[Rhodes22-list] Weekend Sailing Misadventures

[brad haslett]

The wind on Friday was awesome!  15-20 mph with gusts
to 30.  I had the CoraShen indicating 9 knots when the
max hull speed is supposed to be about 7.5.  My older
brother was on his first sail and was as excited as a
little kid.  We came up on a part of the river I'm
pretty familiar with and decided to swing wide rather
than tack because we were going fast and having too
much fun.  THEN, I made the shortest landing in my
career.  We went from 9 knots to 0 knots in about 10
feet.  It wasn't a jolt, we just quit moving.  About
two seconds later the depth alarm went off, real good
timing.  What we had after that was a sailing
simulator.  You could do anything you wanted with the
sails, engine, etc. because the boat wasn't going
anywhere.  As the sun started down we lost the wind
and the will to solve our prediciment.  I made some
calls on both the radio and cell-phone but couldn't
raise anyone for help.  So, we spent the night on the
boat.  It got down to the low 40's and I didn't find
the blanket I knew was on the boat until the next
morning.  Anyway, I was able to get ahold of a friend
of mine that lives on the lake Saturday morning and he
showed up with his pontoon boat with a 115hp engine. 
We towed the bow, the stern, clockwise,
counter-clockwise, but didn't move the boat.  We were
only 5 feet from deep water but couldn't get there. 
Finally we tied the halyard to the side rail and
started towing from the top of the mast.  After the
boat was heeled about 45 degrees it started floating
and we drug it sideways to deeper water.  Hopefully
this will be my only grounding for the season but if
it happens again, I'll pull that solution out of the
trick-bag first.  By 11 am Saturday we were free and
sailed back to the dock.  I was so tired from the
experience I didn't feel like doing any work on the
boat.  Oh well, that's a good excuse to go back to the
lake later in the week.

Brad Haslett
"CoraShen"


	
		
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