funny/scary sunfish related incidents

i posted this thread just to see how bad a recent incident i saw/was in rated in the sunfish related incidents.
heres what happened. i was sailing on a sunfish with 4-5 children on board. I was at the helm and a veteran sunfish sailor (who owned the boat) was at the sail. when we launched, the veteran told me there was no way we were going to capsize. oh yeah, and this was my first day of sailing in the summer. we were operating with a old system rudder and gudgeon which was faulty. it would sometimes unlock and swim around, making the boat directionally uncontrollable temporarily. when we were on a run the rudder faulted, we accidentally jibed and then capsized with 5 children on board. some of the kids were first-timers so that was kind of scary for them. we got the boat back up but it blew over again and the gooseneck fitting slipped and the sail filled with water. i was on the centerboard with the veteran when he jumped off and fixed it and we got the boat back up and into shore wwith a ton of shivering kids

Funny story. But, I wonder, if those kids be “traumatized” so severely that they'll be like some of my women friends and HATE the idea of sailing. LOL.

If the adults display confidence and control and a sense of humor, while at the same time giving some recognition of the young ones' shock or surprise or perhaps initial panic, that might go a ways towards ameliorating any long lasting negative impressions of sailing.

Thanks for sharing this story. I'm sure you'll get a lot of good tales from initiating this thread, Boatfinder. I'll tell a non SF sailing tale in a second.

I grew up around water I was always in boats or swimming. BUT, for whatever reason, at the swimming lessons, I could never bring myself to jump or dive off the dock in "over my head" water to pass from one grade to another. People accommodated me like crazy, going to patient extremes like everyone getting on one side of the float to make it flush with the water surface. I'd want to jump off, but couldn't bring myself to do so, over and over again. (Later the Philip Roth short story of the kid, Ely, up on the roof, reminded me of this, for some reason.) A few summer later, my sisters and I were playing on my brother's raft in the cove and, with a life jacket on, I toppled off the deck of his raft/houseboat. I popped right up and it came to me, amid waves of giggles, that this was not a scary thing to do. So I made myself continue to jump off the raft, later without the life jacket. So that accidentally falling off the wooden raft, did what all the Red Cross and volunteer instructors and cajoling peers couldn't.

But, I seem to have a hard time finding women friends who like sailing. "Too tippy." "Scares me!" Geez. We are talking about a board boat or small dinghy with LIFE JACKETS. I like boats, especially small sailboats and board boats. If someone gives me a slip or deep water mooring and pays for the upkeep, I wouldn't refuse a 22' - 28 ft sloop. But I love being close to the water, so SF is great. I keep encountering men who are married to women (or have girlfriends) who don't care much for sailing, or any boating. There are guys/women whose kids don't give a hoot about sailing. This is sad and nearly maddening to me So, one thing I'd be sure to do is to let any young kid sailing, feel safe and comfortable -- PFD, adults with confidence, and so on. Then let the kid/s take the tiller as soon as they are ready. I was having fun with a young kid/neighbor and progressing. We'd go out in the Sunfish and sailing dinghy. He even went with me once to pick up a small sailboat. The last time we sailed together, I let him take the helm and we played "man overboard" (fetch the life cushion) and then he sailed back across the pond to the boat ramp. He loved it. Then one of his parents moved back closer to his life and that was that. Darn, I miss sailing with him, having him visit my husband and I for a while, cooking Thai food with him and so on.

STORY: One June in May. I had this little dinghy cat rigged sailboat. I got my father to go with me (we had a place on the salt water in Maine). Now, as a kid he'd made glue and paper canoe and used it. Then he was in the Merchant Marine (torpedoed twice on a tanker, the later time by the SEA WOLF himself (who was actually an intelligent and decent fellow and spoke English well; he let my father and his crewmen live.) Then my dad was in the Navy on a destroyer in the Pacific, seeing a lot of action. Later he bought an old Hampton hulled thing and fixed it up for a lobster boat, then build skiffs and prams. Back to the sailing: The sailing dinghy might have been a Turnabout (N10) or an MK Dinghy. We sailed a bit, and then I tied off at the haul-off for a few minutes to go fetch my mom. Dear Dad was relaxing, a beer (silly, duh) in his hand. But the dumb butt was tied to the haul off, the sail luffing, and the dagger board down and because the sail was flopping back and forth, he figured he'd just tether it to one spot. Oh, yeah. The sail filled with air and soon over he went in 53 degree F. salt water. My mom and I came out to see him foundering (or "floundering" in this case). We got him out of the chilly water (he'd lost his darn beer, of course). So funny. Scary for a while because, like a lot of people who worked on the water in the 1960’s, he wasn't all that great a swimmer or even comfortable in the water. One could say, STOOOPID, but he was a very bright fellow, a self-taught Ren man. None of us grew up sailing or with sailboats on beaches and docks. I got a summer kid to show me how to sail and have never looked back.

