Stupidest accident I ever nearly had afloat.

oldmanofthehills said:
Recently I was picking up swinging mooring on a falling tide on a stormy day after leaving a repair boatyard at high tide, while my wife was driving along the coast from the boatyard to meet me, thus single handed. I was also soak through to my thermals as I had foolishly not put on my good oilies at start but was unwilling to leave the helm for long due to weather. So after one pass I dashed out from the helm and grabbed the pickup buoy with a boat hook and promptly lost boat hook due to falling tide turning me back beyond my strength to hold. Never mind I have homemade whisker pole with a boathook on the end so after 5 passes in strong winds with ebb now at 2 kts I managed after about 45 minutes to grab my dinghy painter which of course causes dinghy to rear on end with outboard now underwater- much force on the hook and I try and lower my end so dinghy more horizontal and then the snap hook on my end of the dual purpose pole latches on my lifejacket belt and I start to be pulled violently through the railings. Scared I hunker down as tide increases, no way to get to engine to move against tide, my sailors knife is in the cabin, and even if I can undo the lj buckle and simply lose it and whiskerpole hook I will possibly have no way of ever picking up the mooring and what's more I will have to row ashore nearly a mile in troubled water without lj. Fortunately I eventually managed to grab a rope threaded it through snaphook to a stanchion then threw it round dinghy painter and eventually managed to take lj off with boat semi secure. Boat now broadside on and it took an hour before tide eased enough so I could get mooring lines to bows. So exhausted that when I got ashore I just asked my wife to drive me 2 hours directly to home then realised halfway I was suffering hypothermia and in struggling I had split a mostly healed wound so I was leaking. I also had to repair lj webbing with additional tape as very very mangled .

Now why was it I sail?

Of course my next worse accident was due to getting down stern ladder in yard while wearing reading glasses, then stepping off ladder 6 foot up as ground seemed near. Very very bruised ribs and lucky not to crack a few

Now what was I saying about enjoying maintenance work?
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You are a bricklayer and I claim £5 insurance.
 
johnalison said:
I didn't mean to be obscure because I thought that everyone had heard Gerard Hoffnung's fantastic rendition of this joke, which I always maintain is the best-told joke ever recorded. It was meant as a compliment!
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Hmm Gerald Hoffnumg - died two years after I was born. Heard the name but not the recording. Good joke tho'

TS
 
Maybe have a poll on these
A leaning round to turn off fuel on outboard just as friend? Decided to pull dinghy to jetty
B ducking under boom with buoyancy aid in laser with resultant mast stuck in mud
C walking between mast and shrouds after stowing spars and sails in mirror dinghy and finding myself pitchpoled and glad to have been struck on the head but trapped under afore said dinghy
 
anoccasionalyachtsman said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZUJLO6lMhI
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I'm sorry to continue this drift but Gerard Hoffnung doesn't deserve to be forgotten. He died astonishingly early at 34yrs but had achieved a great deal. Somewhere in the attic I probably still have an LP of his address to the Oxford Union, from which this brilliant clip comes. I am not aware that he ever went on a boat, other than when he left Nazi Germany with his family before the war.
 
johnalison said:
I didn't mean to be obscure because I thought that everyone had heard Gerard Hoffnung's fantastic rendition of this joke, which I always maintain is the best-told joke ever recorded. It was meant as a compliment!
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I recognised the allusion straight away, without having read the huge paragraph that provoked it. But then I'm 75 and have a vinyl copy of multiple Hoffnung recordings somewhere... (Having retrieved: "Timeless Hoffnung", a BBC record. Also have Victor Borge "Borgering on Genius", not in same class!)
 
johnalison said:
I didn't mean to be obscure because I thought that everyone had heard Gerard Hoffnung's fantastic rendition of this joke, which I always maintain is the best-told joke ever recorded. It was meant as a compliment!
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Sorry I took offence - I didnt get the allusion though I know the joke well enough, possibly because I only saw my incident as having only one accident. Getting cold, wet, tired and cutting or scratching hands when having to move boats in winter bad weather seems normal - trapping myself and damaging life jacket is what I regarded as preventable and dangerous.
 
johnalison said:
I didn't mean to be obscure because I thought that everyone had heard Gerard Hoffnung's fantastic rendition of this joke, which I always maintain is the best-told joke ever recorded. It was meant as a compliment!
Click to expand...

One of last year's best moments was a late night session on board with some bottles of malt and some equally well-aged crew scouring the internet for clips of old performances like this. Most enjoyable.
 
On our boat we have a door with a Yale lock on it, the hatch is secured in the closed position with a simple bolt type lock. I and the dog had spent a few days at a really nice estuary and I had planned to catch the morning tide back to our home port.
I overslept that morning and only just caught the tide to get back in time to pick up me drying mooring.
I was rushing about and went out on deck in my PJS closing the door behind me.
I was in a rush so started the engine (engine key only was in the ignition) then dropped the mooring and set off. When out of the bay I put the autopilot on then went to put some clothes on.

It was then I found out I had locked myself out with the dog in the cabin. I tried giving the hatch a good shake hoping to get the bolt to drop but had no luck. I was starting to get cold as the wind was not blowing being out of the estuary shelter.
I then wondered what to do, break a window, rip door off its hinges, go back to port tie up and ask marina the phone Mrs E to come down with spare key. Remember I am in PJS wearing my best thin dressing gown with Wallace and Grommit pictures all over it.
The last option would be the most enjoyable for the wife so I did not want to do that. I would never hear the end of it.

I then had some inspiration and had the idea off unscrewing the door hinges. Problem was I searched all the cockpit lockers and could not find one, all I could find was a Stanley Knife.
Getting desperate for some Tea and to let the dog out for a wee I realised I had a problem. I thought I may as well try the Knife, and the tip of the blade broke off on the first screw.
I managed to get the blade out and tried the cut out that locks in the slider. The first screw started to turn so I tried the other 2in the top hinge. I could not believe it when they all turned, not the bottom hinge, the first two turned with me not cutting my hand open.
But the final screw of the 6 would not turn so I pressed harder into the screw and put a bit more turning force in. That was when the cut out of the blade broke and the blade decided to get to know the interior of my hand better.
The only thing I could find that stood a chance of holding the expected fountain of blood when I removed the blade was a really dirty oily rag.
Suitably equipped I pulled the blade out and there was no blood (wife stated I am to mean to bleed). I still had to open the door but was getting fed up by now so I just pulled the top of the door and it came open a bit.

This was just enough for me to get my arm in and reach the Yale lock so I opened the door with one hand but had to catch the door to stop it falling with the cut hand.
This was when my hand decided it would be a good time to start spouting blood all over the door. I was standing there when the dog rushed out and peed on my feet.
I stemmed to flow with the aforementioned rag (somebody would have killed me for getting blood on the carpet) and got a clean bandage for the hand.
After I got dressed and had a cup of tea the rest of the trip was uneventful as I decided not to put the sails up and just motor back (this time I had enough fuel).
 
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