....Water was pouring into the cabin and I
was thinking, "well, I hope we don't sink, but if we do, at least it's
not my boat."


Jonathan Ganz wrote:
Good thought. Actually, I intended to exclude racing, since it's a lot
more common then.


You're right. Sorry, amend my last post. When cruising or daysailing we
haven't had that happen nearly so often.

We did have a "knockdown" on the Hunter 19 on a day we forgot to fill
the water ballast tank. It was a club gathering, we were running around
the launch area helping other sailors and in the hubbub neither of us
checked the ballast valves. So we're out sailing around, marveling at
how the boat "seems a lot faster today" when WAMMO... a gust laid it
over enough for water to come over the coaming. I'm sure there were
fishes looking in through the cabin windows.

This boat has a rather wide transom and rolling on it's side lifts the
rudder out, so we spun into the wind and levelled out. I said to my
wife, "Did you fill the ballast tank?" "No, did you?"

After that we left the cover to the ballast tank valves off, unless the
tank was *definitely* filled and we were actively sailing. Made it easy
to remember since it was the bottom companionway step.

Fresh Breezes- Doug King