[Rhodes22-list] Grounded My Boat on a Sandbar

[Alan Robertson]

David,
 This happened to us once on a big reservoir-lake under slightly less windy conditions. 

For what it's worth we doused the main, rolled up  roller jib, pulled up on the keel line as far as we could and locked it through its jamb cleat, then got my wife and passengerto sit on the gunnel on the "High side" to get the boat a little righted and then.
Started the outboard, gunned it  and swiveled it from side to side in reverse to fishtail. This also sucked out some loose sand from the back of the couple of inches of keel which had impacted it .  It worked!
THOR IV - Delmar NY
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: David Culp<mailto:dculp at hsbtx.com> 
  To: rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org<mailto:rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org> 
  Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2008 7:41 PM
  Subject: [Rhodes22-list] Grounded My Boat on a Sandbar


  After 3 years, I finally did it.  My lake is shallow in places and I know
  most of the spots.  The wind forecast was 10-20 mph with a cold front
  approaching but not forecast to arrive until the evening.  The wind at that
  time was only supposed to pickup from 15 to 25 mph.  10-20 is my perfect
  forecast for Rhodes sailing and a friend was going out in his boat and we
  agreed to meet down the lake about 6 miles from where I slip.

  We met up and were going to have a race as we sometimes do.  At the time, we
  were in a very narrow area and we were trying to sail into one of the bigger
  basins.  To expedite getting there, I was cutting across and just adjacent
  to one of those shallow areas.  As we rounded a bend in the lake, the front
  hit.

  We have a very sudden and dramatic wind change around to the north and my
  friend estimated that it was about 30 kts almost immediately.   At the time,
  I had full main and about 150% of the jib out.  Neither one of us could tack
  into it and my only option was a jibe toward the shallow area.  The result
  was that I ended up in the shallows and sliding up on a sandbar in about a
  foot and half of water.

  I had the board out at the time and I wasn't moving very fast.  Predictably,
  the boat just came to a smooth stop as the board retracted into the keel and
  then rolled over like a drunken whale to about 45 degrees.  I had gotten
  most of the sails in by then thank goodness.  The wind was blowing so hard
  at that point (we estimate between 30 and 40 mph), that I really thought the
  boat was going all the way over and so I secured everything and the just
  climbed up on the high side and sat there.

  My cellphone rings and my friend is asking "What are you going to do now"?
  I said " $#*t, I don't know what I am going to do"!  What can you do?  Have
  a drink I guess because surely nobody is going to come out on the lake and
  help in those conditions.  It's not like I can wait for high tide either.
  Fortunately, I didn't have to ponder my situation very long.

  The wind let up a little bit and I convinced myself that the keel was heavy
  enough that the boat wasn't going to broach.  I climbed down on the low
  side.  With all that wind pushing on the hull and just enough water; my
  weight on the low side floated the boat just enough to where it eased off
  the sandbar.  I used the motor to make a quick turn to get out of the
  shallow area.  A quick assessment showed nothing had been damaged except my
  pride and now all we had to figure out was how to make the 6 miles back
  home.

  Now the wind is still blowing about 25 kts at this point and is out of the
  north.  The waves are at least 2 feet or higher and I have never seen so
  many white caps on a lake.  It's a reach and then a run home, so I must get
  back on this "horse" and be a sailboat again.  On a b
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