I read this and couldn't help but laugh, although it was a very dangerous situation. This is posted in the article section....



Adventures of a Newbie
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I recently purchased a Hobie 18 and it took me over three months to re-rig everything and also learned how to properly put it together. I have never owned or even sailed a catamaran before and I quickly found that documentation on the web is scarce on how to properly setup and sail one.
With a lot of hard work and dedication I finally have the boat ready to sail. I decide to take it out on its madden voyage in Lake Pontchartrain. There is no beach access to the lake so I decide to launch from a local boat launch. This seems like an easy task, except that the dock has two levees that stretch out into the water about 200 yards on each side. The lane is only about 100 yards wide and to make matters worse, there is another levee at the end that forces you to make a sharp right turn that is only 50 yards wide. It essentially is shaped like a L.

This is the first time I have ever tried to launch from a dock. I quickly realize that I need bumpers on the hull to keep the dock from beating the hell out of it. I finally get the sails up and the boat in position and we jump on. I zig zag back and forth to get out of the channel and into open water.

Once free of the small channel of the dock, I can relax. We quickly launch the jib and away we go. The wind is pretty good and we are able to make good progress. After about three hours we are feeling confident and we see a buoy a long ways out??..I tell my girl friend at the time, ?hey, let?s sail out there around that buoy???..so we are on our way. When we got close I laided back on the tramp not paying attention and suddenly the wind gets on the wrong side the sail and before you know it, all I see is the boat turning over. I only have time to say ?HOLD ON? and splash!!!!!!!!!!!

One minute I am on the boat, the next I am under the water. One of my biggest fears is that I will fall off and the boat will leave me, so I hold on to the main with a death grip. I quickly pop up and try to make sense out of where I am and what happened to the boat. I see that it is turned over, so I call out to my girl friend to see if she is ok. She calls back to me and I find that she is about 50 feet behind me and neither of us have our life jackets on. She shouts out to me that she has lost her glasses??.and I reply back that we have bigger problems. Luckily she was not injured and could swim back to the boat to put her life jacket on. Since this was the first time I have sailed this boat, I have very limited knowledge of how to right it. I have seen video clips on youtube, but I never tried it.

We both are now standing on the boat wondering what to do. I remember seeing something about tying a rope to the dolphin striker that goes across the pontoon. So I quickly find a rope and tie it off. I then lean back, however the boat does not move. I then tell my girl friend to lean on me and hold on. Slowly the boat starts to move and It looks like the boat is going to land on top of us. My girl friends eyes got as big as hub caps and I told her it was ok, just hold on and grab the dolphin striker just as soon as you hit the water. The boat splashes down and we both grab the dolphin striker, however no one told me I was suppose to disconnect the main sail and lower the jib. Just as soon as the boat hits the water it takes off. She and I are holding on to the bottom of the boat while being dragged. I quickly pull myself up on the front of the boat and try to get control, but I cannot figure out what to do. Mean while my girl friend is still under the boat dragging away. I tell her to work her way back to the back of the boat where it was lower and she could pull herself up. She manages to get to the back of the boat, but was not strong enough to pull herself up while being dragged. By now my adrenaline is kicked in so I grab her by the back of the paints and pick her completely out of the water and drop her on the tramp. It happened so fast that she did not know what to do.

Once she was on board I sat down and tried to figure out what to do. I was not aware that I was suppose to turn the boat up wind to stop, but I quickly figured it out. Once we were stopped we started to look around and determine what we lost. I immediately realize that my crocks were gone.??and she lost her glasses??..I also lost my paddle??and a few other things that were not tied down. After a few minutes to calm down and catch our breath, I then started to sail around in circles to find my lost crock but then my girl friend ask me what I was doing and when she realized that I was looking for my crock instead of heading back to the dock, she quickly chewed my ***** and said let?s get home NOW!

