wrote:
Jeff the "Suicidal Sailor" was another sailing buddy of mine who at
firwst was fairly lucid and a very good sailor and as he truly loved
sailing, I gave him permission to use my 28' S2. After awhile he began
to act sorta erratic and told bizarre stories of sailing on "Ragtime"
under poor conditions. At this time, Bob (previous post) was
recovering from a second stroke and was in a longer term recovery place
like a short term nursing home. Jeff, by this time had started acting
very impulsively and talking suicide so I called the suicide hotline
but they were no help. I told Jeff he could not use my boat to kill
himself. Jeff and I decided to go visit Bob at the nursing place.
We made small talk with Bob for awhile while Bobs wife stood by. We
started joking about going on a sailing trip. Jeff started acting like
he was serious so Bob held up his arm with a bracelet saying that if he
tried leaving it would set off alarms. Jeff whips out a large knife
and in a flash suddenly cuts off the bracelet from Bobs arm and tries
to lead Bob out. Bob's wife yelling "NO, NO" while I got Jeff to see
reason.
Jeff kills himself a week later (gunshot). At his wake where everybody
was discussing his sailing skills, people would talk about how Jeff had
taken them on wild sailing trips in a boat called "Ragtime".
Bobs health goes slowly downhill and he dies a year later. I never
could bring myself to tell him about Jeff's demise.

Do you have an uplifting sailing stories????

wrote:
Jeff the "Suicidal Sailor" was another sailing buddy of mine who at
firwst was fairly lucid and a very good sailor and as he truly loved
sailing, I gave him permission to use my 28' S2. After awhile he began
to act sorta erratic and told bizarre stories of sailing on "Ragtime"
under poor conditions. At this time, Bob (previous post) was
recovering from a second stroke and was in a longer term recovery place
like a short term nursing home. Jeff, by this time had started acting
very impulsively and talking suicide so I called the suicide hotline
but they were no help. I told Jeff he could not use my boat to kill
himself.

Why would he care if he had your permission or not?

... Jeff and I decided to go visit Bob at the nursing place.
We made small talk with Bob for awhile while Bobs wife stood by. We
started joking about going on a sailing trip. Jeff started acting like
he was serious so Bob held up his arm with a bracelet saying that if he
tried leaving it would set off alarms. Jeff whips out a large knife
and in a flash suddenly cuts off the bracelet from Bobs arm and tries
to lead Bob out. Bob's wife yelling "NO, NO" while I got Jeff to see
reason.

I have known a number of people who were nutty enough to do
stuff like this, but not suicidal maniacs.

Jeff kills himself a week later (gunshot). At his wake where everybody
was discussing his sailing skills, people would talk about how Jeff had
taken them on wild sailing trips in a boat called "Ragtime".
Bobs health goes slowly downhill and he dies a year later. I never
could bring myself to tell him about Jeff's demise.


It seems likely that your friend Jeff had some serious
family problems, it's a shame that he didn't get them sorted
out.

I've had to deal with a heart attack, dehydration,
hypothermia, drowning, and several forms of stupid
attacks... it's surprising how many emergencies arise in the
course of a few years sailing. One of my best sailing
friends died in a collision with a motorboat, but I was not
at the scene.

Regards
Doug King

On Mon, 16 Jan 2006 20:31:01 -0500, "Bart Senior" .@. wrote:

Time for some fun. Who has some good
"falling in" stories. "Falling in" the water, "falling
in" the dink, "falling down" the companionway, etc.



When we first got our Columbia 8.7 we had intermittant engine failures
until I finally figured out what was causing it and did a permanenet
fix. However, for the first six months we often had to dock under
sail and I got fairly good at it. One winter night we were returning
and the engine would not start as we approached the harbor so it was
going to be another dock under sail. My father in law was at the helm
and we decided to leave him there let him have the experience.

With the prevailing winds the procedure was to make a down wind run
through the relatively narrow entrance channel until we passed the
pier our slip was on, then turn to starbord, coming up on a reach for
several hundred yards, then at the appropriate time turn to starbord
again dead into the wind coast about 25 yards while dropping the
sails, and if you had judged everything properly you come up a few
feet short of the main pier.

I could tell when we made the final turn we were too hot coming in but
by then it was too late to do anything about it. I was in the pulpit,
trying to judge whether I could stick my foot out and brace against
the dock box to cushion the impact without getting a vital body part
between the boat and something hard and stationary. Managed to brake
it some, but the pulpit hit the dock box and unfortunately recoiled
away from the pier. I did the classic one foot on the boat the other
on the pier with them separating. Into the drink. Even in
Mississippi, the Gulf is cold in January.

My father in law thought that was pretty funny until he realized I was
wearing his prized bomber jacket (he had been a WWII pilot). Both the
jacket and I recovered easily, the bowpulpit and dock box required
more extensive repairs..

"katy" wrote:
...I went full flat out on that dock. Everything went dark
and muzzy and I came to hearing Mr Sails say to the dock
kid, "She'll be fine...she bounces back quickly"

Hahaha! I'll bet he paid for that one!

Seahag

Seahag wrote:
"katy" wrote:

...I went full flat out on that dock. Everything went dark
and muzzy and I came to hearing Mr Sails say to the dock
kid, "She'll be fine...she bounces back quickly"


Hahaha! I'll bet he paid for that one!

Seahag


Once I was able to move again...after the painkillers wore off....

"Bart Senior" .@. wrote in message ...
Time for some fun. Who has some good
"falling in" stories. "Falling in" the water, "falling
in" the dink, "falling down" the companionway, etc.

That front hatch on the J33 has my name on it, went in 3 times, once head
first, the hatch was obliging enough to slow my head first progress with the
surround.
We started practicing all of our spinnaker hoists and douses through the
forward hatch at the end of last season, so I'm going to have to get better
with that thing or give up racing.

John Cairns