oscar
Guru
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2015
- Messages
- 1,098
- Location
- United States
- Vessel Name
- Lady Kay V
- Vessel Make
- 1978 Hatteras 53MY
It came up in another thread, and folks said:”Yes, Captain Oscar, tell us that story!” So here goes:
The boat is a Catalina 42 (yes, that’s a sail boat). The crew is my lovely bride, the two urchins and myself. The trip is a relatively short one from Fort Lauderdale to Boca Raton. Since the wind was out of the East at 20 or so knots and thus a perfect beam reach, rolling out the genoa gave us a respectable 8 knots. No need to get the main out. Nice and tucked in on the boom. Whooshed past Hillsboro in no time and were approaching the Boca inlet. I have included a piece of the chart.
Now I’m smart enough not to try and run a small Atlantic inlet with tide and wind opposing, so I had timed our arrival to coincide with incoming tide. Still, even then there’s a nice standing wave over the sand bank, as well as a partially submerged jetty which would make a navigational error quite consequential. Depth was adequate, but there was not a LOT to spare.
So, as we approached I fired up the Yanmar and gave it some time to warm. At the appropriate time I turned in, rolled in the jib and put the engine in gear. The next sound can only be described as an angry midget cousin of Neptune whacking on the hull with a sledge hammer. Then the motor died. I put it in neutral, and started it. It ran. I then proceeded to put it in reverse, but the angry midget was still there…… and then it died.
So here we are on a leeward shore (I can hear the surf on the beach) with no motor. Clawing our way off on the jib alone was a dicey proposition, throwing out the anchor would only delay our arrival on the beach by a little (6+ footers) and the main, well remember the main was all tucked in and covered so that would take a while, not to mention the inability to get the bow into the wind to get it up without snagging on spreaders etc. etc. Getting Towboat US there quick enough was a gamble and then some.
Time was going to run out. Meanwhile my lovely bride had sensed that the plan was falling apart, and had taken the urchins down below to stay out of my way, and they had donned life vests. (She’s a smart one, yes she is). I did the same. (Donned a life vest, not going below.)
Soo, after some short deliberation with myself I looked at what I had and decided to run the inlet. Wind and current were in my favor, and it was right in front of me. Once inside things would calm down and I could work on plan….. well, we’re way into the alphabet now. So I rolled out about 6 feet of jib, which gave me 3 knots and plenty of steerage. We rode the surf “Hawaii-5-Oh” style and suddenly all was calm, and we were slowly floating into the inlet, like a little swan boat at a Disney ride.
Now, if you’ll direct your attention to the chart you’ll see there’s a 90º bend in said inlet. As I come around the corner there was a LARGE dredge, blocking 90% of the water. On the side there was a sign that said:”Call me on CH9”. Now, as I didn’t have any brakes, I just kept going and aimed for the 10% he had left open. This got the barge driver quite agitated and although he did try to slide over a little, he hung out his window and shook his fists at me and said very uncomplimentary things. (Good thing the kids were below.) I yelled back at him “GOT NO MOTOR”
This had an interesting result. The entire dredge operation came to a halt and all able hands ran to a work boat and started chasing after me. I swear I saw the word “salvage” in their eyes. You see, not 500 feet further down was a bridge. It’s vertical clearance was 23 or so feet. I needed 63. Anyone could see that I was going hit that bridge at about 2-3 knots, with the hull trying to continue under it, all in quite a spectacular fashion.
When the workboat got close I yelled at them “NO” and some other workboat speak that they would understand telling them to stay the hell away from me. The look in their eyes was priceless. Then I ran to the foredeck, and pulled the one slip knot that held the 35# Danforth to the pulpit. Then I opened the chain locker and kicked the thing overboard. As programmed it went for the (nice sandy) bottom and took the 100’ of heavy galvanized chain with it. The beginning of the line was belayed on a heavy cleat. All this in about 4 seconds.
As planned years ago, the bow dipped, and then she slowly did a 180º and just sat there. I went back, opened the companion way, and said: "You can come out now, and I’ll have a large shot of Vodka, my snorkel and a sharp knife please". It took me a good half hour to get the 1” rope, and some sort of large cork float (the sledge hammer) off my shaft.
