivious to. A quick U turn saw us in a visitor berth right by the entrance behind a small wall.
Entering Fishguard we moored up against the harbour wall at dusk and was expecting to settle down in the drying harbour when a friendly local came across from his house to tell me it was not safe to moor there as vandals had rolled some large concrete blocks into the harbour just there and we might suffer damage drying onto them. It was a bit dark wild and I did not fancy moving but further discussion with the local (who fortunately was a boater) revealed that the blocks were close in so we spent a few hours holding the boat 6 ft off the wall until we settled clear of the block which were square edged concrete and may have caused a problem. People can be very helpful, which I have always tried to be also.
 
Bit difficult to explain, but using a whipping drum, or capstan pot hauler, there is a method for passing the 'legs' or lanyards spliced into the backrope without removing the, sometimes seven, turns. The drum is horizontal on a casing in front of the wheelhouse, midships, french style. You drop the lanyard over the end of the drum each time it comes round.
Any old how, I was working the drum, hauling the first end, the rope was five times round and the end anchor had come fast in the bottom just as a plastic ball float on a strop was round the drum. They always do that. It's because the ball is a 'watcher' designed to appear at dead slack low water if the rest is cut off. Trying to get the hitch out, leaning over the drum to get a pull, boat jumping about, suddenly went up, rapidly, whipping the ball off the drum and straight up into my face. A snaggle tooth went through my lip, I could blow bubbles of blood through the hole, much to everyone's amusement. I grew a beard to cover the scar.
Other crewman did nearly as bad, he got a riding turn as the pot came up to the gunnel roller (variously known as a molgogger or buljowler depending on which port you're from). the pot came over the rail, and went round the drum as he sat down very quickly, leaning back as the pot whipped past his nose before disintegrating after a few turns. French wood barrel pot, fortunately, steel would have done some damage.

He couldn't get away because you had to flake the backrope all around trapping your legs and feet, and dare not move them even if you could, otherwise you might step in a loop as the rope surged out, hauling your leg into the capstan.
 
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fisherman said:
Bit difficult to explain, but using a whipping drum, or capstan pot hauler, there is a method for passing the 'legs' or lanyards spliced into the backrope without removing the, sometimes seven, turns. The drum is horizontal on a casing in front of the wheelhouse, midships, french style. You drop the lanyard over the end of the drum each time it comes round.
Any old how, I was working the drum, hauling the first end, the rope was five times round and the end anchor had come fast in the bottom just as a plastic ball float on a strop was round the drum. They always do that. It's because the ball is a 'watcher' designed to appear at dead slack low water if the rest is cut off. Trying to get the hitch out, leaning over the drum to get a pull, boat jumping about, suddenly went up, rapidly, whipping the ball off the drum and straight up into my face. A snaggle tooth went through my lip, I could blow bubbles of blood through the hole, much to everyone's amusement. I grew a beard to cover the scar.
Other crewman did nearly as bad, he got a riding turn as the pot came up to the gunnel roller (variously known as a molgogger or buljowler depending on which port you're from). the pot came over the rail, and went round the drum as he sat down very quickly, leaning back as the pot whipped past his nose before disintegrating after a few turns. French wood barrel pot, fortunately, steel would have done some damage.

He couldn't get away because you had to flake the backrope all around trapping your legs and feet, and dare not move them even if you could, otherwise you might step in a loop as the rope surged out, hauling your leg into the capstan.
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Yes fishing is scary stuff - respect.
 
john_morris_uk said:
The incident also reinforced in me the habit of checking steering full lock to full lock and that we have f'wd and astern propulsion before letting go lines. Sails bent on and ready to go is a given and it makes me very nervous to be at sea in a sailing boat with the mainsail cover all on and triced up.
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I found that taking up gliding instilled in me a far stronger check-it-before-you-need-it attitude than I had before. Final approach is no time to find out that your airbrakes have frozen shut. So, like you, I always check forward and reverse power before leaving, and on longer trips the main stays loosely bundled in a millipede along the boom. It doesn't look as neat as a harbour stow under the cover, but we can have it up in a minute or so.
 