Every time we sail by buoy ?G? we always laugh. I now jokingly called it ?Mr G? because he and I have had several run ins since then. I think it is cursed so I try my best to avoid it.
Note: Thanks delaunhe for sharing your experiences, we've all been there, so keep at it!

mma600psi

I read this and couldn't help but laugh, although it was a very dangerous situation. This is posted in the article section....

mma600psi,

I was surprised to find that you profile does not list "pulling the wings off flies" as one of your hobbies.

We've all got stories like that, I have a bunch! It was submitted and I posted it to show how mistakes add up and so that beachcat sailors out there don't think they are the only ones who ever had a really bad day.

But in the end I still agree that "A bad day of sailing is better than a good day at work!".


--
Damon Linkous
1992 Hobie 18
Memphis, TN

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This is a great example why an active place like this is so important and even why relative new comers need to share thier experiences (the older guys get tired of answering slight variations on the same questions over and over).

I asked a million questions last year when I got back into sailing, some of which I now think are quite silly. In the end it is better to ask a silly question and know the answer than to not know.

A lot of the advice I got on here and locally made my first flip a fun experience instead of a big deal. I figured out I didn't need any fancy mast floats or righting systems, just a rope tied to the mast and thrown over the top hull worked great (as long as you uncleated the main and jib). That in turn gave me the confidence to push my boat and go fast.

It's easy to forget how scary sailing can be when you are just starting out it is a very different experience than just about anything else. The boat moves up and down with gusts, the boom swings all over sometimes violently (especially when jibing), there are no brakes on the damn thing and if your 'crew' is your wife and she doesn't know what to pull, how to uncleat ropes and just freezes up when things start to go awry, well things can get out of hand in short order.

Seeing stories like these puts things into perspective and lets guys like me learn without going though the experience ourselves.

--
Dave Bonin
1981 Nacra 5.2 "Lucile"
1986 Nacra 5.7 "Belle"
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
--

I like the line "however no one told me I was suppose to disconnect the main sail and lower the jib."

I would have to reflect what a very seasoned Capitan would say when he taught classes

"the 6th rule of tanker-men is you are responsible for your own entertainment"

lots of lessons here... i think the most important one we should all walk away with is....



"crocks kill cats"



edited by: andrewscott, May 03, 2010 - 03:40 PM

I agree with Andrew. Just say no to Crocks. NO!!!

sort of completely unrelated

as a new zealander who likes skiing i have driven on snow many times

once in australia with a young australian skier we were driving down the from the ski field and the ski field road was covered in fresh snow, (no chains, very old, rear wheel drive car)

snow is pretty rare in australia so though my friend had skied often he hadn't driven in fresh snow before

he was nervous about coming down the narrow, twisting mountain road on snow and asked me to drive

no, no, i said, you drive, if you like skiing you need to know how to drive on snow and ice

so down the hill we go, big fat flakes of snow are still falling and the road is becoming well covered

1st rule, drive 1 gear lower than you think you should

so if you would normally come down this hill in 3rd gear, today we come down in 2nd

we drive down the road and he gets used to the whining engine and different accelerator response...

we start having a few little slips at the corners as he gets used to the throttle and goes back to using the brakes and uses too much throttle on corner exits

2nd rule, imagine there are eggs between your foot and the accelerator and brake pedals. all foot/pedal movements must be slow and gentle enough that the eggs don't break

he quickly absorbs this new bit of info and is now driving much smoother and faster

in fact he starts to purposely drift the back of the car out on exits

3rd rule, don,t get cocky!

you know this is a lot of fun he says as the back of the car drifts out a bit wider than before and he holds the wheel crossed up

and......................

drops the back of the car into the now completely blanketed culvert on the side of the road

we sit there a bit in the nice warm car with the rear wheel spinning in the air, not going anywhere as night falls

what's the 3rd rule, i said?

don't get cocky, he replies quietly!





edited by: erice, May 05, 2010 - 08:13 AM