Steve Brockwell
New Member
I've heard that there are two types of sailors - those that have capsized and those that will. On Saturday I moved to the "been there done that" - capsized category.
Here in southwest Oklahoma I have sailed 4 times successfully on a fairly shallow lake with lots of dead trees. On Saturday at 1050 in the morning just as I was raising the main a gust of wind hit and pushed my boat over. Reaching for my cell phone I noticed that it was full of water (duh) and my watch had stopped at 1050.
Unhooking the forestay so the mast could be lowered allowed the boat to get upsided down but it chewed the teak up (no sweat) twisted the base of the mast a little (I think its fixable) and allowed me to start putting the sail back into the cuddy cabin. This 53 year old, overweight grandfather starting laughing and then got serious in flipping the boat back upright. I allowed the forepeak or cuddy to fill with water and that made a lousy day.
After flipping the boat upright I had to take a piece of rope and fashion a small rope loop and tie it inside the boat to allow me to get back inside (I'll do that before next time). My small cooler, hat and one paddle floated away. Recovered the cooler and the paddle later.
After seeing that I couldn't raise the mast again and sail home I started bailing and paddling. A capri can hold over a million gallons of lake water. Har har. The wind and the waves pushed me in a half hour over a half mile away on the shore where I was able to start towing the boat through the mud and trees along the shore. Four and a half hours later I got to the boat ramp and was able to get the boat with only a half million gallons of water onto the trailer. As I waited for the boat to drain I slowly moved up the boat ramp when all of a sudden the pin on my tilting trailer popped out and the transom of the boat dragged for about 6 feet opening up a crack in the bottom of the transom that I'll have to fix now.
After using the last of my strength to tie the boat onto the trailer and stow the gear I started home. In all that time there was not one other human in sight.
I did many things wrong to start with and I'll have to do some fiberglass and aluminum (mast) work but I will sail again.
Don't do what I did. Learn from this one.
Steve
..... should I just have reading as a hobby? ..... NAH!! sailing is more fun!!
Here in southwest Oklahoma I have sailed 4 times successfully on a fairly shallow lake with lots of dead trees. On Saturday at 1050 in the morning just as I was raising the main a gust of wind hit and pushed my boat over. Reaching for my cell phone I noticed that it was full of water (duh) and my watch had stopped at 1050.
Unhooking the forestay so the mast could be lowered allowed the boat to get upsided down but it chewed the teak up (no sweat) twisted the base of the mast a little (I think its fixable) and allowed me to start putting the sail back into the cuddy cabin. This 53 year old, overweight grandfather starting laughing and then got serious in flipping the boat back upright. I allowed the forepeak or cuddy to fill with water and that made a lousy day.
After flipping the boat upright I had to take a piece of rope and fashion a small rope loop and tie it inside the boat to allow me to get back inside (I'll do that before next time). My small cooler, hat and one paddle floated away. Recovered the cooler and the paddle later.
After seeing that I couldn't raise the mast again and sail home I started bailing and paddling. A capri can hold over a million gallons of lake water. Har har. The wind and the waves pushed me in a half hour over a half mile away on the shore where I was able to start towing the boat through the mud and trees along the shore. Four and a half hours later I got to the boat ramp and was able to get the boat with only a half million gallons of water onto the trailer. As I waited for the boat to drain I slowly moved up the boat ramp when all of a sudden the pin on my tilting trailer popped out and the transom of the boat dragged for about 6 feet opening up a crack in the bottom of the transom that I'll have to fix now.
After using the last of my strength to tie the boat onto the trailer and stow the gear I started home. In all that time there was not one other human in sight.
I did many things wrong to start with and I'll have to do some fiberglass and aluminum (mast) work but I will sail again.
Don't do what I did. Learn from this one.
Steve
..... should I just have reading as a hobby? ..... NAH!! sailing is more fun!!