So, funny story, Boatfinder, but I have no idea how you got all those bodies on that SF. I do hope that you have not traumatized them so much that they will move to the DRY SIDE or the Dark side or the TUBE side.

Here's a story - not exactly funny, but somewhat scary for one of the parties involved. My wife enjoyed sailing with me in my SF until on a somewhat windy/rough day I lost hold of the tiller while coming about and we flipped. My wife then (re)discovered a childhood fear of being in the water away from land and suffered a panic attack - a surprise to both of us. We were at most 200 yds from shore, the water was warm, and we were wearing PFDs, so we weren't in any danger (it never seems as rough once in the water). However, the shore was all boulders and the wind was blowing that way, so I couldn't spend a lot of time trying to calm her down. She was almost hyperventilating, but I got her onto the centerboard. The boat wouldn't upright - the lower boom had slid down to the top of the mast, and I eventually had to lower the sail with it sideways (taking care that the mast didn't slip out). We got back aboard, raised sail, but after a short while decided it was best to call it a day. That was two years ago, and she's been out with me once since, so I essentially lost my primary sailing partner. Bummer.

Here's another - sort of funny in retrospect. My brother and I went out in 20 - 30 mph winds and had a great time. We had a small scare when the bridle pulled through one of its fittings, but since it had the middle loop and the other fitting took the jolt we kept control of the sail. All went well until it was time to put in to the dock. The wind was blowing straight from that direction, so the plan was to sail to within ~10 yards of the dock, head into the wind, drop sail, and paddle in. In trying to untie the halyard my brother accidently locked the mainsheet down (yes, I like locking cleats, and I still do). The boat starts going backwards, turns slightly, and over she went to the amusement of some people watching from the dock. We immediately set about righting the boat and it came up with ease. That is, until it was just about upright - then the upper boom snapped in two about 4 feet from the top end. To prevent the sail getting torn by the flailing boom we dropped sail. By the time we got everything squared away onboard the wind had blown us ~100 yards from shore. Out came the two paddles, but despite out best efforts we couldn't do better than hold our distance from shore. So my brother stood by the mast and held the upper boom as high as he could and with that much sail me managed to reach shore about a mile down the beach from the dock. The shore was boulders and concrete blocks, but was only about 3 feet deep and calm, being in the lee of the land. So we waded and towed the boat towards a sandy spot a couple of hundred yards along the shore. Partway there my brother got stung on the arms and legs by a jelly fish, so he exited the water and I finished towing the boat. Anyway, it ended okay - nobody seriously injured (my brother may disagree) except for the boat. I had to wait two months for a new spar to arrive.

Kevin Mc said:

The boat wouldn't upright - the lower boom had slid down to the top of the mast

Click to expand...

Exactly what happened to me

Need the halyard-tail vang.

These are some good stories here. Apparently you can submit your Sunfish stories on the Sunfish FB page to enter a contest to win a new boat:
https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Sunfish/128512110556705?sk=app_95936962634

bummer, my story is about a scorpion, and why I own a sunfish and not a scorpion. About a month ago my wife and i were sailing, I was sailing my son's Banshee, and my wife who is learning took one of our clubs scorpions. We sailed for a couple of hours but my wife staied out a bit after I came back and took down the banshee. When I was done storing the banshee I see that she is having a bit of trouble about a mile away from shore. I waited a bit and she still was having trouble comming back and so i asked a friend to go check on her. He came back and said she was in trouble and I should go help. By this time she was about 1.5 miles out, and someone lent me a kayak, so out I go. meanwhile a storm starts to make it's way in and waves start to come up. I made it to about 40 yards or so from her and a wave rolled my kayak. So now she is stuck and so am I . I am about 1.5 miles out and 1 mile from a small island, so I start pushing the kayak, which is completly full of water to the island, one hand on the kayak and the other on my padle which is stuck in the kayak to help me keep it upright. meanwhile anther friend goes to puck up my wife in a 25 foot catalina, and by the time he reaches her the scorpion is turtled. I made it to the island, and someone helped me back from there. It turns out the rudder on the scorpion had come unattached on the bottom part of the clip and she could not get it back on from where she was. truthfully the design leaves a bit to be desired, which is why I bought a SF last weekend not a scorpion!!!
Anyway everyone was fine. The self inflating lafe vests deffinitly work, and despite it all it was still a good day sailing. Cost for the day, 2 24 dollar co2 cartrigages, and one pair of Keen sandles. I lost one when pushing my kayak, as I took them off to be able to swim better....

Quite an adventure Cavi for you and your spouse; hope your next outing will be less eventful

and cheaper...

I guess I was surprised to see this thread still going. (I'm the one who stated that 2 problems above wouldn't have occurred if the halyard tail had been used for a primitive boom vang.) Anyhow, I recently had to be towed ashore because (1) my gaff spar filled up with water and , in 15+ mph the 'fish would'nt stay upright, AND, I hadn't cinched up my life jacket to give 3" or so advantage in grabbing the board. Many of these "problems" develop from not observing well-known precautions.