A low stubborn fog hung over Rosario Strait. We’d planned to cross back from the San Juan Islands to Anacortes in my 16-foot Sparrow sailboat, but the sudden appearance of a freighter’s bridge above the murky grey was enough to send us to a nearby mooring to wait for the fog to lift.
An hour later visibility had improved significantly, with the freshening breeze pushing the fog bank south enough that we had about a mile of visibility to work with. The Strait was chopping up, but we decided it was now or never, so we readied for the crossing. I pulled on a sweater, donned my PFD, turned on the VHF, then dug out my webbed harness and tether, and clipped myself to the big stainless u-bolt I’d installed for the purpose in the cockpit footwell. We freed our mooring and set off.
I held my breath as we plodded along in the middle of the channel, glancing southward at the wall of fog, hoping we’d get across before anything came steaming out at us, but in the end the crossing was uneventful.
The landing, however, was another matter. Marine traffic and the increasing winds had turned the exposed Washington Park launch ramp into a washing machine. The floating dock was bucking and bouncing, and naturally the side I wanted to land on was occupied so I was forced into a more challenging approach. Worse still, a group of high school kids was sitting out on the dock, so I had an audience.
But somehow I managed to turn the boat and cut the outboard throttle at just the right moment—deftly negotiating my little sloop through the tumult to a perfect landing. My crew stepped off the bow and made fast the bowline, whiled I reached over and put a figure eight and hitch on the aft dock cleat. Then, feeling plenty satisfied with my seamanship, I stood up and attempted to hop onto the dock.
Before my feet could touch I felt myself twisting, involuntarily, back toward the cockpit. What’s happening? I wondered, as I was spun around, legs now airborne, before crashing down on my side in the cockpit footwell. Then I remembered the damned tether.
I tried to get back up quickly in the hopes nobody had seen my fall, but before I could even disconnect, the high school students were standing over me asking if I was okay. Other than some ego bruising, I was just fine. •SCA•
It’s only fair that you share your own emabrassing boating stories below.—Eds
First appeared in issue #118
As one who has done a lot of open boating, I have found that my incidents always seem to occur when someone is watching, usually in front of the club dock. One of the reasons I write under the pen name Captain Clumsy.
I think we have all been there in one form or another. We plan for any and all challenges, believing we can meet them... only to find that getting home safely with nothing on us or the boat broken... is sufficient! Congrats on a perfect docking, and finding out that the HS kids were good lads!