What is the most idiotic mistake you have made on a boat?

[Nostrodamus]

It was a windless day with the sun beating down in the Greek islands when I found I needed to go below and point Percy at the porcelain and check our position on the chart.
I gave my son the helm making sure he would call me if he saw another boat close by. He didn't shout so I took my time. When I came back to the helm i saw we were heading directly onto the shore of an island.
"What are you doing" I asked, "I told you to call me if you saw anything."
"You never mentioned Islands" he said.
Well a good keel hauling made sure he will never do it again. Are you allowed to keel haul your 5 year old son?

 

[Robert Wilson]

It was a windless day with the sun beating down in the Greek islands when I found I needed to go below and point Percy at the porcelain and check our position on the chart.
I gave my son the helm making sure he would call me if he saw another boat close by. He didn't shout so I took my time. When I came back to the helm i saw we were heading directly onto the shore of an island.
"What are you doing" I asked, "I told you to call me if you saw anything."
"You never mentioned Islands" he said.
Well a good keel hauling made sure he will never do it again. Are you allowed to keel haul your 5 year old son?

Is this some new "Dark Art of Navigation"?

 

[Nostrodamus]

Is this some new "Dark Art of Navigation"?

My aiming into the bowl is only slightly better than my aiming of the boat. In either case I tend to cause a mess.

 

[Robert Wilson]

My aiming into the bowl is only slightly better than my aiming of the boat. In either case I tend to cause a mess.

:biggrin-new::biggrin-new::biggrin-new::biggrin-new::biggrin-new::biggrin-new:

 

[Daydream believer]

Is this some new "Dark Art of Navigation"?

I have tried it on numerous occasions but these days i never seem to be able to head north

 

[BelleSerene]

The second time I let a spinnaker sheet get caught round the prop?

No, wait, I've got a better one. The third time I let a spinnaker sheet get caught round the prop.

 

[Phoenix of Hamble]

In a particularly tight berth, rafted boats fore and aft.... carefully prepared our extrication with a series of tugging on warps and pushing of gunwhales.... once the stern was pointing in the appropriate direction, engaged reverse, cast everything off... and then discovered that I hadn't unlashed the tiller.

 

[JumbleDuck]

In a particularly tight berth, rafted boats fore and aft.... carefully prepared our extrication with a series of tugging on warps and pushing of gunwhales.... once the stern was pointing in the appropriate direction, engaged reverse, cast everything off... and then discovered that I hadn't unlashed the tiller.

Oh dear Lord yes, I have done that one too. In a crowded mooring area rather than unrafting, but the character building effects are the same.

I have also left the ensign flying so often after trips, and only spotted it from the dinghy, that my small crew is now official ensign spotter.

 

[Robert Wilson]

I am greatly relieved by all the above "errors", having committed a significant number of them myself.
What heartens me more is that you are all still afloat to tell the tale - there's a distinct feeling of hope coursing through my veins!!

Well done chaps/chappesses :encouragement:

 

[Robert Wilson]

I have tried it on numerous occasions but these days i never seem to be able to head north

I fear it may be a question of advancing age.

 

[mrming]

I am greatly relieved by all the above "errors", having committed a significant number of them myself.
What heartens me more is that you are all still afloat to tell the tale - there's a distinct feeling of hope coursing through my veins!!

Well done chaps/chappesses :encouragement:

Best thread for ages this one. The antithesis of the know-it-all attitude you sometimes encounter on here.

 

[Robert Wilson]

Best thread for ages this one. The antithesis of the know-it-all attitude you sometimes encounter on here.

I am going to make it my New Year Resolution :-

To read this entire thread each morning, before going onboard..........

 

[BelleSerene]

Feeling pretty proud of a springing-off manoeuvre from an over-crowded pontoon, when a crew member asks whether that unravelling mains cable should still be attached?

Fortunately I stopped the boat before the mains cable did.

 

[JumbleDuck]

Went to a Scuttlebutt meet at Cumbrae, just for one night. Left in the morning. Thought I would show off a bit by motoring out, hoisting sail almost straight away and sailing off. Would have worked better if I hadn't left the frapping bungee round the main halyard, so it could be caught by the headboard, go up with it and get caught in the spreaders ... <breaks down, weeping piteously>

The really peeving thing is that I have done precisely the same thing about five times since. I think that bungee needs a big orange tag on it, like the pitot covers of aircraft. Or maybe I just need to check more carefully.

 

[SimonFa]

I'd only had Venezia a few months and as a new boat owner everything was still new and and at times disorienting when I succumbed to pressure from some work colleagues to take them out. Two of them claimed to have done some sailing but it turns out that this was a bit of knowledge being dangerous. The other had never been on a boat.