Kelpie said:
So out we went, Dorus Mor in our sights. Our speed didn't quite seem as high as we had expected. Then we saw the first of the boats coming the other way. What a bunch of dafties, we said to each other. Even that Centaur that, according to AIS, was doing 7kts straight towards us. Oh hang on. I re-ran my tide calcs. And, yes, I had read off the LW time instead of the HW. Couldn't have got it more wrong if I'd tried.
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I once timed things wrong and got to Dorus Mor, heading for my mooring at Crinan, about an hour after it turned. I really needed to get back, and there really wasn't anywhere else to go, so I just headed on under full sail and engine, making just enough speed to crawl through, overtaking a motorsailor stuck right in the middle. When I got out I headed for Crinan, picked up my mooring, tidied the boat, rowed ashore, put the dinghy in the Crinan Boats yard, loaded the car and drove out, stopping in front of the hotel to gaze at the Dorus Mor. Where the same motorsailor was still stuck in the middle.
 
rszemeti said:
Something I learned when leaving Aberystwyth one day ... I suspect the same applies at other harbours, so I have made a rule out of it:

If the waves are breaking over the harbour wall, it was probably a mistake going out ...
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I once locked out of the Crinan Canal at Ardrishaig, got out of the shelter of the breakwater, turned straight round, locked back in again and stayed there for three days. It really wan't weather to be heading down Loch Fyne, let alone around Ardlamont.
 
Am I the only person to have mixed up the Greenock (left) and Oban (right) pages in Laver's tide tables for the west of Scotland? Luckily the sand in Stranraer is quite soft.
 
Only just seen this thread... Brilliant stories!

I've done a few things that have genuinely scared me, a few things where I realised later how close I was to disaster, and a few which are (at least in hindsight) just funny. Amongst the latter are;

The time I was working for a well known charter operator in the Solent and decided to move one of the boats that was rafted to mine out of the way singlehanded. As I was just about to slip the lines one of the staff came running down the pontoon waving. I ignored him and cast off, assuming he was just going to annoy me by making me wait for other people to help. He wasn't, he was trying to tell me that boat was there because it had thrown its prop the day before.... I definitely set a personal best in the "how far can you throw a line" event that day...
Same company, Cowes week... Found myself in the top 5 at the first mark and allowed my competitive nature to overcome my better instincts and hoisted the kite, despite it blowing 20 knots and I being the only person on board who had ever seen a kite before. As it fills I realise this might have been a mistake when one of the crew turns to me and says "When can we open the Champagne?" How we got away with that kite run I will never know.
Did a charter that was a Hen do. The ladies all came back to the boat in the early hours somewhat worse for wear, so it wasn't a massive surprise when none of them had appeared by the time we really needed to leave to get back to base. So I left with them all asleep. Just after I hoist sail a bloke appears on deck... Debated taking him with us, but he had a visible neck tattoo and looked quite annoyed, so on balance I decided I was probably better off returning him to Cowes...
With my family on our first ever charter holiday when I was about 15. We spent the 1st night anchored in a different bay to the one we thought we were in... Only found out later in the week when we tried to go into "the other one".
 
This is very embarassing. I've always had tiller steering on my sailboats, although I had also helmed on larger boats with wheel steering. A few years ago I decided to go on a race on another boat and we did some training in the Solent in the days ahead of the race. This other boat had wheel steering. My wife was helming nicely when the skipper asked me to take the helm. I confidently took over and did exactly what I did with my tiller - turn right to go left - turn left to go right. The whole crew was looking at me aghast, trying to figure out what was going on. My racing career never took off..
 
Wheels on yachts do feel wrong.

We steer them by making the stern move from one side to another. It's a bit like pushing a bicycle backwards, to go to the left, you steer to the right, turning the handlebars clockwise.

But with a wheel you turn it anticlockwise. No wonder it feels wrong at first.

Too late to make a fuss I suppose...
 
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