bad days

D

deltabighat

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Flutterby and I were discussing some bad weather in another post below when I got to thinking that I would love to hear from you folks about some of your bad days on the water. The times when you were close to swimming or paddling home or when the weather turned on you and left you fumbling with your rosary beads. Any good tales out there?

DBH
 
OK - I'll start it off. Except that my experience was undoubtedly tame compared to those of you who have been boating longer than I have! We were coming back from Rio Vista last year and making the turn to cross the Sac and head into three mile slough. The wind was howling. Talk about confused seas - it was like a washing machine! At the time, we were in our 27' express and bouncing around to beat the band. I felt like a cork out there. We had to wait for the bridge to open too, which just made it worse. Once we got into the slough it was fine, and the SJ wasn't bad at all. We were soaked! We talked about that trip for a long time after that. Looking back, I guess it was really just my inexperience that cause me to be scared, but still .... what a ride!

Side note : I went to the marina yesterday because I left something on the boat over the weekend that I needed. Holy cow was it windy! Kind of neat to see waves and white-caps when you're not actually out there. We're going to Devil's Isle this weekend and I sure hope the winds cooperate.

Anyway - good topic. I look forward to reading the posts!
 
Manticorre,

That the precise place I had a lot of trouble with one night about midnight and thats what I was talking about in the other post called "out at night" Nasty place if the tide and wind get together in the wrong configuration.

DBH
 
My worst 3.5 seconds

Ever sail Lake Tahoe? 5 years back I had a Cal-25 on Tahoe. They are very stable and capable rough water boats, even with a novice like myself at the helm. It was a sunny Sunday afternoon off Emerald Bay and I had 2 of my young (9&12)boys, my Daughter and her 2 year old, and my two sisters. There was a nice 5-8 mph breeze and we were having a pleasant sail, with all but my older son down below.

Here's the Tahoe fun. I was new to saling and did not know it, but that lake is known for the "blasts" of wind that seem to travel at random around the lake and come from nowhere. We had all sales up and this 40 mph blast hit us broadside and laid the boat over so far that there was water comming in the starboard port lights! The screams of fear from below were like a horror movie, with panic was the best description of everyones feelings (except me and my son - we liked it!). Everyone came running up the steps to see if we had been hit or were sinking, and despite the fact that I told them several times the boat was not in any real danger, they voted LOUDLY to never sail with me again. Hurt my feelings.

Sailing was too slow anyway.

Jim
 
I hit that rough area approaching 3 Mile Slu. Wind was from the west and tide was strongly going out. That resulted in a 4-5 ft sharply peaked waves. I was in my 19 ft cuddy with an OB. I trimmed her so the bow was up and timed my approach to each wave so that i slid down the backside and no water washed in from the stern. That was working out ok, but I had to turn abeam of the waves to cross the channel and approach the bridge. I decided to go further downstream then turn and tack over to the bridge. That took a lot long, but kept my boat at a 45* angle to the waves. I breathed a huge sigh of relief when we got into 3 Mile Slu :>)

But my most harrowing time for me was the first time I drove my own boat [th] in windy conditions with very big boats coming and going all around me. I was in Sandmound Slu during July 4th weekend. Not knowing how my boat would handle these "mixmaster" conditions, I cried and prayed all the way to Holland Cut where the waters calmed down. That experience greatly increased my confidence in my boat and myself!
 
Red Rock. Many years ago. 21 foot sailboat with my 70 year old father-in-law aboard. Summer afternoon, and you know how fast the bay can turn on a summer afternoon. Went one red flag to two almost with no lapse, then somehow all the way to three and the coast guard was hauling in forty foot boats. I had dropped all sail and was under power, barely staying afloat. Made it to the Chevron dock and they would not allow me to be there, nor offload any passengers. I argued with them and pointed out I had a seventy year old man aboard, and they relented to the point he could offload but that was it. We did that, I powered over to the north side of the bridge, dropped anchor and swam to shore.

Next morning it was like glass and I rowed out on a toy inflatable. Boat was fully swamped, but I bailed her and sailed home.
 
About ten years ago I owned a 36' Carver and we would winter down on the bay. One of our favorite anchor outs was to go to Candlestick Cove on a weekend that the 49'rs were playing at home, get the blimp to take our picture.

This one trip we had anchored in the cove in fairly shallow water. Good protection from the prevailing winds. The trouble began late that night when the wind shifted and was coming from the south, for which we had no protection. We were, at least, pointed into the wind.

We were in a raft-up of about 12 boats. I had a bow and stern anchor out. Sleeping in the V-berth I could feel that it was getting rough. I went up and checked anchors, and confident that they were holding went back to bed. When the pitching of the bow got so severe that I would literally come off the mattress I decided that I needed to get up.

I guess I was the last one up as everyone else was already out. We all decided that we needed to bug out, but the problem was how do you break apart a raft-up in those conditions?

A few of the boats had no anchors at all so they went first. The boats with just a bow anchor went next. I tied the stern anchor by the bitter end, moved up to my bow anchor and pulled it, then moved the stern line to the windlass and pulled it.

Funny thing is that once we got out of that shallow cove the conditions were great! We had a really nice cruise back to Alameda at 3:00 AM.

Rod
 
"Made it to the Chevron dock and they would not allow me to be there, nor offload any passengers. I argued with them and pointed out I had a seventy year old man aboard, and they relented to the point he could offload but that was it."

Although I wouldn't have wanted to be in that position and certainly am glad everybody's okay.....I'm glad you told this story because it raises a question that I've always been curious about. Sort of like one of those...."everything you always wanted to know but were afraid to ask" type questions.

