What's your biggest boating fail?!

[TheSailingKoala]

Admit it, you'd be lying if you said nothing has ever gone wrong when you're sailing. What mistakes have you made (or seen others make) that we can all learn from. Just interested as I feel I've had more than my fair share of accidents!

 

[William_H]

My most spectacular boo boo was when I went single handed sailing. (not often done) waiting for my son to take over the boat to take friends out. He was late and I decided after getting bored to tie up to the club jetty and use hose to clean deck. I just used some light rope to tie on at the bow. Unfortuneately the water from the hose got my bladder working and I made a quick dash to club toilets 50 m away. Got back to find boat had come adrift. With jib and main up and tiller unrestrained. She sailed away beautifully with no one on board. She decided to tack and then gybe such that at one stage she was racing towards the jetty where I stood only to veer way as if she was tormenting me. Fortunately a friend just returned form a trip on a similar sized sail boat and I got him to chase my boat. Not so much a chase as an ambush. As we passed at about 10 knots relative speed I leapt onto my boat. (don't know how I didn't injure myself badly). Within seconds all was well again. Except for the cheering from club balcony. ol'will

 

[David_cepi]

Having the running backstay caught on the leeward side when the boat gybe in 35 knots. Nearly brings the mast down. I have running backstays cause i have a staysail.

 

[Refueler]

After 55 odd yrs of boating ... list is too long !! I am sure more will be added before I go meet maker !!

Hit mid channel buoy when both of us watching Ferry coming out behind us ....

Chatting away mind in neutral - both of us beer in hand ... hit overhead power cable ... ruined top 15" of furler

Had pal sailing with me - Folly Inn ... mentioned to him that we would be letting go and with tide / wind - we would ferry glide of pontoon and clear of other boats ... I'm chatting to guys from other boat on pontoon ... one points and asks what my guy is doing .... ran down dock to just catch the end of mooring line ... he'd let all lines go !!

and it goes on ...

 

[Chiara’s slave]

On a windless day, arrived at Littlehampton later than expected. We ran aground on the bar. Fortunately, it being a Strider catamaran, this was relatively harmless, but immensely amusing for the thousands on the adjacent beaches, the amusement park and the harbour wall. We styled it out by having a G&T while the water rose.

 

[Stemar]

I forgot about Shrape Sands off Cowes.

I got coming alongside comprehensively wrong the other day. Even with wind and tide pushing me off, a twin engined cat shouldn't have had a problem, but...

Ah well, filler's cheap

 

[johnalison]

In 2010 we were approaching Norderney from the west in a westerly F6 and I decided to go in via the Dovetief channel. It was quite late in the evening and approaching dark, and also involve a gybe. This happened more suddenly than I had expected and I instinctively put my hand up to try and control it by grabbing the mainsheet, something I wouldn't normally dream of doing except in the lightest conditions. Somehow, the sheet got round my wrist, tore off my Casio watch and somewhat damaged my left hand. I had no time to recover as I managed to get the boat through the winding channel one-handed and in agony. The Casio lost its retaining rod-thingy, so I bought a cheap one in Norderney while I spent a day or two recovering My wife has never forgiven me for my carelessness but quite amazingly some months later she saw the tiny watch part lying in the boat's scuppers. It was undamaged and I was able to wear the Casio again.

 

[lustyd]

I got the tides right for the wrong date once. Ended in ripped spinnaker, knockdown, and a thoroughly unpleasant journey past Mull of Galloway. Two other people checked my working and agreed I was correct. None of us realised the date was wrong.

 

[Leighb]

Like most who have sailed for many years, but sadly no longer, it is difficult to know where to start.
An early learning experience was sailing our GP14 from Hickling dinghy park, coming back into the creek with a following wind I tried to round up to drop the main in the narrow creek. I had anticipated that it might not go well and asked my crew to get on the foredeck with the painter in case we didn’t quite make the turn. In fact we hit the bank at right angles and she was shot off the bow into a bed of stinging nettles. We learned to come in under jib only.

 

[Clancy Moped]

Dropping a heat exchanger on my foot from a Volvo Penta 20/40, the only consolation was my foot stopped damage to the boat, that and falling in off a crappy plank .

 

[Fr J Hackett]

Maybe the funniest, Sometime in the 70s I took a friends Folkboat to the Isles of Scilly and anchored in St Marys pool somewhere off the lifeboat station. The wind was due to strengthen and change direction so I decided it would be a good idea to lay a second anchor to take account of the change in direction. I dug out the rather large Fishermans anchor that he kept and having noticed a small rocky area deemed that would be a good place to set it. Rather than move the boat I decided to row the old Avon dinghy out drop the anchor the row back flaking the warp or rode, which consisted of I think 2 or 3 joined bits of rope, out behind me. All went well until I was just out of arms length reach of the bow when the rode went tight and no matter how hard I rowed I couldn't get( near enough to grab the boat to pass up the end of the rode to my wife who was in fits of laughter and despite me asking her to pass another warp. so that I could join another one on she went and fetched my camera to take a picture of me rode in hand trying to reach the bow of the boat. Eventually she passed me the warp which was joined on and although the wind strength didn't increase dramatically it did change direction and we swung onto the second anchor which fortunately held. She recountednted the tale to anyone that would listen and for many years I would have to listen to it being retold by her and others at any opportunity.

