Nearest miss / accident - what's yours ?

Re: Nearest miss / accident - what\'s yours ?

Your mention of Southwold reminds me of when I was delivering a boat and had to pop in when the engine started seriously overheating. I'd never been in before and the boat surfed through the narrow entrance in a way that I've never experienced before or since. If I remember correctly the pilot book said not to be attempted in an Easterly and it was an easterly about F5. There was a small group of spectators waiting for me to mess it up but I was lucky and got away with it.
Lovely place to visit but choose your conditions better than I did!
 
Re: Nearest miss / accident - what\'s yours ?

I didnt mention an interesting exit from Wells which was actually more scary than Southwold re above. It started on the weekend of last year's East Coast Ostend trip when I was coming down from Newcastle and had to pull into Wells due to deteriorating weather and fuel needs. Getting in was no problem, it was a week later when i went up to bring her back the rest of the way. I timed it correctly but have never gone through waves (in the dark) like those coming over Bob Hall's sand - very very scary. A northerly had been running for the previous week but had settled in the last few days before I took her out.

Afterwards, the scariest bit was thinking about the "what ifs". If my engine had packed in on the way out, it would have been a very very similar outcome I guess to that which would have happened at Southwold had I not realised at the last moment (the sailor's 6th sense ?) that somehing was amiss.
 
Re: Nearest miss / accident - what\'s yours ?

I was at the helm of a friends Contessa 32, not long after its very expensive new paint job, off the IOW in the middle of the night, the big yellow thing left a strip of yellow paint nine foot long along the starboard side, it left us both terrified, (second expensive paint job followed!) /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif
 
Re: Nearest miss / accident - what\'s yours ?

[ QUOTE ]
I was at the helm of a friends Contessa 32, not long after its very expensive new paint job, off the IOW in the middle of the night, the big yellow thing left a strip of yellow paint nine foot long along the starboard side, it left us both terrified, (second expensive paint job followed!) /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

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Not those b****y pages again !!!!!!!!!!
 
Re: Nearest miss / accident - what\'s yours ?

Last Saturday night on Canning River (a tributary of the Swan River) 4 teenagers injured (one seriously) when their runabout 18ft f/g hit an unlit wooden channel marker. Speed? Alcahol?
olewill
 
Re: Nearest miss / accident - what\'s yours ?

My most stupid mistake, still makes me go cold many years later.
Dropped the mooring at Pin Mill before dawn on a calm, slightly misty morn. Family all asleep below, so decide to drift down river without engine [Stuart Turner then]
I got out into the fairway and noticed that the lights downriver had disapeared, then noticed a red light up high. Wonder what that is? Then noticed a green light, then heard the RoRos engines! Oh [--word removed--]!
Just managed to get out of the way, but felt very stoopid.
 
Re: Nearest miss / accident - what\'s yours ?

Purchased new to me 26 foot Haida sailboat, sailed it singlehanded 100kms to my home. Wind variable 5 to 15 knots.

On the way visited heads below and happened to examine shroud plates bolted to nearest bulkhead and found bolts loosely in place but all were missing washers and nuts!

Scavenged nuts from tool kit and sailed on.
 
Re: Nearest miss / accident - what\'s yours ?

Three near misses spring to mind - fortunately they did not become accidents or statistics.......

I've mentioned the first one before on here, when we were on Stormy Weather hove to in a gale off Cape Finsitere in November (and 30 miles outside the shipping lane) - saw a very large bulk carrier (in ballast) heading straight for us - what to do?
Tried calling them on VHF and SSB, let off a white flare, no change of course.
Tried to start engine, but it was in a strop and refused. Couldnt set any more sail in time (no roller furling, just had storm jib and reefed mizzen up).
Bow wave of the bulk carrier pushed us clear of that large bulbous bow........

Next time was a few months later, on Stormy, on passage from Bequia up to Antigua.
I was on watch, about half an hour before sunset, was called down below for supper. Aries windvane was steering. Had a quick look around, no ships in sight, went below, scoffed some tucker, came on deck 15 mins later, and a tanker was just crossing our stern heading east.....

And then on our boat a few years ago - overnight passage to Martinique, and we stomped along so fast (100 miles in 14 hours) we got there when it was still dark.
Could see lights 'ah yes, I know where we are, no worries'.
So confident, I didnt worry to go below to plot position on chart.
Instruments were turned off to save juice for the tri-colour.
Sailing along, see faint outline of small island to the west of us.
Eh? That shouldnt be there.... penny dropped just as I switched depth sounder on (hadnt needed it in deep water) and it read 4 m........ 'oh feck, tack!'
Saw the breakers just ahead then as we were tacking - another 2 minutes and we would have been up on the reef on the east side of Martinique. VERY sobering experience.
 
Re: Nearest miss / accident - what\'s yours ?

Some years ago, during the Lerwick-Lowestoft leg of the RBR, we two were on deck in his elderly 45' cat sailing south in dense grey fog, when a 400' long section of said fog changed colour to red-brown and slid past to port, at speed, about 40-50 feet away.....

