Caution Water Blog
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When we bought our Laser 2 back in February, Becky suggested we capsize it on our small lake before taking it on a bigger, more riskier lake than Bala, 'to see how difficult it is to get back up'. A good idea, sound in theory...
We went to Bala in May having not tested this out, and sailed in Force 7 winds without capsizing (although there were a couple of very close calls).
We're going again in a few weeks time, and have just finished painting the boat. On Sunday we got all the deck fittings we'd took off back on and the mast back up, and on Monday it was ready to go back on the water (after removing one half of the new centreboard gasket carpet since it was too much and the centreboard wouldn't go through).
Being a lovely sunny bank holiday Monday (first one for a while) with a decent amount of wind, we had a pretty good sail, including the first time we'd ever actually trapezed on the boat (Becky doesn't reckon it was trapezing since my weight and feet were still technically in the boat, but I had all my weight on the trapeze wire and leaning back so I'm counting it as half-trapezing and not hiking!). After we'd been out for about half an hour, we discussed the capsizing idea. "Let's go for it", we agreed.
We got to pretty much the dead centre of the lake, where it's roughly 8, maybe 9 feet deep. Too deep to stand, anyway. I was helming, when Becky said "Overpower the sails and take it over", at which point the wind decided to vanish. We got it listing over at about 60 degrees, and thought it was going to go, so got ready to get wet... and the boat just came back up and dropped flat again. Trying again, I stood up and pushed the sail over, and it went, fairly slowly.
Finally getting wet...
Bec decided to try and dry capsize it, and jumped up and tried to climb over onto the centreboard, at which point I was now in the water. Unfortunately, she didn't quite climb quickly or as nimbly as required (all credit to her, I've not managed to dry capsize anything yet, but she does it well in her Laser, which has a smaller cockpit and side to climb over).
This, naturally, resulted in the boat coming over slightly too far, and the mast going under water, and the inevitable happening - sticking in the mud. Bec was sat on the centreboard, leaning back, trying to pull the boat back up, and nothing was happening. We know what you're thinking, next thing, "Snap", but no, the centreboard came out of the incident unscathed and in one piece.
Hmm, it shouldn't be this difficult...
As this wasn't working, Bec dropped off the centreboard into the water (a little too forcefully one might add, we were sailing, not snorkelling). Jib sheet went over, I went round, and with Becky pulling on the jib sheet and me on the centreboard, we tried to right the good ol' Laser 2, but as you probably can guess by now, it was having none of it. I took over on the rope, gave it a good try, but got nowhere fast. Not the end of the world - few more things to try. We tried bouncing the boat a little, but that didn't really help.
Next, I swam back around again, and threw the mainsheet over as well, after putting a knot in it before the main block mounted in the cockpit, to give it something to pull against. I quickly backtracked on that idea, realising that the mainsheet pulling against the boom was much better than it ripping a hole in the cockpit floor and giving us a bigger problem of a sinking boat. With Becky holding the jib and main sheet, I tried pushing the mast up, but when you can't touch the bottom, there's not much to really push against. I tried swimming, and jolting the mast out of the mud, while Becky pulled on the sheets and tried to walk the hull, but to no avail.
Uh-oh...
You could probably say we were now starting to get a little concerned. There was no-one else out on the water, and the park warden watching on the bank was getting a little worried. Bec said she was on the phone, but there was no-one she could call. Thoughts started entering our minds of swimming to shore, getting the powerboat setup to rescue the boat, but that would have taken 15 minutes with both of us leaving the boat to its own devices, and probably 30 minutes for one of us on our own. That wouldn't have had a good ending, when unknown to us, we had a boat slowly getting lower in the waterline.
Failure was not an option at this point, so I decided to have another go at raising it up - rock climbing and regular gym visits should have a bearing on this! Back on the other side, I took the jib in one hand and the mainsheet in the other, placed my feet on the hull, pulled, and both sheets promptly slipped through my hands, and I got a little wetter still. Becky moved to the front of the boat to pull on the front and try and twist it, and I wrapped the sheets around my hands. Yes, this is wrong. Yes, you shouldn't do it - but we were getting quite worried, and I didn't have time to tie a bunch of knots into the rope as hand holds. I came out of it with some red marks on my hands, but they've faded now, a day later.
If we were a coastal club, the RNLI would be here by now...
With a handfull of sheet in each hand and my feet planted firmly on the hull, I started leaning back and pulling, and jolting the boat, alternating force on each sheet, trying to jiggle it free of the mud. You'd have thought we were stuck in the mud of the Severn Estuary with how much effort it took, but ever so slowly, it seemed to be working. The boat was more rotating around in the water than coming up, but because it was moving forward, it moved up very gradually. Becky put force down on the bow, I kept jiggling it, then when it started coming up Bec came and put some weight on the centreboard. Suddenly the mast broke free of the water - but it was still coming up painfully slowly! I thought all of a sudden the hull was going to drop on us (much like the last time I capsized in a cat), but it came down so slowly. Finally, it was back upright.