You said you made it to a dock and they would not allow you to be there.
Isn't there something somewhere in some sort of Rules/Laws that refers to the Safety of the Vessel and its occupants in the event of storms (or whatever0 ALWAYS comes first etc. Personally if I thought my boat was in danger (or the people on board) if I DIDn't stay there to wait out the storm...there'd have been one hell of a fight on that dock with whoever decided I couldn't stay there.
 
I'm with you....there would have been big trouble on the dock if they declined to let me offload passengers. A phone call to the media or police may have helped. Can you imagine a tv crew sent out to witness this event and the trouble that would follow. Thats what I always said I would do if I were on an airplane on the tarmac, stuck for hours and not allowed to get off. Call a tv station and let them come out and start filming. Gets results quick

DBH
 
DBH, there is no way Chevron would allow an uninvited TV crew on to their property! I agree the employee wasn't "thinking", but he was just doing his job and didn't want to get in trouble. A request to speak to his supervisor may have had better results.

Tanq, the security at Chevron is extremely tight since 9/11 and their docks are never "open to the public". The entire area is clearly marked as restricted on the charts.
 
Interesting question, Flutterby.....I still think if I had passengers in danger of drowning due to weather and waves or injuries that could prove fatal, I would like to think they would let me put them ashore in that kind of emergency.

DBH
 
Going beyond what we (as boaters) would percieve the prudent thing to do......I thought I remembered reading something (maybe even on this board) somewhere sometime that there was some sort of a liability issue and maybe even on the part of the person(s) owning a dock or whatever if a vessel was in fact in severe jeopardy of sinking or some other catastrophe if not allowed to tie up or whatever.
Any of you Captains out here know anything about this?
 
Tanq, I sure do not know much about liability laws, but my point in my earlier post was that the guy guarding the dock did not have the authority to override the policy. Talking to his supervisor and moving up the chain of command would have been required. And all that time, he would be safely tied up to the dock. Eventually someone up the chain would have the authority to grant permission.
 
On the issue of tying up to a dock to escape dangerous conditions: there is a legal doctrine of "necessity" which allows transgressions against other prohibitions--trespass when the trespass is necessary to save life or property (and a boat in bad sea conditions is the classic law school example); even homicide when the homicide is necessary (such as the recent case when a man kicking his own son to death was shot.) It's dicey at the moment it happens, but even Chevron isn't going to force someone to die.

On the worst conditions experienced: I related this on the old Delta Chambers Forum, but once I was headed back to the Bay from Benicia and hit extreme waves suddenly in the vicinity of the Carquinez bridges (a sudden "slam" which spilled every Coke on board) and then battled waves averaging 6 feet, 6 seconds all the way to the Richmond-San Rafael bridge. I have a 36' trawler with a bow that's normally 8 feet off the water, and I buried it twice on this trip. (The crew sitting in the cockpit was surprised to feel cold feet, and then realized the cockpit had 7 inches in water from the bow.) This was the classic wind from the west over an outgoing tide situation. The hour and a half (normally an hour in my boat) this trip took had my (ex-) wife in tears, but I wasn't worried about the boat--only the crew.
 
I did indeed have this 'discussion' with both the guard and his supervisor - they were relentless. Their reason in return was same as mine - safety. They pointed to the tanker docked and hooked up, the pipes, the flowing oil, and the risk of explosion, and said it outweighed my risks of seeking another port. I finally prevailed but only to the point of getting my father-in-law off the boat. As it turned out this worked to some advantage because it gave him the chance to find a phone (off Chevron property) and call for a car to collect me on the north side of the bridge where I swam.
 
Long story short, stubborn fishermen weren't going that far without coming back with some albies. Stayed out a little too long and had a rough time coming back in from outside and below the faralons...about 45 miles from the gate.
 
Not in the Delta, but last month I was chartering a 36' trawler in BVI. The weather was just about perfect. The last time we chartered we were annoyed by a tropical wave, which necessitated a lot of tacking in the flat-bottomed Heritage trawler. Anyway, on our final day, we motored back into Road TOwn Harbor to the fuel dock on the opposite side of the harbor from our marina. While it was sunny and light winds all the way in, just about the time we reached the dock, a sudden squall hit us with winds that I estimated at 30 knots. I had to go past the dock and turn back into the wind, only to discover that most of the cleats on the dock were useless. It took us quite some time to safely tie up the boat, and then the horizontal rain hit. The dock worker waited for the rain to pass, which it did as suddenly as it arrived about 10 minutes later.

We fueled the boat and departed. I radio'd the marina for a dock assignment, and then squall part B hit. This time, the winds were 30 knots sustained with 50 to 60 knot gusts. It was kicking up some good waves, coming directly into our beam. Across the normally tranquil harbor I had some troubles making headway, especially as my mate was trying to move the dinghy to the starboard side of the boat. As I was wondering how in the world I was going to dock under these conditions, the marina called me and changed my assignment to the first slip, so at least I would not have to dodge another boat. As it turns out, the squall died down just when I got to the marina.

I later learned that a 40' Moorings monohull sank outside the harbor in the Drake channel. Three guys from the UK were on it - they had maximum sail flying, they were heeling over by about 40 degrees, with hatches open. When the squall hit them, they got caught by a microburst, which broached the boat. With the open hatches, it sank in one minute. It is now 160 feet down with the sails still up. There were a lot of boats that sustained minor damages throughout the Tortola area during these squalls. Everybody said the same thing - they literally came out of the blue.
 
Yikes!!! I hope you all had a good shot of whiskey after that one.....areas that produce that kind of erratic and unpredicable weather are very dangerous to those of us who wander out on the water from time to time.

DBH
 
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