A story with a moral

hmiller

Member
Recently I had noticed that the metal rudder stop on the back of my boat was bent in the wrong direction, so I bent it back to it’s approximate position and promptly forgot about it.

After Monday’s races (I won 4 out of 5 – if anyone is interested), while waiting for the ramp to clear, I was beating back and forth in the stiffening breezes. It was a great afternoon and the winds were picking up nicely. At some point about mid way between the ramp and the far shore, the boat flipped. Without missing a beat, I was over the back side and onto the centerboard. As the boat came up, I noticed the rudder/tiller/extension assembly was off and wrapped around the traveler. Rather than swimming around and fixing the rudder, I went ahead and righted the boat. As the boat came up, I reached over, grabbed the extension and thought I was golden. That’s when I realized that the extension had separated from the rudder/tiller assembly (I have no idea how that happened.) It was a matter of seconds and the rudder was gone.

Of course the wind was blowing directly away from the ramp and it was very apparent that there was no way I was going to be able to sail in the direction of the ramp side shore.

A family on a pontoon boat, out for a joy ride, was watching from a short distance away. After I waved with my two hands over my head, they finally realized that I was in trouble, not just waving “hi” and motored over. They were happy to tow me back to the ramp (even took pictures from the back of their boat.)

Moral of the story: Check your equipment very carefully before every sail, and be very careful before you sail by yourself – it might be a long walk home.
 
Re: A stroy with a moral

A family on a pontoon boat, out for a joy ride, was watching from a short distance away. After I waved with my two hands over my head, they finally realized that I was in trouble, not just waving “hi” and motored over. They were happy to tow me back to the ramp (even took pictures from the back of their boat.)

This is good news. The last time I used the international signal for distress, the guy in the boat stopped, looked at me and promptly motored the other way back to shore, pulled his boat up the beach got in his car and went home.

Obviously I survived that incident. Luckily I never saw his face because I can't guarantee he would if I had.
 
It's encouraging to see that there are still some people out there willing to lend their fellow seafarers a necessary hand in times of strife in a world that is increasingly becoming too self involved.

Recently I was out sailing with a friend and we arrived back to the club around 6:30pm and pulled our Laser’s up onto the beach (gently!) while we collected our dollies. As everyone else enjoyed their beers on the outdoor patio or continued to lie on the beach, my friends Laser got picked up by a wave and started drifting away. By the time we arrived back with dollies in tow his $5,000 Laser was drifting downwind quickly towards a rock groyne while the self involved people sat there laughing!?!?! So my friend sprinted along the beach towards the groyne whilst I threaded my mainsheet, stuck my rudder and tiller back on and started sailing towards his boat. Fortunately the wind was kind and pushed his Laser away from the rocks and out into the open harbor. He then jumped in the water, I picked him up and we sailed over to his Laser which managed to escape the ordeal unscathed.

While I was happy to have helped save the Laser I was pretty annoyed at the people on the beach who did nothing and watched as it drifted away.

Flash forward to this past Sunday and I was out with another friend on a Hobie 18’. We managed to capsize it in the middle of the harbor and were having a devil of a time getting it upright. About five minutes into the energy sapping ordeal along comes a Police patrol boat out on the prowl for nautical drink drivers. They checked that we were OK and I asked if they would mind lifting the mast tip a few feet out of the water which they happily obliged. Within a matter of seconds the boat was upright and we shouted our thanks and appreciation to the Police who had gone out of the way to help us.

So I guess what goes around comes around and for those people who stand by and ignore others in need of assistance karma can be a killer……
 
Ya thanks to all the good samaratans out there. Just this weekend my seadoo broke down in the middle of the lake and within a minute a family on a pontoon boat towed me back to my lake house. Thanks to all those people out there who do the right thing, I can only hope to return the favor someday. On the ocean the police are great but lake patrol suck they are horabal. The ones at my lake don't even help out poeple. I watched a guy breakdown and, he tried to get lake patrols attention and the drove the other way even though they saw him. If they can notice if we have the right registration or not or if we have enough life jackets. The least they can do is help people. I know i'm being general but it seems like all the lake patrol i've came across are renta cops with nice boats and guns who don't give a S#$t about people in need but worry about filling there ticket quotas.
 
