Ever Recovered anything lost overboard ?

[Daydream believer]

Very little ferrous metal in a Seagull.

Yeah!!. Skin, bones, part digested fish, chips & feathers, as far as I can make out

 

[Skysail]

In Poole Harbour we recovered a sponge still in wrapping and a bunch of spring onions! Then in the Solent a frying pan floated past the boat, but it sank when we attempted to rescue it.

 

[PhillM]

At high tide kicked a large box of stainless bolts and nuts over the side when doing the work on Swift. Looked at low tide but they had sunk into the mud deeper than my spare could reach.

 

[Praxinoscope]

At high tide kicked a large box of stainless bolts and nuts over the side when doing the work on Swift. Looked at low tide but they had sunk into the mud deeper than my spare could reach.

My mooring is exactly the opposite, things dropped overboard stay exactly where they land but may be hidden by weed or a little silt, I dropped a clevis pin overboard early in the season, it was HW so just left if and used a spare, didn’t think to look for it over the season, but when I came to tie down the risers after the boats were lifted in October, I found the clevis pin sitting in roughly the spot it would have landed 5 months earlier.

 

[Kukri]

On the 10th September 1972 I lost a blonde girlfriend overboard at “the rocks” in the Deben. The gap between elderly Dragon and plywood pram just widened as she hesitated a moment too long. The log book, written in her hand, records that I “heroically” retrieved her but gave her “scant sympathy”. That was because the then-new and, for a student, expensive, automatic life jacket had worked perfectly, and I couldn’t afford a new bottle!

 

[Spirit (of Glenans)]

Having just re-launched from Malahide boatyard with a friend, Trevor, on board to handle lines and help with preparing the boat, and heading back to the pontoon, a gust of wind blew my battered, A/F-stained old "boatyard" baseball cap overboard and with no room to manoeuvre I just let it be carried away by the strong tide.
When we had bent on the sails and ensured that everything was shipshape, Trevor suggested a short test sail, as the tide had risen again to a reasonable height. Off we went down the river and out for a few quick tacks in the vicinity of the Safe Water Mark, when Trevor spotted something in the water close alongside "It's your baseball cap" he cried excitedly.
We did an immediate MOB manoeuvre and picked up the cap. As it happened, it wasn't the exact cap that I had lost, but a much better one, with"nautical" branding!

 

[Uricanejack]

Many Hats,
Hat recovery is our most common drill.
Dog recovery drill a couple of times. Though now she is a bit older it’s been quite a few years without the dog recovery drill.
Wife recovered once but we were in the marina at the time so doesn’t really count.
I got a few points for helping her. Lost most for my comments.
She was angrier at brother. He just laughed took pictures of her and posted on Facebook.

 

[Daydream believer]

When I first met my girlfriend- now my wife- I took her for a sail on my hornet.

Note :-I was working on the story going round college at the time ( it was 1967) that some lads took their girlfriends for a ride on their motorbikes & frightened the hell out of them. But the adrenalin rush made them more ameniable to sexual favours rather than get back on the motorbike Well I think that we had to work harder in those days. So we tried anything.

I did not have a motorbike but I thought that a hornet with a sliding seat would be the next best thing. Unfortunately on one tack, she did not slide the seat out far enough & as she slid out to counteract the heel of the dinghy- Well you can guess the rest.
I grabbed her by the ankle & manged to pull her back on board spluttering & complaining about silly boats ( her attitude has not changed much since)

& before anyone asks-- No, there was no adrenaline rush. Just a silent ride home & a "Well I might be free one night next week. I will let you know"

 

[Leighb]

My best recovery was car and house keys. I dropped them from my pocket whilst getting support boats ready for our Junior Regatta, they fell just in the angle between the finger and the main pontoon in our marina.
I had no time to do anything then, but at the end of the day I managed to borrow a Sea Searcher magnet and thought I would try a recovery. Somewhat to my surprise they came up at the second dunk. Even more surprising the remote door unlock for the car still worked!

