What put you in trouble at sea and how did you deal with it.

[Seastoke]

We were 30NM from IOM on the way to Wales when the bilge alarms blasted out , I went down off the fly opened the lazerette jumped down where there was water I opened the door into the engine room and bang I was hit by a blast of water . I could not see nothing but water then I felt toward the engine and realised the 4 inch exhaust pipe had come . So I jumped up and tuned off both engines off . So we were drifting with pumps slowly clearing the water and I was n the engine room putting pipe back on , and trying to tighten the clips but we were rocking bad and I banged my head whilst being sick everywhere . Any way water gone engines restarted and set off for Wales after. 2hour delay . What amazed me is how you go strait in to survival mode and deal with what’s in front of you, as fly said preparations are crucial .

 

[oldgit]

Losing a engine due to buying crap fuel.
Very long creep home with the remaining engine faltering all the time.

Arrived back at 03.00
A lesson learnt and never forgotton.

 

[BlueJasper]

Coming out of Chichester on an ebb tide against a southerly F5. Everything was breaking, missus was so scared that she wanted to jump off by Hayling, so I let her. Never seen here since.

 

[Stingo]

Coming out of Chichester on an ebb tide against a southerly F5. Everything was breaking, missus was so scared that she wanted to jump off by Hayling, so I let her. Never seen here since.

A strange name for SWMBO, but I'll go with it

 

[Montemar]

St Albans head. A long battle against big waves which seemed to go on and on. Put my wife off sailing. But not me!

 

[Jerbro]

St Albans head. A long battle against big waves which seemed to go on and on. Put my wife off sailing. But not me!

+1 for St Albans Head.. it was one of our first trips as a young family…properly terrifying ..I learned the importance of passage planning, even for short trips..

 

[Seastoke]

+1 for St Albans Head.. it was one of our first trips as a young family…properly terrifying ..I learned the importance of passage planning, even for short trips..

Where is it

 

[kawasake]

The first time I got frightened at Sea was when I went on Seastokes boat!

I knew something was gonna go wrong
I never went again
Reading the above
I know now I did the right thing

 

[Boathook]

Where is it

Between Poole and Weymouth.

Lost my steering there a few years back whilst doing the inshore passage. Had to deploy the emergency steering which worked well. Crew carried on with the sailing whilst I repaired the main steering. 40 plus minutes of being worried about all the rocks !

 

[SC35]

Coming out of Chichester on an ebb tide against a southerly F5. Everything was breaking, missus was so scared that she wanted to jump off by Hayling, so I let her. Never seen here since.

Coming IN to Chichester Harbour on an ebb tide with an F5 Southerly can be quite fun - I think over the years I have gradually nailed it in terms of making an 8000kg surfboard do what I want it to do.

Coming OUT of Chichester Harbour in similar conditions is an entirely different prospect. I have tried it several times, and the conclusion is that I would rather be on the sofa watching an old film or mowing the lawn.

 

[Momac]

Losing a engine due to buying crap fuel.
Very long creep home with the remaining engine faltering all the time.

Arrived back at 03.00
A lesson learnt and never forgotton.

What was the lesson? Did you know the fuel was crap before you put it in the boat tanks?
Or perhaps the lesson is always to go with a morning tide in case of issues?

 

[Seastoke]

The first time I got frightened at Sea was when I went on Seastokes boat!

I knew something was gonna go wrong
I never went again
Reading the above
I know now I did the right thing

I remember it well , first mate wanted you tipped overboard but the pollution would have been devastating .