I got them on board the night before so we could have a leisurely start and full briefings to avoid getting to the point of rushing for a bridge lift. As there was no boat next to me it was an easy exit from my finger pontoon, reverse out, turn to port and once clear a nice easy trip down the trot to the bridge. Even easier than normal because it was was light winds blowing me out and slightly off and not much of a stream running. What could go wrong!

After a full briefing, starting engine and getting the power cable in I put the two with some experience on the bow and stern lines. All was going to plan, the bow and stern lines were dropped without fuss and I slipped gently astern on tick-over. Just as I was about to start turning the wheel the bow came round rather sharpish of her own accord. As my rather befuddled brain was starting to process this information there was much shouting from the pontoon.

I quickly realised what had happened and went in to forward to stop me crashing in to the boats that were still moored and headed back in to my finger berth.

I had left the spring from the end of the finger pontoon to the mid ship cleat attached and nobody else spotted it

Now when I take inexperienced crew out for the first time I take her out effectively single handed as I have a set routine for that and if the crew are sat out of the way I only have to think for myself, which is hard enough at the best of times

 

[Koeketiene]

What is the most idiotic mistake you have made on a boat?

Not so much a mistake on my boat, but on my first trip out with the Grey Funnel Line, I spent quite a few hours looking for the key to the flight deck.

 

[Cloona]

got fed up beating up the West Swin into an N Easter so as the ebb was turning thought I would cut across the last bit still south of Whittaker Beacon -

no radio on board as the swell began to bounce us on the hard sand

 

[Biggles Wader]

Ive dropped a few clangers.One included the handheld over the side.No,it didnt float.

 

[Stemar]

Heh, heh, where shall I begin?

A couple of tender moments.

1. Came alongside the club pontoon in the flubber & threw the bridle over the cleat, clambered onto the pontoon and wandered off. Oy, mate, is that your dinghy? No, mines back there....err.... no it isn't. It wasn't the bridle, it was the painter, and that doesn't make a loop. The flubber was duly rescued by a couple of lads who were messing around in their dinghy, who wouldn't even take a drink for their trouble.

2. Get on boat, tie on dinghy, sort lines fenders ready to leave the mooring & go alongside the club pontoon. Water's a bit shallow, but I can move the rudder, so we should be OK. Start engine. Look round before casting off. What's that flubber drifting over there? Looks familiar - it is familiar, it's mine! But I'm sure I tied it on properly. I did, the painter's still there on the cleat. Do something right, pull it in so the prop can't eat it, cast off and go off after the flubber.

Bugger, I've stopped. It's soft mud in Portsmouth Harbour, at least in this bit, so swing the boat to face deeper water and lots of welly. 28hp on a 24 footer does have some advantages, and we break free and run up the harbour in hot pursuit. I get a bit ahead and see a significantly bigger boat than mine swing as she comes afloat, so cut through the moorings to intercept the wayward son. Uh uh. That big boat's sitting in a hole it's dug and I've stopped again, a boat length short. Full welly and I advance to victory. Err, no. I advance half a boat length and all the twisting of the tiller in the world only gets me another couple of feet more firmly embedded and the dinghy waves at me as it goes by, a foot beyond boat hook reach unless I want to risk a death or glory leap from the pulpit. It's March, the air's cold and the water's colder, so it isn't hard to resist that temptation.

I'm now stuck so hard nothing will move the boat until the tide comes in oh so slowly and lifts me out. By this time flubber's out of sight, amongst the moorings but I finally catch up with it a mile and a half from my mooring and, my first bit of luck, in open water so I can stop the boat to get a line onto the dinghy.

Investigation showed that the line, supplied with the (almost new) dinghy is so slippery that my anchor hitch with an extra half hitch has slipped and come undone in a few month's use. It now has an anchor hitch with two extra half hitches and the bitter end whipped to the standing part. It also gets inspected every time I go to the boat.

 

[JumbleDuck]

Now when I take inexperienced crew out for the first time I take her out effectively single handed as I have a set routine for that and if the crew are sat out of the way I only have to think for myself, which is hard enough at the best of times

I know just how you feel. Most of the time I sail alone or with a very young (keen and competent, but very young) crew member, so I am used to doing everything myself. When I do have a grown-up crew, it usually takes longer to explain what I want than to do it myself, and even if I do involve them the sort of thing you describe can easily happen. I prefer to say "Sit down, relax, have a choccie biccie and I'll find you something to do when it all calms down."