But, our adventure didn't stop there. While all this had been going on - yep, the wind had picked up again. Becky was on one side, I was on the back corner, and suddenly the boat took off towards the far side of the lake and some trees. It wouldn't have got there because the centreboard was fully down (can anyone say handbrake?), but I jammed the rudder across, and we were slowly sailing circles. I swam around the side and tried to get back in, but with the wind occasionally catching the sail, even with Becky holding the opposite side down I couldn't climb in.
Where'd the ladder go?
I went around the back, and heaved myself in over the transom, and was finally in. I sorted out the sheets, then pulled Becky up over the side. We decided to beat a hasty retreat from the gleeful eyes of the fishermen and call it a day.
When back on shore, after having cleaned all the mud off the top of the sail, we did the ritual emptying of the boat, and unplugged the tank, which up till now had never had water in when we'd taken it out. This time, there was a couple of gallons. There are no holes in the hull, so we think the only place it could come in is through the one cockpit grab rail, which is a little loose.
That sinking feeling...
We learnt several valuable lessons that day. Firstly, if you're going to practise capsizing in a new boat, even when you have an experienced sailing instructor and an enthusiastic crew on board - wait until there's a safety boat around. Secondly - if you can't pull the mast straight up out of the mud, try and bounce it gently, and pull it around out of the mud forwards and upwards, it makes it a bit easier. Thirdly - you can get pretty deep bruises and not even remember how you got them because of all the adrenaline at the time!
Finally - given the amount our club donates to the RNLI, we were a little disappointed in their response time - nevermind the fact we are a landlocked lake about 100 miles from the nearest coast line!
This all goes to show that we're all still learning every day, and have learnt a valuable lesson on this one.
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Sorry for the lack of updates for the last week, we've just returned from a week's holiday surfing in Devon!
We've spent the last week down in Croyde Bay in Devon, surfing... or at least something that vaguely resembles it. Hopefully by the time we get around to adding surfing as a category to this site we'll be a bit better at it!
Thanks go out to the guys at The Little Pink Surf Shop - if you're down in Croyde, they are simply the best place to hire kit out and will take time to talk to you and figure out what you should be hiring. Hopefully we'll see them again next time!
We had perfect weather all week, decent 2-4ft waves all week, and by the time we reached the end of the week had moved onto a hard board (NSP) instead of the foam ones we learnt on last year.
I thought I'd put the centreboard article live before we went, but it was such a mad rush I forgot, and it's now up and ready for you to read. Not a perfect result on this one, more a work in progress...
Also coming up this week - Photo Galleries! We've finally (nearly) got them ready, and will be kicking off the gallery this week with our picteres we took at the London boat show. Yes, it was a while ago, but we've got to start somewhere, and we'll get some more boat show pictures, and some of our surfing holiday up soon too.
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Our sailing club just returned from the first of this year's trips to Bala, which was quite eventful...
"Here comes a hoolie, let's have us some of that!"
Words which came to be regretted, as our 2008 Bala Sailing Trip (the first of two) came to an end. From Friday to Bank Holiday Monday, a good number of us upped and moved to tented accomodation on the shores of lake Bala for a camping sailing weekend.
A fair amount of alcohol and food later, everyone had a cracking good time. We didn't get in as much sailing as we'd hoped, due in no small part to their being too much wind (painful for a club that frequently experiences too little wind). We sailed Friday, Saturday and Sunday, with the weakest wind probably being around the Force 4, then on Saturday, Force 7 gusting to Force 9. Pretty much gear breaking wind. That being said, the experience of sailing in strong winds can't be underestimated - you can't even begin to imagine the forces involved until you experience it first hand.
That being said, it was fairly uneventful. We performed a few rescues on a recently qualified sailor, and also a kayaker, and the wayfarer and toppers stood up well, even Becky and Richards' Laser 2 experienced no pain. The same could not be said about Colin and his Prindle 15 catamaran however. On a particularly quick reach across the lake at speeds approaching 25 knots, the infamous "hoolie" came sweeping down the lake, which resulted in a rather rapid and spectacular capsize, a wet crew member (Richard), and Colin nursing a broken rib. That didn't stop him doing one more run with another crew however, which ended up in the main block shearing under the tremendous winds during a capsize which saw the young (rather light) crew member launched 10 feet off the boat during a fast pitchpole capsize.
Sunday was rather quieter boat wise, since the weather let us down slightly and rained, but that didn't stop a few Wayfarer trips, and Richard and Simon taking the Laser 2 for a spin into rather choppy waters the other side of the lake, and planing the Laser 2 so hard the bow wave was under the shroud plates. Damn good fun!
Add to that a birthday meal, and a few nights gathered together in a large tent, and a good time was had by all. Roll on September, with a mended catamaran and a 420!
Who knows - maybe this time next year we'll have the first Caution Water sailing trip!
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