We decided to sail out into NY harbor again. We do this from time to
time, then sail under the bridge for a great view of the city as the
sun sets. It was a truly awesome night. In spite of a good breeze
(steady at 13-15 knots the water was quite flat. Heart of Gold was
doing about 6 knots when she suddenly came to a "Soft" halt. It was not
violent stop. It was more like someone had grabbed the boat. He sails
were full, we were heeled at about 12 degrees and not moving. Suzanne
looked over the side.
"We're grounded on something, I think." She said.
I looked over the stern and indeed we seemed to be on a dark sandbar,
though I knew that there were no shallows where we were. With the wing
I was not optimistic about getting her off, but I tried using the sails
to no avail. Finally I stepped onto the swim platform. I could see
something gray colored only a foot down. That made no sense with our
rudder and keel, but I took a careful step into the water.
"Look at this! I'm actually standing." I said
Suzanne had that puzzled look and said, "But where's the rudder?"
Then the true nightmare began. My right leg suddenly sunk down to the
knee, as if I had been standing on a thin layer of ice that had given
way. In fact, that's exactly what had happened.
Heart of Gold had "grounded" on the very decayed corpse of a large
Humpback Whale. Her keel and rudder had slid into the rotten flesh like
a hot knife through slightly frozen butter. I was instantly aware of
the smell and the gallons of blood in the water, which was now washing
over me as I struggled to get my leg up. Suzanne now comprehended the
situation was tossed me a rope, just as I sank down to my waist in dead
whale. With a great deal of effort she pulled me back onto the
platform. The stench was now beyond belief. Suzanne radioed for help
and we waited for several hours while a police and CC boat got us free.
A chopper also appeared and threw a powerful spotlight on the
operation. Later we learned that several big sharks could be seen and I
contemplated the level of danger I'd really been in.
I was in the water with feeding sharks and I could have literally
fallen into the whale carcass and drowned within moments. It was
horrifying to contemplate what had happened. The aft section of Heart
of Gold was smattered with blood and gore as we eventually motored down
the river. Knowing how close I'd been to those sharks made me too
frightened to dive over and get the blood off of me, so I used our
shower as best I could. Back in the slip we hosed off for more than an
hour, not satisfied until every inch of her was clean again.

It was our worst sail ever, but I don't think we did anything
wrong...or did we?



RB
35s5
NY