What's the Most Embarassing Thing to Have Happened On Your Boat When Racing

[savageseadog]

Mine was the spinnaker being hoisted clew to halyard and sheet to head at a major regatta. I was praying the photographers didn't get the shot.
On an Irish Sea offshore race one of our club boats followed a retiree for about 40 miles West instead of going to the mark about 40 miles North.

 

[flaming]

Mine was the spinnaker being hoisted clew to halyard and sheet to head at a major regatta. I was praying the photographers didn't get the shot.

Done that. At the IRC nationals!

Have done the going to the wrong mark thing a few times too. Most recently without the owner and normal tactician on board we set off for a 3rd lap when well in the lead. It was a 2 lap race.

A new pit person went to drop the kite at the first leeward mark and dropped the main by mistake.

On the first day of cowes week we hit the start in good shape, and the jib trimmer (clearly full of adrenaline) sheeted in and jumped on the rail - ripping the stantion from it's base as he did. No hiking on that tack for the rest of the week!

When fixing that stantion on the next leg, we dropped the big ball of line being used to lash it back together overboard, resulting in us unravelling 200m of line directly into the path of the following boats. Took us 10 minutes to pull it all back onboard, finishing off just before we had to go round a mark! How we failed to hook anyone I'll never know.

On a J I used to sail on the skipper misjudged a cross downwind and we wiped the bowsprit out on the back of another boat. Crossing tacks with the J-UK dealer on the next leg the call is clearly heard "That is not a warranty issue..." No hiding from that one!

 

[adwuk]

Done the spinnaker sideways one as well. I was foredeck, but cried sabotage

Having been lent an International One Design by a very generous Clyde based owner for a weekend, we proceeded to drop the kite after a downwind leg, only to have it set perfectly about 100 feet away from the boat - in front of the owner, who was racing one of his other IoDs.

After racing dinghies for most of the previous year, took the helm of a First 40.7 and decided to tack and lee bow another 40.7 on the first windward leg. They don't track as quickly as I remember, but the Italian language coming from the other boat was impressive! They tacked away in time fortunately while we did our turns.

 

[anoccasionalyachtsman]

My Cowes Week starts had been improving all week, and as we crossed the line the finely-honed crack crew were all either heads down or looking for clear lanes as a good team do. They congratulated me on being clear ahead, and as we heard the second gun I recall commenting that some tosser was over the line, in the full knowledge that it couldn't be us, not with our bowman - and I'd seen the transit some moments after the gun with my own eyes.

I can only say that an enormous hangover was probably the reason that we were going East as the fleet went West.

 

[Foolish Muse]

At the start of the 130nm Southern Straits race in Vancouver, in no wind. We were on the opposite end of the long starting line from all the other boats. The current was supposed to be against us, but by some freak of the currents, and by comparing the boat compass against my friends GPS, it was obvious that we were getting a 10 degree lift. We drifted like this for 90 minutes until I took his GPS in hand and figured out that he had it set to True North, instead of Magnetic North. (there is a 20 deg difference out here). So we were actually getting a 10 degree knock.

 

[Woodlouse]

Racing a brand new and imperfectly set up 12.5 square metre, someone had put a carabiner on the spin halyard in leu of a talysker or other snap shackle. The kite went up and clipped its self to the cap shrouds above the spreaders. At the end of the leg we had to retire, wrap the kite around the rig and sail back into harbour to go alongside a much bigger rig so we could go up and detach it.

We tied the fecker on for the next race.

 

[mrming]

Last year we did race one of our club's regatta and were strangely off the pace upwind, unable to point and making a lot of leeway. Fiddled with everything but to no avail.

We have a swing keel and had been on the scrubbing trolley the day before. Approaching the finish I decided to get someone just to pop downstairs and check... Sure enough we'd done the whole race with the keel up. Sigh.

 

[Birdseye]

Mine was the spinnaker being hoisted clew to halyard and sheet to head at a major regatta. I was praying the photographers didn't get the shot.

Snap!.

Rounding a mark and finding another competitor rounding in the opposite direction at the same time.

I dont know whether it would count as embarrassing or not, but the guy on the spinny on my boat had a heart attack half way down the last leg. He denied it was a heart attack so we continued to the finish. The embarrassing thing is that we still dint win.

 

[Ceirwan]

Sideways spinnaker, and I was on foredeck. Oops!

They say a picture says a thousand words...

 

[Daydream believer]

Removed the pulpit & the forehatch from the top of the cabin off a Stella named Shimmer at the start of one Burnham week
Only saving grace was that a Stella owner ( Quasar) who smirked about it managed to hook his mainsheet over Shimmers pushpit on the last day & ripped that off as well. Needless to say one Ernie Racham, Shimmers owner, was well p..ssed off

 

[Birdseye]

Approaching a downwind mark not too far off a shallow area, we had two smaller boats in front running roughly parallel in their own little fight. They shouldnt have been in front but that was courtesy of a cock up with the spinny. Anyway their little fight slowed them down and I suddenly found myself in an awkward situation going maybe 3kn faster, just 50 yds behind, shallows off to stbd and turning to port would miss the mark. You guessed it, there seemed to be maybe just a hull width between the two so I went for it. Literally no more than two foot spare on either side when we got there. You have never seen two skippers so surprised or indeed so unified in outrage and protest. The one on the inside turned to round the mark pivotted round his keel and his stern hit us. The one on the outside concentrated on my parentage or lack of it. Both hoisted little red flags

My own fault. The excitement of close quarters racing gets to me. I did my turns.