Your scariest boating moment ever ?

what was the margin?

 

Since I have been at sea, I have worked very hard to avoid scary situations. For the most part, I have been lucky. I am also extremely over-cautious.

The most scary thing that has happened (other things I have been able to overcome or avoid) was a near MOB situation when I was a young college kid on a boat full of drunk people (myself included).

We had a small children's float tied to the end of a very long line (dockline? longer?) that was dragging aft. We were under sail. One fat girl tried the thing out first when the boat had very little speed - just a knot or two. She had a grand time lounging in it like an inner tube. She had a beer in hand and really seemed to enjoy herself.

It looked fun, so I tried it.

I brought the float in to the stern and hopped into the hoop of the float.

I waited as the line payed out and then became taught. The second the line became taught, I went on a bee line to Davey Jones locker. For some reason, the little float that held that fat girl up so well didn't work anymore for me at 5-6 knots. I felt myself going very deep into the water and there was absolutely no way to get back up without letting go and becoming MOB.

I mustered up every ounce of physical strength I had and went hand over hand until I reached the stern of the boat, pulling myself against 5-6 knots of current. Nobody even noticed I was having a problem.

When I got to the stern and couldn't physically pull myself up to the swim step/ladder, someone finally saw that I was in trouble and reached down to give me a hand.

I got on board and spewed out quite a bit of water from that initial plunge that caught me by surprise. When I was pulled under, I was breathing normally, not holding my breath because I wasn't expecting the float to dive. I took in a lot of seawater.

This is the closest I have ever come to dying on a boat and it was f'n scary.

Nothing I've done at sea while in command of a vessel has ever scared me as much as that experience did. Everything else has always been manageable or escapable.

 

Gunship, the yacht spent the next year and a half having it's broken keel replaced, as a result of the point of the keel bashing into the ramp. I was actually, just backing away from touching the ballast to deadwood joint when she came down.

 

I was once in a very large Hobie cat regatta in Newport beach CA. IT was a three day event about 30 years ago. We were in the then new Hobie 18, a fairly fast and powerful catamaran sailboat. We had mostly light wind, but one afternoon the race took us fairly far off shore when both the wind and chop picked up.

We were happy to finally use the trapeze, we picked up a lot of speed with both of us hiked out as far as we can on the windward hull. We picked up a lot of speed at last, perhaps 20 knots or more. We were flying a hull, with the lee hull only skimming over the tops of the chop (I could see light under the lee hull in the wave troughs). The chop got larger, and the wind stronger, as we got further off shore several times the lee bow went through a wave, and noticeably slowed us like an impact. Than a large one hit totally submerging the lee hull, it dove down and the rudders came out of the water. I thought we were going to pitch pole, the cat came up to perhaps 45 deg or mure as the bows dug in. I went flying forward and hit the water in front of the boat, the helmsman held onto the tiller so stayed on board. The boat bounced back down level, but because the main was cleated, the boat started moving again, and picked up speed fast.

I watched from the water as it moved past me, and it occurred to me I was still tethered to the trapeze. A thought flashed thorough my mind to release it, but that means we would loose a lot of time as he came back around to pick me up. Suddenly it was too late to do anything about it, it pulled tight and I was being dragged through the water, spinning around and around like a wind mill.

As the boat picked up speed I was spinning faster and faster. I knew I had to stop it or release the trapeze line to my harness. It does not take much to pass out when spinning like that, than I would be in real trouble. I kept seeing the hull, sky, water, rudder with each revolution, faster and faster they spun by my face, with salt water spraying in my eyes, mouth, nose and every other body orifice as the boat pick-up speed. I knew this it was going to get dangerous fast. I dove for the rudder as I spun past it once, twice and got it (barely). I hauled my self up over the rudder and I climbed back on to the boat and over the helmsman. We were both laughing because it was so ridiculous and happened so fast.

It happened so fast there was not really time to get scared, I was flying through the air and landing in the water before I even knew what happened. It later occurred to me if I went between the hulls instead to windward of them, I would have been trapped under the deck and likely getting knocked unconscious. I do not know what if anything I could have done about it if that had happened.

But I will never forget the sudden feeling of helplessness that occurred so fast I hardly even knew what was happening. Keeping my head and moving fast salvaged the situation, we finished in second place in our class, only seconds behind first place after three long days of sailing.

Strange things can happen fast when pushing a boat hard in a race.