Of course the wind was blowing directly away from the ramp and it was very apparent that there was no way I was going to be able to sail in the direction of the ramp side shore.

At the risk of being a complete smartass - many years ago I used to help as a race instructor at a local sailing school. They required me to take an RYA Advanced Sailing Certificate, which, at that time, specified that you must sail a triangular course with no rudder. As the test was to be conducted in-house I elected to undertake it in a 420, the Boss had other ideas and insited I do it in a Laser 1. I did complete the task(eventually) in a Force 2 - 3 and actually it was sailing the run that was the most challenging. I think the Boss was a bit miffed that his 'joke' failed so then suggested that I complete the next element - a triangle without centreboard also in a Laser - I refused!
 
I'm currious to know how its done? I had trouble getting the boat to point in the general direction I wanted to go.
 
My coach had me try to sail with rudder. Coming from upwind, its not that hard to turn around and go downwind, but the second you star going DW, the boat turns. Yeah, how do you do it?
 
my coach said it's all about were you are on your boat. As soon as you loose your rudder the boat is like a giant windsurging board. were your wait is on the boat determines what way you go,
 
The basics are simple - on any point of sailing the hull alone will tend to go straight when dead upright and turn towards the high side when heeled. Thus head up when heeled to leeward and bear away when heeled to windward (as in roll tack - see rooster guide http://www.roostersailing.com/merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=tack&Store_Code=1 ). You can aid this process by moving your weight fore and aft to dig the bow or stern in to help the turn. Secondly on a una rig in all points of sailing sheeting in will tend to make the boat head up and sheeting out will tend to make it bear away. Down wind we can still steer a bit from the hull but most of the steering on a dead run is heeling the boat so that the centre of effort of the sail is over the centre of lateral resistance of the hull. You can use a combination of these turning moments to steer a dead straight course or turn as you want to.

In practice most of us can get all the forces in balance for a relatively short period of time but frequently we lose balance and the boat turns in all sorts of interesting directions and we then have to laboriously start again.

Of course in a 2 sailed boat the exercise is much easier - smartass time again - one of my proudest memories is sailing a 5o5 back up a crowded estuary in force 5+ after the rudder blade had snapped clean off as it emerged from the stock. We only had one capsize amongst a number of involuntary tacks. In fact the only picture we have of the day was taken by another club member (racing had been cancelled due to the high wind) who was unaware that we had lost the entire rudder and he had been watching us for 5 minutes or so. Bizarrely the picture shows me holding the tiller extension as normal. It appears that I had just inadvertently followed my normal routine and held the useless tiller for most of the 15 minute sail back up our harbour. We also learned that if yo bore off very suddenly in a strong wind and just let the spin speed built up the boat will gybe quite painlessly as the speed the boat is turning stops the force build up when the boom comes across - very usefull for high wind penalty turns - see you guys spinning on Sailx!
 
Best good samaratian story I have came from last weekend, was so windy normal club racing was canceled (force 7) so everyone rigged up a couple of lasers and were taking it in turns doing reachs across the front of the club house. After a while someone else went out and got into trouble capsized and was drifting into shore between the 2 pontoons we have (no beach just concrete wall). So Richard Stenhouse (anyone follwing musto skiffs will know him) wearing his normal clothes dives off one of the pontoons swims out to the guy, helps him right the boat and sails it back in with him. They get back to shore and Richard dosnt need to buy a drink for the rest of the day, makes me feel good about the atmosphere down at my club.
 
It was a matter of seconds and the rudder was gone.

Good story, and as one sails on a lake with my first rudder-tiller-extension deep on the murky bottom below me, I can certainly relate. This is definatly one of the things I triple-check when rigging my boat.
 

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