A Sailing Adventure

Photo:  The upper left is Jon's boat, the Merilintu (Finnish for "Sea Bird." The lower photo is the boat of Jon's friend Phil Rigg.  He and his brother found the boat and either bought it, or were given it, in the 1930s.

One of the things I like best about sailing is the fact that you're dealing with nature, i.e. the wind to get you where you want to go (assuming you wish to go where the wind will take you). Getting there using the wind (&/or your auxiliary 'iron jib') can be a learning experience. Some years back, my long time crew member Steve Pheimister & I set out to go across the Bay to Cape Charles as part of the annual yacht club cruise which takes place in July or August. As I mentioned, it can be a learning experience....on this occasion, I had aboard a 3 gallon fuel tank (which may not have been completely full when we left). About half way across the Bay, I hefted the tank and mentioned to Steve that it felt a little light, and that we might want to consider turning back. Being a previous aircraft carrier pilot, and fearless, he suggested that we 'carry on.' To conserve the fuel we had left, we 'sailed the wind,' and by doing so, it put us into 'shoal' water, that is, into the eastern shore, somewhat north of where we wanted to be at that time of day. We had watched the 'Sunset Cruise' sailing vessel both come out into the Bay, and then go back into the marina (where we wished to end up). We fired up the motor and headed for the channel leading to the marina. We ended up at the final turn somewhat after dark, and since the channel was narrow and not well lighted, we....of course....went hard aground.

What to do....well, of course, the first thing to do is make a STIFF drink & figure out your situation. Steve had brought a local paper (with tide tables) with him and we found out that we had gone aground something around low tide. It was really dark, except that we were about 30 degrees down from the second floor Cabana Bar at the marina facility, and a couple of hundred feet out. They were like a goldfish bowl, & we were down in the murkiness. I decided to wade the anchor out to where we thought the deeper water was. To embellish the story, I decided to wear only a billed cap for this part of the operation. The bottom turned out to be hard smooth sand, and when I arrived to a depth at my armpits, I set the anchor.

After that, with the use of the anchor, incoming tide, wind & waves, we drug our self off into the deeper water about midnight. We limped into the marina fuel dock a little later (saving ourselves one night of slip fees).

Other yacht club members didn't seem too concerned about us as they started moving about the next morning.

jl