 

not scared but very close to it,
we were on an old admiralty cadet traing m f v coming back from douarnenez to hamble, it started to blow up, in a lot of places force 7-8 is manageable, but in the channel islands the seas can get vicious, short, brutal confused, so we pulled in to st peters port & lay alongside a pontoon, 6 yachts one after another tied up outside us, we advised them to put seperate bowlines to the pontoon to save our bollards, even when we told them its needed for their insurance cover they ignored us, typical arrogant know-all yotties,
all night the 7 boats are surging trying to break free
early in the morning were all asleep down below, our skipper goes into the wheelhouse, starts the gardner, goes aft drops the aft mooring line off,
then he goes fwd, he starts to take the forward mooring line off to take the whole shebang out to sea in a force 7, theres no one around

then he wakes up

he has been sleepwalking

 

The thread invites people to share a scary experience on a boat.
"Scary" is subjective and can not be measured like in a contest of who has it longer.

I find your comment uncalled for an distasteful. Nevertheless it seems you have developed this way of answering as your style.
You think because you have been in a storm on a beached boat you have bragging right. So be it.
From someone who sunk a few times, once sunk by gunfire, and was in a head on collision and has forgotten more about 'scary' moments you will ever know, I find your little adventure on the beach amusing.

I once fell from a tree with a running chainsaw and **** my pants on the way down.
Now that was a shitty experience.

 

The worst (so far) was about 1967, out for the weekend on a friend's 18 foot plywood cruiser on Lake Erie. First night out we were anchored in a nice little cove near the end of Long Point. The forecast was fair weather right through but my intuition said the forecast was wrong.

We tried running back to port around midnight but it was too choppy to do in the dark. The next morning at first light we headed in again but we didn't make it. The "stiff breeze" became a full gale, the sky turned black, and we ran into the shallows until we lost the shear pin.

With two anchor in the mud we rode out the storm. The lightning, wind and rain were ferocious and the wind would have carried us into open water if the anchors gave way. We sat in the cabin, both bailing water out the window, thinking we would never see our families again.

But we rode out the storm and when we got back to port, there were trees uprooted, buildings damaged and roofs torn off. By then the forecast had changed from "fair weather and light winds" to a "Whole Gale warning" - thank you Environment Canada! LOL!

 

As was your comment..........

 

Hey, hows about the ..." Smelliest experience at sea " ??????? Ive got everyone beat !...Sailing across the Atlantic on a 60 ft racer cruiser from Antigua to Hamburg. Naturally, like good boys, we were smuggling a full case of Monte Gay Rum. Naturally we lovingly, gently stowed that precious Monte Gay in a plastic crate and carefully wedged it into the bilge. Coming across the Atlantic we had our foot on the accelerator, lost control in a wave, knocked down, and the case of Monte gay rum case flew across the bilge and smashed the PVC elbow on the BLACK WATER TANK !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...flooding the bilge with 150 liters of pure Poo Poo. Partialy digested corn kernals and everything. Shiver Me Timbers !!! What followed was the smelliest, stinkiest, most obnoxious, " I cant Believe this happened" !!! 2 or 3 days at sea that Ive ever experienced. Boatings smelliest Moment !!!!!!!!!

 

To my way of thinking, that little stunt was pure foolishness -- not 'fun.'

I wouldn't be riding with him again, had he done it while I was on board....

 

Richard, thanks for your dose of reality and taking responsibility for your decision as Captain. After 50 years of professional boat stuff, I can still find a new way to screw up every day if I try.
In 1967 I was part of a 3 man Coast Guard crew of a 40' utility boat, much like an open lobsterboat with twin 6/71s. We were backed in close coaxing a scared electronics technician off a dangling chain ladder from Mile Rock lighthouse on a rough, blustery afternoon when a huge curling breaker came out of nowhere, wrapping itself around the tall structure as I looked up seeing a wall of water from both sides coming at me, the (open and sinkable) boat stood on its bow as the wave broke and the coxswain slammed the throttles open. We surfed the damm thing for a quarter mile. I think I ruined my pants.
When we came back the guy on the ladder was still there but had lost all his equipment. When the boat got under him this time he just let go and dropped, hugging the tow bitt and laughing.
I was in the CG 4 years and sailing ships and everything else but never had to go through a hurricane, just some typhoons in the winter north Pacific on a nice big cutter. The huge long seas came between me and the horizon over and over for days and my eye level was 65' above the water. Never felt dangerous though as we were far from any shore.

 

BERTIE here got caught in a wild northwest gale off the California coast in '92. We ran downwind steering until we were tired of going the wrong way, then lay to a sea anchor until the rode parted, then lay a'hull for 12 hours or so. The roaring phosphorescent seas would crash down at us but she's just slide out of the way every time. All those thousands of years of boat development to give us the last sailing workboats really developed seaworthiness to a high art. Never felt really dangerous, just uncomfortable and boring.

 

Funniest and most deeply truthful "sea story" cartoon ever. Thank you.

 

"never had to go through a hurricane, just some typhoons in the winter north Pacific" - get out your dictionary, then finish your story, ya old sea dog.