Having been out of sailing since late 80's and even then it was a hobie 14 i learned something very rough this weekend.
my wife and i had recently bought a Prindle 16 and this weekend i got to the lake before her and got it set up, sails up and eveyrthing ready. went up by some friends to hang out and wait til she got there. winds were up 20+ out of the NE and i had turned the boat into the wind and pulled it up on to the edge of beach.
she gets there and we are talking when all of a sudden i see my boat shift and the wind catches the jib and pulls it out of ankle deep water and it takes off....i made several mistakes, 1: don't have the jib hooked to the lines, they can get tangled on the crossbar of the tramp and cause the jib to fill with air. 2: don't wait until you are ready to go to untie the rudders. i hadn't undone them from how i had them to keep them up while on trailer. YOU CAN NOT untie the ropes while hanging on the side of a boat dragging across the lake 3: hadn't put the tiller back on for sailing it back in was done by the cross bar. THANKS Eric for saving my a$$ ! and sailing her back in because i was worn out and pretty shaken up!
but i learned, i will get a roller for the jib before next year, i will have a different system for tieing the rudders up and i will finish getting boat ready as in tiller installed before my wife gets there.
so to the newbies, i got lucky and the boat almost crashed into rocks but luckliy due to my last grasp efforts once across the cove when my feet hit sand again i got hold of mainsheet which turned out to be good because it caused the boat to go over 2 feet from the rocks and the mast/sails landed on a tree. while it did puncture the sail, no other damage to hulls or boat. I got lucky...although i did earnt he DA award.

Sounds like I missed quite a day..

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Rob
OKC
Pile of Nacra parts..
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Perhaps a small sand anchor may also be a useful thing to just keep on the beach?

kingwilly

Perhaps a small sand anchor may also be a useful thing to just keep on the beach?

i am a fan of anchors, i sail with one at all times, but...

i really don't care for people leaving an anchor on the water line of a beach. many people will put a float of some kind on the line, but not the actual anchor.. this leaves an anchor somewhere in a 30?'-70'? area near that float.

on our beach, there is only a few 100' of beachfront for us to park our cars with trailors on them.. so when someone leaves an anchor somewhere near the beach.. its an accident waiting to happen to some poor guy who sails over that anchor if the tide has gone out

I tangled once in an achor line and fouled my rudder...couldn't stop, couldn't turn...ran my spin pole right into a nearby boat and put a nice scratch on it...very suprised I didn't puncture it. It was a very hectic 60 seconds.

turtlecat

I tangled once in an achor line and fouled my rudder...couldn't stop, couldn't turn...ran my spin pole right into a nearby boat and put a nice scratch on it...very suprised I didn't puncture it. It was a very hectic 60 seconds.

Yikes! glad it wasn't my boat you hit~! :)

i was asked to make sure i had a pole end on my spinpole (is required in the f18 rules) because they will easily put a cookie hole in just about anything you ram.

Yep, it wasn't pretty. The line was under water near the beach and when I was launching it got me. Of course it took a few precious seconds to realize what was happening before I could react - in a pretty helpless manner. I basically ran up the hull to the very front and did my best to lessen the impact - probably the only reason why the spin pole didn't puncture. It sounds bad, but the boat that was hit (a monosailer) was soo ratty that I don't think they would have noticed...



edited by: turtlecat, Sep 16, 2010 - 06:43 PM