The dredge crew disappointedly returned to their toil. I later heard that at the height of the action the bridge tender was seen hurriedly leaving his post, no joke.
The boat is a Catalina 42 (yes, that’s a sail boat). The crew is my lovely bride, the two urchins and myself. The trip is a relatively short one from Fort Lauderdale to Boca Raton. Since the wind was out of the East at 20 or so knots and thus a perfect beam reach, rolling out the genoa gave us a respectable 8 knots. No need to get the main out. Nice and tucked in on the boom. Whooshed past Hillsboro in no time and were approaching the Boca inlet. I have included a piece of the chart.
Now I’m smart enough not to try and run a small Atlantic inlet with tide and wind opposing, so I had timed our arrival to coincide with incoming tide. Still, even then there’s a nice standing wave over the sand bank, as well as a partially submerged jetty which would make a navigational error quite consequential. Depth was adequate, but there was not a LOT to spare.
So, as we approached I fired up the Yanmar and gave it some time to warm. At the appropriate time I turned in, rolled in the jib and put the engine in gear. The next sound can only be described as an angry midget cousin of Neptune whacking on the hull with a sledge hammer. Then the motor died. I put it in neutral, and started it. It ran. I then proceeded to put it in reverse, but the angry midget was still there…… and then it died.
So here we are on a leeward shore (I can hear the surf on the beach) with no motor. Clawing our way off on the jib alone was a dicey proposition, throwing out the anchor would only delay our arrival on the beach by a little (6+ footers) and the main, well remember the main was all tucked in and covered so that would take a while, not to mention the inability to get the bow into the wind to get it up without snagging on spreaders etc. etc. Getting Towboat US there quick enough was a gamble and then some.
Time was going to run out. Meanwhile my lovely bride had sensed that the plan was falling apart, and had taken the urchins down below to stay out of my way, and they had donned life vests. (She’s a smart one, yes she is). I did the same. (Donned a life vest, not going below.)
Soo, after some short deliberation with myself I looked at what I had and decided to run the inlet. Wind and current were in my favor, and it was right in front of me. Once inside things would calm down and I could work on plan….. well, we’re way into the alphabet now. So I rolled out about 6 feet of jib, which gave me 3 knots and plenty of steerage. We rode the surf “Hawaii-5-Oh” style and suddenly all was calm, and we were slowly floating into the inlet, like a little swan boat at a Disney ride.
Now, if you’ll direct your attention to the chart you’ll see there’s a 90º bend in said inlet. As I come around the corner there was a LARGE dredge, blocking 90% of the water. On the side there was a sign that said:”Call me on CH9”. Now, as I didn’t have any brakes, I just kept going and aimed for the 10% he had left open. This got the barge driver quite agitated and although he did try to slide over a little, he hung out his window and shook his fists at me and said very uncomplimentary things. (Good thing the kids were below.) I yelled back at him “GOT NO MOTOR”
This had an interesting result. The entire dredge operation came to a halt and all able hands ran to a work boat and started chasing after me. I swear I saw the word “salvage” in their eyes. You see, not 500 feet further down was a bridge. It’s vertical clearance was 23 or so feet. I needed 63. Anyone could see that I was going hit that bridge at about 2-3 knots, with the hull trying to continue under it, all in quite a spectacular fashion.
When the workboat got close I yelled at them “NO” and some other workboat speak that they would understand telling them to stay the hell away from me. The look in their eyes was priceless. Then I ran to the foredeck, and pulled the one slip knot that held the 35# Danforth to the pulpit. Then I opened the chain locker and kicked the thing overboard. As programmed it went for the (nice sandy) bottom and took the 100’ of heavy galvanized chain with it. The beginning of the line was belayed on a heavy cleat. All this in about 4 seconds.
As planned years ago, the bow dipped, and then she slowly did a 180º and just sat there. I went back, opened the companion way, and said: "You can come out now, and I’ll have a large shot of Vodka, my snorkel and a sharp knife please". It took me a good half hour to get the 1” rope, and some sort of large cork float (the sledge hammer) off my shaft.
The dredge crew disappointedly returned to their toil. I later heard that at the height of the action the bridge tender was seen hurriedly leaving his post, no joke.
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