A couple of days later, sailing fast south in the dark and driving rain, and approaching the leg's finishing line off Lowestoft's entrance by way of Corton Road and North Road outside the port, I spotted two 'power-driven vessels probably greater than 150 feet' less than a couple of miles away, fast converging on us from the SE. A clear risk of collision existed. They couldn't stop, or turn away due to the proximity of Holm and Newcombe Sands, I doubted they had seen our then-feeble nav lights, and my mate the owner wore specs like beer bottles; with all the rain on them and in the dark, he couldn't see the end of his nose. We didn't have the 'lecky left to start an engine, and I offered to call them up on VHF, explain our position, and agree that we'd keep clear of them. My elderly, tired and cantankerous companion veto'd that idea vigorously, for "we are sailing, while they are not! I'm not stopping until we've Finished...."

A mis-quote of Kipling came to mind 'If you can keep your head, while all about you are losing theirs, you do not appreciate the gravity of the situation, my son."

Something needed to be done with urgency, so I called us 'over the line', then rounded up hard away from the ships, and we virtually stopped, heading northwards. They each swept past at speed about 50 yards away, heading into the port, and we got a deserved torrent of abuse from the bridge of one of them - and a visit the following morning from the Deputy Harbourmaster, who gave us a 'stand-up interview'.....

/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
Re: Nearest miss / accident - what\'s yours ?

I think a word with the moderator is required - if my crew ever reads this thread they are unlikely ever to set foot on the boat again! /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
Re: Nearest miss / accident - what\'s yours ?

In the early sixties, when I was 15 or so, I was crewing in a GP14 with a friend. He was helming the boat (which was about a week old and he had borrowed for a race).

The race was in the Thames, off Canvey Island. We were sailing a leg from the Kent side towards Hole Haven......across the shipping Channel.. lying third and catching the two boats ahead as I recall.

Well there was this b***dy great tanker on its way up river on our starboard side. After due deliberation and consideration together with safety uppermost, we decided that winning the race was far more important (as two 15 year old boys do).

So a quick dash across the bows of the tanker was the only option! All was going well and we passed ahead....just. Much mutual congratulations as we had visions of catching the boats ahead. It didn't last....as we slipped into the lee of the ship the dinghy lost the wind and flipped backwards over us! Emerging from under the sails as the bow wave fortunately washed us clear. The slab side of the long long tanker slid slowly past.... we could hear the noise of the propellors getting louder as the stern approached us.... /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

Luck was on our side and we lived to tell the tale. Quite a brown trouser moment I can tell you. Probably a few more brown trouser moments on the bridge of that tanker! (or maybe not as we couldn't see the bridge for most of the incident so they probably couldn't see us!)

The race? Well the GP 14 was so new that the owner hadn't had time to fit the self bailers. We managed to right her and, after bailing some of the water out, sailed the still waterlogged craft to the finish! Sadly no podium finish....but skipper and crew very wet and a lot wiser.

catseven
 
Re: Nearest miss / accident - what\'s yours ?

Two come to mind:

1. Beginning of summer cruise taking boat from Falmouth to La Rochelle. I was down below washing up, father and SWMBO up top. Father came down to help with the drying, SWMBO buried in book. Sudden scream from SWMBO as she jumped up to turn off autopilot and grab the wheel. The swell had just carried us over Le Bouc rock off the Crozon peninsula in Brittany. Needless to say relaxed watch system abandoned for formal one.

2. Sailing off Golf du Morbihan on starboard tack with strong tide. No boats apparently near. Took my periodic look under the genoa and discovered boat on port tack on collision course 20 yards away. Instant crash tack with much swearing at other boat, but fortunately missed her by about 2 feet! Other boat sheepishly acknowledging they were in the wrong. Never knew where the boat came from, but suspect strong tide significantly altered closing speed.

Both times our sealegs went to jelly...
 
Re: Nearest miss / accident - what\'s yours ?

[ QUOTE ]
mistaking a South Cardinal buoy for a West Cardinal and running at speed towards the weather side of a sandbank.Only realized that catastrophe was close when I heard/saw the surf close ahead /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif .

Deliberately havent put too much detail in as I had 2 crew asleep below at the time relying on my great skill and experience,they didnt know then or now /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

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That reminded me of one in a car, fell asleep on the M6 driving back from Skye, rumble strips woke me just before I became intimate with the central crash barrier.
Sleeping passenger found out 10 years later.

/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
Re: Nearest miss / accident - what\'s yours ?

Marvellous confessional string!
2 saily ones come to mind. The first, off whitehaven beach in the Whitsundays, doing YM training, in charge of navigation. I reckoned I could get round the wrong side of a cardinal having totally failed to correctly interpret relative scales on chart. Saved from piling bene 40.7 under spinnaker onto a reef by ozzy skipper coming up on deck in nick of time and noting imminent catastrophe. Still sweat about it now!
Second, corbet passage off Herm. Strong northeasterly tide runs through here with lots of rocks to catch the unwary if one strays off the marks. Single handed, fiddling around with sail trim, on tiller pilot and thinking how well boat was sailing. Missed fact had been swept off marks by tide, looked up and noted dome of grey green rock looming up through the crystal clear water bang on the nose about 10m away. Crash tack and much sweating as missed granite by about a foot.
And finally, non boaty, early morning fishing expedition to Bewl bridge reservoir, years ago. Dashing back to make work at about 0600, fell asleep behind wheel and woke up in opposite carriageway to see oncoming traffic. Swerved to miss collision and spent next 20mins shaking like a leaf in a layby!
 
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