Things lost but not recovered, a newish Seiko watch which pinged off when grappling with a boisterous spinnaker off Pin Mill, a pair of expensive spectacles which were swiped off my face by the mainsail whilst hoisting, luckily covered by house insurance.
A few hats over the years.

 

[DJE]

My then fairly new Tilly hat in Dover harbour once. We got our permission to depart from Port Control and he added "Make your best speed down the harbour to the western entrance." Half way down my hat blew off so we went back for it. No further comment from Port Control but I bet he was muttering under his breath. Still got that hat!

 

[BobnLesley]

...I lost a blonde girlfriend overboard...

In about 2003 as Lesley and I walked along the main pontoon in Cherbourg we overhearda Training Skipper delivering a warning to his students regarding the dangers of stepping on/off and walking along, the short/unstable/bouncy pontoon fingers they had there.

After shouting our hellos from the bow, Chris' response was: "...and this ladies and gentlemen is the young lady that I was just talking about" Mid December in Cherbourg Harbour, she was not a happy bunny.

 

[BobnLesley]

Not our recovery, but having lost a baseball cap falling out of the dinghy in Dominica - returning from a PAYS barbecue in Portsmouth, so I was not at my best, it was found and recognised as mine - there aren't a lot of caps advertising Yorkshire farm-feed companies in the Caribbean - somewhere on the beach about three days later. It was eventually returned to me (having travelled via three different boats) in Tonga almost three years later; I'd long forgotten about it.

Edit: It didn't last, I lost it for good en-route to Fiji

 

[Kelpie]

Last week I was fitting my Hydrovane and dropped a stainless washer. 12ft deep clear water is very helpful, I got it back straight away.

Several years ago my wedding ring went ob whilst we were tied to the drying berth. Picked it up out of the mud at LW.

Most annoying was when I lost piece of my rigging off a pontoon. Took about two hours of trial and error with a go-pro on a string, plus a grapple, but I got it back.

The dogs had their fair share too... a couple of times due to over-excited baking at dolphins.

 

[Wansworth]

Sort of confession………..whilst anchour Ed in Mevergissy my trusty fisherman anchour separated from the rode.Carrying aspare anchour in this case a foldinggrapple I rowedup and down over the area were the anchour should have been,after several hours I snagged something which turned out to be the anchour.

 

[Capt Popeye]

Might state , that something thats not often Retrieved very well , is PRIDE , often lost when manouvering close to Public Gaze or much worse , Yach Club Gaze , when the unexpected happens (rather like Sht Happens) , one can recover , hopefully , but just might be reminded (re lived) of the happening when one enters the Club House at long last , oh dear bgr it {#

 

[Arcady]

Once lost my Tilly-esque hat overboard on the ebb tide whilst anchored up river. 6 hours later I spotted it returning on the flood tide and managed to snag it as it went by. Improbable but true!

 

[DPH]

When I was new to boating someone showed me the wrong way to tie on fenders, so every time a gale came though it would normally lose a fender. Used to leave it a few days and then pop into the office at Port Solent to retrieve the fender. One particular windy winter I lost 2 in a week and only 1 was handed in. That's when I learnt to tie a clove hitch properly!

 

[pyrojames]

An outboard, bracket failed, a sentimental piece of jewellery,, a watch, my brother in laws that in Bass Straight, a fender in Plymouth just before finishing an Atlantic crossing. All recovered.

Not recovered, friends hat in Bass Straight, a water proof torch, that spent the next three hours taunting me by remaining fully functional on the bottom, until I went to my bunk.

 

[Roberto]

Once lost my Tilly-esque hat overboard on the ebb tide whilst anchored up river. 6 hours later I spotted it returning on the flood tide and managed to snag it as it went by. Improbable but true!

A similar case, at anchor in river Gambia, I see a familiar blue plastic thing moving downstream at some distance, I take the dinghy and recover it.
After investigation with (very young) daughter, a few hours earlier (rising tide) she used it and wanted to wash it on the water like we parents did, and the lanyard slipped away from her fingers.