 

[Jonny A]

I can recall at least three involuntary gybes that still give me cold sweats, one of them with a very large and discerning audience...

 

[roaringgirl]

Take your pick:
Engine fire resulted in having to anchor under sail, in the dark in Chatham harbour, Union island, where none of us had ever been before.

Total rudder failure 300 miles out from Fiji.

Lost all 4 lower shrouds of the mainmast exiting Fakarava south pass.

Engine exhaust came free from hull. Discovered about an inch before the battery terminals got immersed, which would have resulted in the mid-Atlantic sinking of an 80ft ketch!

Snapped pole on rigging when a 55kt squall swung the wind through 90°

Didn't know to avoid convergence zones between French Polynesia and Samoa. Spent 36hrs surfing down 6m waves in 55kt gusts.

Anchored just outside a mooring field with a white anchor ball. While we were off the boat someone mistook it for a mooring and pulled it up. I returned to find our home anchored in the middle of the channel around the airport in Tahiti.

Hydrovane failure (misaligned steering head) caused accidental gybe that ripped the vang mounting out of the mast.

I could go on...

 

[Blueboatman]

It was a long time ago ..
I rammed a yacht amidships right on the rubbing strake, dragging anchor in the night . Big crash noise , musta been pretty frightening down below..
They all came on deck
Ahem
Naked
Turn torch off, reverse , anchor ignominiously
And … grovel

And in return I’ve been ( the boats been )banged a couple of times and once again ashore too, pretty solidly that time.

What can you do? Suck up the pain and make it good .
Hey ho

 

[Stingo]

My biggest fail was selling my boat.

 

[Stemar]

I sometimes think mine was buying one. I'd have been so much richer...

A mistake I hope never to repeat, now we've got a boat that should suit us until it's time to admit we're past it.

 

[ProDave]

All mine were in one day.

Went sailing in weather I thought was too rough, but my sailing partner assured me it was fine.

1) when tied up in the harbour we have this little bit of string that ties the boom to the backstay. You really don't want to find that silly bit of string is still tied to the backstay just after you have hoisted the main in said gale and can't let the main out. Then you find too much tension on the bit of string to untie it, and the only knife on the boat is hidden in the toolbox.

Lessons learned. That bit of string is now part of the mainsail cover and when the cover is removed so too is the bit of string. And the knife know hangs on a hook just inside the companionway.

2) We soon gave up sailing and headed back to the harbour. The OB had been working hard to get us out and then to get us back. 100 metres from the harbour entrance it ran out of fuel. We probably set a world record for deploying the anchor while we refuelled the OB.

Lesson learned, always check fuel before attempting a critical manoeuvre in a confined space.

 

[MisterBaxter]

I once misjudged the direction of the tidal flow and got swept way too close to the Wolves (submerged rocks near Flatholm and just as nasty as they sound...)
I was young and single handed in a Sonata at the time, in rather too much wind and rain, which was limiting visibility, but there's no excuse and I shudder to think about how close I came to disaster.

 

[DoubleEnder]

Exploding poo tank in Block Island. Surrounded by posh yachts and mobos all aghast at my stinking sewage covered pyjama dance.

Chasing my in-laws boat from Hong Kong to Macao, put up a kite to catch them, got the sheet round the prop and ended up being towed in by said in-laws….

 

[William_H]

In 2010 we were approaching Norderney from the west in a westerly F6 and I decided to go in via the Dovetief channel. It was quite late in the evening and approaching dark, and also involve a gybe. This happened more suddenly than I had expected and I instinctively put my hand up to try and control it by grabbing the mainsheet, something I wouldn't normally dream of doing except in the lightest conditions. Somehow, the sheet got round my wrist, tore off my Casio watch and somewhat damaged my left hand. I had no time to recover as I managed to get the boat through the winding channel one-handed and in agony. The Casio lost its retaining rod-thingy, so I bought a cheap one in Norderney while I spent a day or two recovering My wife has never forgiven me for my carelessness but quite amazingly some months later she saw the tiny watch part lying in the boat's scuppers. It was undamaged and I was able to wear the Casio again.
View attachment 155130

I have made up wrap around fabric cuff to go over my watch and band. A hole in the middle allows me to see the face. Seems to protect my (very cheap_) watch. Would recommend you do likewise as those little pins will not take a load. ol'will