Laser stories

O0laserO0

New Member
This is just a general post for stories. Anyone and everyone post your best, worst, funniest, least funniest laser stories here.:D I dont have any yet because I just got into laser sailing so post yours! :)
It will give all of us something to read during the winter months.
 
This summer at the ISC regatta I was comming in after races. I saw that the ramp was packed so I headed to the beach. I jumped of the boat and expected it to be shallllow but I shot down. It was realy cold and I had already takin my life jacket off. When I came up to the surface i looked up and i saw my laser capcising and my mast hit me in the head. I came up under the sail and couldn't breath so I tried swimming under the boat to the othe side but my main sheet was stuck around my foot. I get up and hit my head on the dagger board and see my coach lafing.
 
It was a windy day, with lots of water coming over. I don't have an autobailer, so I just unplugged the drain. I was going really fast when suddenly I noticed I couldn't ease the main.... because the end of the mainsheet washed away thrue the drain!:eek: So I capsized really hard but then had the oppurtunity to recover the darn thing. Now I always tie a knot at the end :)
 
I had only been sailing for about a month in the laser and I had only just managed to rig it fully on my own. The club had an open day and the chap who runs it happened to be standing on the beach with some newbies. The wind was blowing nicely and I was zipping up and down along the beach front, tacking this way and that, hiking right out, looking wholesome and manly and, well, frankly, showing off my new found skills.
I decided to do the sailing equivalent of the hand-brake turn. I reached along the shore with a view to spinning it through 90 degrees and arriving gently on the beach at the feet of the admiring onlookers planning hard downwind.
I swung the tiller and then watched in horrified slow motion as the bitter end of the main sheet went through the pulley, sizzled along the boom, out of the rear pulley blocks and the boom pulley and landed in the sea. The sail swung through nearly 180 degrees and ended up with the boom facing the wrong way. I had forgotten to tie a stopper knot!
Ouch !
 
Wow, thanks everyone for the stories! I liked the last one because that happend to me with my FJ. hehehaha.
 
A bad mounant or a good prank is to untie someones hiking strap. It has happened to me and I have done it to others.
 
One day it was blowing about 20 knots on this lake i used to sail at. It was my first time in any sort of strong wind so it was a challenge. Anyway cutting to the chase, after about 20 minutes on the water, and sailing casually, i was reaching and decided to gybe but no!!! My boom didn't stop when i pulled on the sheet!!! The figure-of-8 knot on the end of the boom was a bad loose one, and it came undone. I couldn't capsize the boat to re do the know because i was close toa wal,, and i was going to be pushed into the wall! A few people on land rushed to where i was bumping into this wall and fended me off, and one kind soul even tied another GOOD figure-of-8 knot in through the pulley on the boom. A push off and i was away! A few scratches from the concrete but otherwise no damage, i was a lucky one :)
 
We have a few lasers at the uni sailing club. One day one of the members decided to take a laser out with another person (it was windy and they were only small, so they decided to sail two-up). This other person had barely ever sailed before. It was winter, but deciding that they weren't going to capsize, they both went sailing in shorts and rashies.

Meanwhile, the rescue boat outboard had randomly stopped (dirty fuel it transpired in the end) so people were attempting to get it started again. Therefore there was no powerboat out.

The laser went a fair way out into the bay, before attempting to gybe and then (during the maneuvere) realised they hadn't tied a stopped knot at the end of the mainsheet. Consequently the boat capsized. They were unable to right the boat, and were conseqently floating around for ages.

In the end (very embarrasingly for the club I might add) the Volunteer Marine Rescue had to go out and pick them up.
 
Man pretty much all these stories are about mainsheet knots coming undone.

One day i went out to practice with a few other guys and when rigging the boat i was running a bit behind to get out on the water. It was a pretty windy day. well i got out there and we tacked back and forth up the river and when we went to go back down i undid my outhaul and let everything out. well my outhaul went all the way out bcause i forgot to tie a not in it, i ended up capsizing the boat and just re-feeding the outhaul.

Another story i have comes from when i first started sailing lasers and i went out in a beater club boat. everything was going good until a summer afternoon storm came through and the wind went from 10-15 to 30-35 in 10 minutes. Well for the novice that i was this was great till on a screaming reach i lost my tiller extension. somehow i recovered the boat but couldnt get the extension back on. Well i noticed that the cockpit plug was just a ball of wrapped up electrical tape. I took the ball of tape and unraveled it and lashed my extension to the the tiller and headed as fast as i could back for the club.
 
