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Old 03-04-2016, 06:51 PM   #34
Tacomasailor
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City: San Diego
Join Date: Sep 2013
Posts: 39
Once on purpose, once due to good scotch, once at Oh-Dark-Thirty 100 miles offshore in the way North Pacific.

Somehow lost my brand new and very expensive sunglasses over the rail of a boat - I jumped in headfirst to grab them as they sunk into Bellingham Bay. Found them and all was OK

Midnight in flat calm moonshine in Prevost Harbor, Stuart Island in the San Juans. After several excellent shots of old single malt Scotch with the gentleman who introduced me to sailing 25-years earlier, I was climbing from his swim step to my very tippy Whitehall Rowing skiff. In my "attention challenged" state I forgot that one cannot step onto the outboard edge of the middle seat without rolling the skiff.

In the Pacific Ocean at 49 N, 100 miles west of Estevan Pt (Vancouver Island) in 6' seas and 20-knot winds at 3 AM I went to the foredeck to clear the staysail that would not complete the tack. When I freed it - the clew and sheet shackle hit me in the forehead and knocked me cold - on a 40' sailboat heeled at 20 degrees beating into those seas.

Apparently, I slid overboard but my tether, attached to the mast, stopped my fall with my legs over the side and my chest against the lifeline. I came too and crawled back aboard. When I made it back to the cockpit my brother asked what took so long. He had no idea, it was really dark and stormy, that I had had a problem.

Later that night I remembered that I had recently installed foredeck illumination lights to deal with just the problem that had occurred. We had been awake and sailing hard for 36-hours and I guess I was too tired to think thru the details.
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