Have you ever been overboard - unplanned?

[johnalison]

Not yet. I'm just hoping that God doesn't have a sense of humour and is saving it up for me for the worst possible ccasion.

I've witnessed a few dunkings though. A friend of my skipper friend was trying to impress my friend who happened to be his boss and had successfully put the outboard onto the old-style Redstart. His judgement of mass went awry and he capsized it backwards. My friend and I both rushed to the rescue - of the outboard. Shortly afterwards the above sub-friend was still trying to be helpful and attempted to hand over the tool box, which was unclasped and the inevitable happened. My mate gave him strict instructions to deal with his hypothermia before trying to help again.

On another occasion a friend thought he would go onto my sugar scoop and clean the stern. He knew perfectly well that the ladder was hinged but always left unfastened. At least it helped him back on board. The moral of these stories is never to try and help when you are a guest.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Several times as a youth; mostly the usual situation of getting stranded between a dinghy and the boat, with that awful, endless period when you know you're going in but can't do anything about it! Once or twice (when younger) through running around a canal basin and cutting the corner a bit too fine...

Recently, only once. Working on a newly built dinghy, and didn't realize water had got under the aft thwart, allowing a free surface effect. I noticed that water was flooding over one side of the transom and shifted my weight, but by then it was too late and the dinghy tipped up, ditching me in the marina! This led to the discovery that a) I can't pull myself out onto a pontoon with wet clothes (not sure I could do it in swimming trunks!) and b) that my wife can't pull me out, either. Fortunately, a friend came to the rescue and used a halliard to haul me out. Neither a) nor b) were unexpected; my wife and I had done the Sea Survival course so we knew that even with a fixed ladder it's very hard work to get out of water with soaked clothing, and my wife is half my weight!

This experience made me more determined than ever that we aren't going overboard while at sea if we can avoid it by any means.

Our dog managed to take a swim in the marina when a puppy - I think he simply walked off the edge! This has had a good result - he is VERY averse to going in the water again! He also now wears a lifejacket with a handle on the back, to facilitate rescuing him if he does go swimming again. But it can be funny watching him playing near water with a breed like a labrador; the labrador happily bounds into the water without pausing, but Jack comes screeching to a halt at the water's edge! If a dof could do a four-wheel skid, he would

 

[dovekie]

Running a motorboat ferry for pedestrians across a river - both banks heaving with people. Long queues for the ferry each side.
Absolutely (and uncharacteristically) balled out a yob for pushing and queue jumping. He slunk off abashed and I stepped back gracefully, into the river.

 

[johnalison]

It wasn't very nautical but the funniest dunking I witnessed was in the hot summer of 1976. Those who remember it will know that all inland water was covered with duckweed. We visited a canal-side pub in Surrey one day. My in-laws' golden retriever thought he would just walk across the canal.

 

[fisherman]

1972, at last got a decent oilskin frock, a full length smock, and was congratulating myself on being dry at 8 in the evening, a snowy cold night, as I stepped from one foredeck to the next. My skirt wouldn't stretch far enough and I let slip an unladylike word as the water closed over my head.
1974, I was in a 27ft boat from falmouth, depths of winter, skipper, David, as we got aboard found he had no gloves. Do without, he said, no way said I, your hands will be shredded. We went alongside Prince of Wales Pier, he dashed home, about 15mins, and as I saw him appear I eased the boat up to the steps, slowly, not wanting to doink his boat. There was a thud as he made a jump for it, I stepped out on deck, no David. A hand appeared on the rail, followed by another, then David's mass of beard, hair, spectacles awry, looking, as one old codger would say. like 'a howl in a hivy bush'. He said two words to me that I knew he would later regret, I nudged up to the steps and he squeltched off up the quay once more, reappearing after 15 minutes in a full length smock and thigh boots. He had grabbed the handrail on the wheelhouse roof and parted it off. We had a half decent day on the mackerel in spite of being late away. As I eased the boat up to the mooring that night he stepped along the side deck with the gaff, "Tell you what, as we were late this morning tomorrow we could go a bit urghhh......."
I stepped out on deck in time to see the soles of his boots disappearing into the depths. He had grabbed the same handle. I think he was beginning to enjoy these little dips as he stayed down there for several minutes, until finally he appeared and hooked an elbow over the stern of the punt, spouting water in a very jolly fashion.
"No, stop laughing, it's not funny, I saw the bottom of the harbour that time"

 

[Hydrozoan]

Only getting into a kayak, erroneously thought to be up against a pontoon block; unedifying, but salutary.

 

[Baggywrinkle]

When sailing a dinghy, general rule is to sit on the opposite side of the sail. In Brittany, while launching from the beach in an offshore gale I went surfing out into the bay on my kids Topper feeling pretty exhilarated. Little boats in strong winds can be proper fun. I quickly discoved however, that when the boom end goes forward of the mast, the forces from the sail are instantly reversed - I didn't even have time to move before I was dumped in the water and the rig came in on top of me as the boat capsized. After that I tied a stop knot in the mainsheet to prevent me letting too much out, thus the boom couldn't go forward of the mast again.

When sailing my catamaran on Ammersee single-handed with full sail in a good blow I was on the trapeze having a whale of a time .... juggling jib, main and tiller trying to keep one hull just out of the water. Then the downwind hull dropped into a deep wave trough, the beam connecting the hulls hit the wave crest and stopped me dead .... I went spinning off round the forestay as the cat pitch-poled, swung round and landed on top of me. Fortunately, only my pride was hurt.

... my most recent dunking was the most embarassing though. I have a number of friends who have just got their SKS - Sportküstenschifferschein - and they wanted some practice on Ammersee so we hired a little cabin cruiser and they made me skipper for the day in the vain hope of learning something useful. There was virtually no wind and it was a lovely sunny day. I'm now used to a slightly larger boat where you can sit comfortably on the cockpit coamings and attend to the winch .... I tried the same on this little boat and discovered a few things ... firstly the coaming was very narrow and sharply sloping outboard, secondly, it was extremely slippy ... and thirdly, the boat had no guardrails .... so I slid very ungracefully over the side, flailing wildly for a handhold - I didn't let go of the boat completely and could go hand-over-hand to the boarding ladder at the stern and climb back aboard ... not sure what they learned from that.

Apart from all the other times capsizing and generally mucking about in dinghies I've never fallen off a "proper" boat yet.

 

[Boathook]

Twice, but I'm not including dinghy sailing when I was a kid and told no capsizing.
First one about 6 of us in a large avon dinghy paddling to Studland south beach to go to the pub. Someone noticed a 'large' wave, possibly remains of wash heading our way. We all stood up and some moved to the other side. Dinghy capsized and threw us into the water. We then realized that it was only 18" deep! Last one I slipped on the ladder climbing down back on board just before sailing. Went down between ladder and boat and got covered in mud as well as wet. Could have been dangerous if I caught chin on rubbing strake but only pride hurt.