Pooped in The Wash - Whats your "Hmmm something is wrong here" moment" ??

This will be coming back from Ostend last year. A pitch black night and coming down the East Swin approaching the Swin Spitway about midnight in F7 with a huge following tide. It was only an hour after LW and we had to turn at right angles to the sea and had just 1metre under the keel. OMG. My son doesn't like the East Coast - he likes double digits before the decimal place.:D

It admit this was a planning error by yours truly by taking that rather than altering the plan and taking a safer route down the Wallet:o
 
After two perfect transits previously, on our 3rd time going into Shotley in Kioni Molly did the right thing at the bows but I missed getting the stern line secured and we ended up drifting away from the side of the lock - now, if you're in a 40 footer this is a minor inconvenience but in a 23 footer you're just small enough to end up at about 90 deg to the lock with no way of retaining your dignity.

Plenty of helpful comments from the onlookers though :rolleyes: and sorted out eventually with no harm done
 
Kioni said:
After two perfect transits previously, on our 3rd time going into Shotley in Kioni Molly did the right thing at the bows but I missed getting the stern line secured and we ended up drifting away from the side of the lock - now, if you're in a 40 footer this is a minor inconvenience but in a 23 footer you're just small enough to end up at about 90 deg to the lock with no way of retaining your dignity.

Plenty of helpful comments from the onlookers though :rolleyes: and sorted out eventually with no harm done
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I did exactly the same thing on Saturday.

I'd checked the wind on the vane and judged that it would keep us pressed against the wall, so instructed Wunja Jnr to release the bow line in preparation of the gate opening. I hadn't realised that there was a different windsystem at water level which started to blow the bow out.

Its that point when you realise what is happening and the easy cure is to release the stern line and power out.... but the gate is still closed!

Also ended up at 90 degrees, trying to do all sorts of things with the engine to regain some dignity... failed of course!
 
CPD said:
Who else has a "someting is wrong here" momemt to share, or perhaps, and even better "something is right here" moment ...........
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I've got one of each that occurred in the same incident.

"someting is wrong here": Yonks ago, having passed through Edinburgh Channel (where there used to be a buoyed shipping channel), arrived at SW Sunk (where there used to be a swatchway & beacon) at half ebb. NE F4-5. Fair bit of white water, so thought "OK, that's the deeper bit - tide running harder against wind". When depth got to be 2ft below keel, I chickened out and did a 180, but bounced on a sandwave on the way back out:eek:

"something is right here": Headed SW in deep water for 1/4 mile, where a local had told me he'd found more water than at the SW Sunk. Flat water. Crossed with heart in mouth. Never less than 6 ft under keel!

Trinity House survey not long afterwards showed that the SW Sunk swatch had indeed closed up.
 
VinceHall said:
Also ended up at 90 degrees, trying to do all sorts of things with the engine to regain some dignity... failed of course!
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haha! same here. First week of owning Black Magic, very new and nervous, first time into the lock at Chatham (having missed the lock at Gillingham), caught in the tide, went in almost sideways. The 'something wrong moment; came when I got a bow line on but pulled in too hard, ended up pointing the wrong way. Lock Keeper definitely NOT amused. had to effect a rather complicated 180 turn because (somewhat reasonably) the lock keeper wasn't keen on us nincompoops reversing the boat out of the lock into the marina.

To make things worse, there was a queue of boats outside waiting for us to sort ourselves out - two of which were the local cops. V embarrassing.

oh we laugh about it now...
 
Surfing a chartered Sunsail 36 into Ardrosen harbour with dead engine in the dark after an over-amitious passage.

Or coming over the Raysand a few weeks ago with a very strong tailwind and run out of fuel. I can't see the GPS from deck so got swmbo out of bed to yell course and distance to waypoints. When I had 1.4m at the Crouch end I realised that I'd never be able to change my mind and head north east.
 
rudolph_hart said:
Trinity House survey not long afterwards showed that the SW Sunk swatch had indeed closed up.
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That was probably about the time when a new swatchway opened up a couple of miles to the NE (early 80s?). I remember passing through at LW springs in about 5m water and reporting it in our club newsletter. A couple of boats followed my advice and grounded; one having a lifeboat sent out!

My last "something wrong" moment was in Danish waters when I had let my grown-up daughter enter some waypoints in the GPS (new boat; no plotter). The trouble with going aground in the Baltic is that there is no tide to lift you off. I should have checked her waypoints I suppose. Near thing.
 
Back in the mid 80s I ran a Yachtmaster Refresher course for some of our club members about to take the exam. One East Coast man and three South Coasters. Came into the Deben with a (neaps) ebb tide and an easterly wind.

Coming up to the Bar (much steeper in those days) I asked one of the South Coasters to read out the depths (beneath the keel) for me as we came in. It went something like "6, 5.8, 5.7, 5.7, 5.5, 5.3, ............... 5, 4.8" then with a sudden jump of at least an octave "2, 2, 2".

The real point was that the oncoming "grounding" they expected ahead distracted them from astern. The other East Coaster and I heard the hiss and stood on the seats; everyone else got hit by the breaking swell coming from behind. Oh, and the depth never dropped below 2m.
 
We had one moment when we were liveaboard in the US. We started with a "shakedown" cruise of about 3 weeks from the top to the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay and back again to get used to the boat and settle in. We did a longish run one day from Mobjack Bay heading north up to Deltaville in Virginia, clear and sunny but blowing a bit (F5-6) from the south. Forecast was that there were thunderstorms about and a small craft advisory was out. Well, we had a big heavy boat so this didn't bother us too much and we ran for about 5 or 6 hours in fairly lumpy water (Chesapeake is a bit like a tideless Wallet, only much much bigger :D). We were quite happy with the sailing but Chesapeake thunderstorms can be nasty so there were many glances around checking for looming cumulonimbus bearing down on us.

Everything went fine though and we came within sight of the entrance to Deltaville along with a few other boats in the distance. Quite suddenly the wind dropped and the sky in front of us went this really strange colour and we realised a pretty large thunderstorm had sneaked up in front if us - must have come from SW or W I guess but it was very rapid and not apparent to us what was going on. Anyway, it was clear this was one storm we weren't going to avoid as the world in front of us just disappeared in a grey curtain, coming right at us in a line across the bay from north heading south towards us (I was reminded of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway by Genesis, if any of you know it :D).

Never having been in such a situation before our obvious concern was for a lightning strike - we were a mile from shore to the north and well clear of the western shore, but it was a bit too deep to anchor. We decided, pretty quickly, to shut the engine off (the sails were already furled ready for entering the marina), put some lights on and basically batten down and ride it out. We all went down below to stay inside what our friend Mac called "the cone of protection" i.e. inside the area bounded by the shrouds and stays. I kept the radio on and the plotter running to see where we were and kept a watch to make sure we didn't drift on to any other boat.

Then it hit us and the winds reached 45-50kts and there was lots of noise and flashes but thankfully none too close. It gave us a fantastic opportunity to see how the boat behaved lying a hull in such conditions (basically she drifted bow first downwind at about 1-1.5 knots) although the seas were pretty flat especially with the amount of rain that came down. We talked to the boys while it was going on to keep them reassured, although the main problem was it was so hot in the cabin.

Although they sneak up on you quickly these storms depart just as fast so we were out of it in about 35-40 minutes or so. We had drifted about 0.5 mile south and then a bit less than that east. We motored on into Deltaville.

We found out after we got in that a Beneteau about 3 miles to the north of us had taken a direct hit and every piece of electronic and electric equipment on board had been fried, no injuries though fortunately. Gulp.
 
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