"Capri" wrote:

In another post here a new sailor asked about what to do when he runs
aground. He was smart enough not to ask what to do WHEN not IF he runs
aground.

Our worst time running aground (except for the spring of 2004 when we
went aground south of Wrightsville Beach right in the middle of the
channel and had to call TowBoatUS because Bob said the boat 'hopped up
on a sand bar' and he couldn't figure out which way to go to get off)
was Queenstown

Bob wanted to go to a real grocery store for groceries. We'd been in
Baltimore, and he thought the grocery story near the marina's
vegetables weren't fresh and there weren't many of them.

We decided to anchor north of the entrance inside Queenstown Creek and
dingy in to Queenstown. The charts said the inlet was 6 ft. with local
knowledge.

We had directions from 2 guidebooks, so we tried. Three times we
approached and 3 times it shallowed up to 4.5 ft. and we went aground.
(we draw 4'11") Later we talked to Jim and Pat and they said they'd
done the inlet recently, and they only draw 2" less than we do. I
think Bob was giving the markers too much leeway again.

As Bob turned away to give it up as a bad job, the wind (still 19-20
knots) blew us down onto a shoal sideways and we were aground for the
4th time. We couldn't power out forward or backward or combinations
with us on the bow or stern.

We tried unfurling the main to make her heel, which she did, and we
went to the low side to make her heel more. We got off briefly, only
to be blown back.

I called for a tow or for someone in Queenstown on the radio but no
one answered. I found a # of a tow boat on the north side of Kent
Narrows and called with the cell phone, but got a recording that the #
was disconnected. The engine was overheating from running full tilt.

What really annoyed me about this was not only did no one respond on
the radio (and the previous day a guy had the same problem getting a
tow) but a sailboat actually came out of the inlet, passing within
about 10 feet of us and totally ignored the fact that we were
obviously in trouble - did not wave or even make eye contact. I was so
surprised I didn't hail them.

Bob decided to try kedging off. He got the dink out and put the motor
on, and put the 50 lb anchor in it. I fed 100 feet of chain down to
him. After he gained control of the dink which tried to come back and
ram the mother ship and after getting the chain arranged so that it
wouldn't pull him overboard with it (He skinned his shin in the
process), he carefully laid the chain out to the windward. When he got
to the end he heaved the anchor over, fortunately without going over
with it.

He came back and tied the dink to the lee side of the boat, and
started winching in the chain while I, at the helm, attempted to push
the boat toward the anchor with the engine..

At first (for the first 50 ft.) it did not seem to be working.

Then we were free, and I motored carefully but firmly into the wind.
Bob stowed the anchor (no need to wash it, everything blew off before
it got on deck, plus it was more sand than mud), and then went to get
the dink to a more appropriate place.

Suddenly, I heard him yell "We've lost the dink" and I looked up and
saw him with both ends of the rope (one end with a knot in it) in his
hand as he was leaping toward the stern. I threw the boat into
reverse, and unbeknownst to me (because I was paying close attention
to the depth gauge in front of me), he leaped from the transom down
into the dink as it was floating by, wrenching his leg, but only
getting one sock and shoe wet in the process.

I heard him say "We've got the dink", so I stopped reversing. He did
not know I had put the boat into reverse until afterwards. Probably
would have given him a heart attack if he had known.

After we secured the dink, we motored up and anchored in the Corsica
River.

We anchored off the country house owned by the Russian embassy (with
several 'Private Property' signs on the beach) in the Corsica by 3:30,
after 21.2 nm at an average speed of 3.6 knots. Of course that
includes the going aground time.

We dined on melon, salad, grapefruit and hot dogs sans mustard as we
had no regular veggies. The next day we went up to Queenstown and
docked at the marina. He thought that both the stores near the docks
were too expensive, so he walked probably 1.5 miles out to the highway
to the shopping center with the Acme to shop.


grandma Rosalie