Hey those stories can teach me a thing or two, like make sure to tie a good knot. :) Hey guys, thanks for the stories!
 
OK, so I used to be so far behind, that I hardly ever bothered to write down the course - I could just follow the other boats. At my club the Solos start 2 minutes after the Lasers, and I would often be caught up by them. So, its a run down to this one bouy, but I didnt know if it was a port or starboard rounding, and it wasnt obvious (when considering the NEXT bouy). There are 3 Solo's just ahead of me, and as we approach the bouy, I can hear them discussing whether its port or starboard, and there was no agreement ! Some went port, some went starboard. So i arrive at the bouy and I cant decide port or starboard. At the last second I change my mind ! Because we were on the run, my boom is way out, so my hull goes one side, but my main sheet coming off the boom goes the other side, and now my mainsheet is hooked around the bouy, and I capsize !!

A topper did exactly the same thing about 1/2 a minute after I got going again, so I didnt feel too bad !
 
Let's see...

This one wasn't in a laser, rather a collegiate 420. During practice, someone had the brilliant idea of having the varsity team fleet race with the learn-to-sail team. Someone fouled me on the start so I was back a ways when two LTS boats entangled each other at the jybe mark and one of them managed to take off my rudder&tiller with the end of their boom. Naturally, this was an unexpected development in my race plan. I was left sitting there, dumbfounded, holding the tiller & rudder in my hand limply.

This one was in a Radial during a qualifier down at Indian Harbor Yacht Club in CT. The day started out at about 15 knots and ended up with a steady 30 and higher gusts. As the day wore on, I was getting killed upwind but passing like crazy downwind (at the time, I was 20 lbs. underweight). One of the downwind legs, these two massive puffs came down the course- when it hit me, I was shot off the back of the wave I was on and landed on the next crest! For the duration of the gust I was passing waves at about 1 1/2 times per second.
I wasn't expecting the second puff- I was too preoccupied with the fun I was having. The second gust hit and I started to deathroll. I threw myself on the leeward side to try and save it, and managed to stall it while at about a 50 degree angle. Then, the boat crashed into a wave, mast hit the water, and decelerated from about 15 knots to nothing with me hanging on to the rail. At least I was hanging on; once the boat hit, I was thrown off the boat and landed 10 feet in front of the bow, pinging my ankle on the mast on the way.


Another day of the same conditions, I submarined into a 6-foot wave and was swept off the back of the boat by the wave. I had some serious swimming to do.



All I can say is, i'm glad I suffered through Rec dept. swimming lessons all those years...
 
Let's see...

This one wasn't in a laser, rather a collegiate 420. During practice, someone had the brilliant idea of having the varsity team fleet race with the learn-to-sail team. Someone fouled me on the start so I was back a ways when two LTS boats entangled each other at the jybe mark and one of them managed to take off my rudder&tiller with the end of their boom. Naturally, this was an unexpected development in my race plan. I was left sitting there, dumbfounded, holding the tiller & rudder in my hand limply.

This one was in a Radial during a qualifier down at Indian Harbor Yacht Club in CT. The day started out at about 15 knots and ended up with a steady 30 and higher gusts. As the day wore on, I was getting killed upwind but passing like crazy downwind (at the time, I was 20 lbs. underweight). One of the downwind legs, these two massive puffs came down the course- when it hit me, I was shot off the back of the wave I was on and landed on the next crest! For the duration of the gust I was passing waves at about 1 1/2 times per second.
I wasn't expecting the second puff- I was too preoccupied with the fun I was having. The second gust hit and I started to deathroll. I threw myself on the leeward side to try and save it, and managed to stall it while at about a 50 degree angle. Then, the boat crashed into a wave, mast hit the water, and decelerated from about 15 knots to nothing with me hanging on to the rail. At least I was hanging on; once the boat hit, I was thrown off the boat and landed 10 feet in front of the bow, pinging my ankle on the mast on the way.


Another day of the same conditions, I submarined into a 6-foot wave and was swept off the back of the boat by the wave. I had some serious swimming to do.