 

[Forty_Two]

Fan belt parted 10m south of Portland Bill back in the 80's. This was on the original Lehman engines. Bad time to discover you have to part drain hot coolant to remove a hose to thread new belt on

From then on always had a spare threaded on tyraped out of the way. Never happened again obviously

 

[stelican]

On delivery trip to Jersey approx 30 M of Alderney very thick fog came down,
Ships were monitoring smaller vessels on radar calling them i.e vessel at position lat --- and long--- and advising to Maintain course and headings and they would avoid small vessel. approx 10 minutes later oil pressure warning light came on inspected engine and oil had blown out through cooling system pressure cap.
Put 4 gallons of oil in engine and proceeded, very soon oil pressure alarm again (same engine) oil blown out again.
proceeded on 1 engine and came out of fog opposite Sark.
Engine MAN 1100hp inspected at St Helier and fault traced to oil cooler which was replaced quite promptly.

 

[dave1dpc]

Running back home to Southampton from St. Peterport guernsey in thick fog. Just south of alderney mate shouted out the was a big whale front starboard. We altered course slightly only to spot rocks just below the surface. PS no sat nav.in the early eighties just a nul. meter which was picking up the signal from alderney airport. Good news we had plenty of water to wash our underwear!

 

[stelican]

Running back home to Southampton from St. Peterport guernsey in thick fog. Just south of alderney mate shouted out the was a big whale front starboard. We altered course slightly only to spot rocks just below the surface. PS no sat nav.in the early eighties just a nul. meter which was picking up the signal from alderney airport. Good news we had plenty of water to wash our underwear!

Blimey. Shit happens

 

[jbweston]

We were motoring through an intricate passage on the Swedish west coast. 1.8m draft. The twists and turns were well marked with proper marks - reds and greens. At one point there was one of those rusty metal posts with a non-standard topmark that you sometimes see in Sweden. When there's time often the way to work out which side to pass is cross check with the plotter or the chart. There wasn't time before it was on us and it 'seemed obvious' - so we took the obvious side.

As we went past it I could see the weed on both sides of the cockpit. We'd gone the wrong side of it, but had cleared the rock. Phew! A minute or so later we heard a loud bump and the rattle of rigging against a mast behind us. There was a yacht about the same size as us that was following us up the channel, and had followed us past the wrong side of the post. They had come to a sudden stop when hitting the rock.

We looked back and to use a non-nautical expression the other yacht was ricocheting backwards and shaking. While we couldn't make out which language the skipper was using to address his crew it was obvious that he was offering his uninvited opinion as to their parentage, their level of competence and how much he enjoyed sailing with them.

Happily the other yacht wasn't showing any signs of being in distress. They had a second attempt at passing the post, this time successfully on the correct side. I do wonder if the skipper was cursing 'the stupid English navigators' whom he or his helmsman had though it safe to follow.

I think we had a lucky escape. Lesson learned: If in doubt about a mark, don't guess - go astern pronto and take the time to check the chart.

 

[oldgit]

What was the lesson? Did you know the fuel was crap before you put it in the boat tanks?
Or perhaps the lesson is always to go with a morning tide in case of issues?

Always make sure your supplier of fuel has impeccable standards.
Came a cropper in a twin petrol petrol boat due to a fair proportion of a tank top up being H2O.
Filled at a non tidal marina on the upper Medway, the boat conked out off Whitstable,towed back in by a passing Dutch yacht.

 

[Momac]

Always make sure your supplier of fuel has impeccable standards.

There is one marina I avoid buying diesel as they have a history of issues and they are consistently expensive.
But really there are not too many other choices so there is always a possibility of requiring fuel from any one of the few available sources.

Probably the best source supplies a fishing fleet and the next best source supplies commercial vessels so their turnover of fuel is reassuringly rapid.
I tend to delay fuelling at some sources until as late as possible in the spring . These are the marinas that probably sell little fuel over the winter.

 

[DougOut]

My experience seems almost trivial. I was taking our boat to Guernsey on our own for the first time. Everything went swimmingly until I decided to check our position on the chart. Opened the chart and started to fold to the correct section when...whoosh the wind ripped it out of my hands and into the sea
So here we were approaching some of the most hazardous waters I ever been to. All I was left with was a Motorboats and Yachting with a cruise report on the area. Still we made it successfully but it was quite a sphincter twitching couple of hours