All I can say is, i'm glad I suffered through Rec dept. swimming lessons all those years...
the deathroll thing was some pretty crazy ----
ur my hero lol jk
 
I started sailing in April '06 after I completed a RYA Level 1 course (it's a UK thing). Basically I was taught the points of sailing, how to tack and gybe, how to doa bowline and a figure 8 stopper knot. After that I spent one day cruising in a Firefly (another UK thing) a small boat not for fat guys like me, I was offered to sail a club Laser. Soon enough I got hooked. I started racing a couple of weeks later.

So, on one of my first races I am reaching in light winds and the next class who started 3 minutes after me, RS200 are cathcing up. As I have rounded the mark, they have tacked behind my and lined up to pass the mark in 1, 2, 3 sequence. That moment my mainsheet gets wrapped around the buoy and I drag it with me. As a result the RS200s have to tack again to get to the buoy and the sequence has changed to 3, 2, 1. As they shout and scream at me for dragging the buoy, I try to let the mainsheet out, undo the stopper knot at the end so the mainsheet will run through all the blocks and get untangled from the buoy.

To ad insult to to injury the boom swings across, hits me on the head and as I fall and capsize the top of my mast hits the gunnel of the thrid RS200 who was first. He was not happy at all. It was obvious!
 
Bringing this thread back from the dead...

So one day I decided to go sailing on a 40 knot day with gusts of 50... or so the coastguard said but we will leave that for later. Every other person was on the provincial team and it was only my 2nd month of laser sailing. So being the keener I am rigged up(I need two people to help..) and got out on the water. We went down wind for miles with me capsizing every 3 mins or so. I turn around to go up wind and I tack and miss the hiking straps holding on to the tiller ext which was in my hand while the boat is upside down. My couch only saw me capsize and went go see the other guys. So there I was standing on my hull waving with a broken tiller ext trying to get my get him to come back so I could put it in his boat and maybe get a tow back. Meanwhile a a whale watching boat snuck up on me and started watching what I was doing. There was 50+ people on this boat and they couldn't help me one bit because their boat was very high out of the water and big too. Rather then stay there and embarrass myself anymore I decided to right the boat much to the joy of the whale watchers which gave me a big applause once I was done. They left and I started making my way back to the club with only my tiller. At last the couch boat came back to me and took whats left of my tiller ext but he wouldn't give me a tow because he had to look after the other kids... instead he tossed me some random line and got me to tie it onto my tiller and away he went. So I had to go miles up wind with no tiller ext in 40 knots just trying to get back to my club. I got back to my club and on the breakwater about 10 kids were watching me trying to get back up to the club. I got on land and de-rigged with some storytelling. My boats came back and I went to go get whats left of my tiller ext but it was gone. I stormed back up the ramp to find some 12 year old kid walking around and beating stuff with my tiller ext!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Ok here is another story about that day. Earlier in the morning a bunch of learn to sail kids went out in 420s that where only a month old! With old rags though. Anyways they went down wind but in a big gust they all capsized and got pushed on to the shore right next to the sewage output! The Coast guard was called in and saved them. Some kid was getting towed in from the rocks at the time and the coast guard yelled about his instruments hitting a gust of 50 knots. Some of the boats where in ok shape but other had massive gelcoat missing...
 
I have a few stories to tell but one is, I was at boyscout camp and we were doing the sailing merit bag. No, i am no new to sailing but i did the merrit bag just to say i had it anyway. we were sailing on a sunfish just screwing around and we had to capsize the boat and me not wantin to get wet dint capsize it all the way so we jusped out when it was abou to capsize but it didnt and it started sailing away without me and i had to swim to catch it. I got lafed at by a few other people but i thought it was funny myself to.
My other story is I was at a sailing class near the end of the summer and, I was on a minifish with an instructor and we were about to land on the beach when. I go distracted and didnt pull the daggerboard up intime an we hit the sand on the bottom about fifteen feet away from the beach and we lurched forward and the bow went in the water about three feet and made an impressive wave. Anyhow some other people got a kick out of it i laughed it off.
 
i remember a couple years ago sailing to the course somewhere in the atlantic, in nova scotia.. all of a sudden i see a huge spray come out from the water about 7-10 feet away from my bow the next thing i know a huge right wale came up just feet beside me almost capsizing my boat and soaked me that was pretty fun lol... another time in nova scotia i was sailing beside one of my team mates, talking when all of a sudden we herd a large bang noise and my friend came to a stop... so i pulled up beside him a big shark jumps out of the water(kinda)... he circled us for a while and we circled him lol finally he gave up and swam away but it was still pretty interesting
 

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