I had an idea for a group writing project. The topic is moments of blind stupidity while sailing which left
you saying to yourself “What was I thinking?”.
Mine goes back about 5 years or so ago when I was back in the UK. We chartered a Sunfast40 (great boat!) from Sunsail in Port Solent and spent the weekend sailing round the Isle of Wight. On the Saturday, we sailed to Yarmouth, one of the truly nicest harbors in the world. On the Sunday morning we headed off West early with the tide past Hurst Castle aiming to round the Needles by breakfast.
I had it in my head that it would be great to cook breakfast sailing round the Needles. I went below fired up the grill and stove and set to cooking up a classic English Breakfast – the Full Monty – eggs, bacon, toast, beans and a fried tomato. Some of the crew were feeling a little queazy and the smell of fried breakfast wasn’t helping. In the end I think only three of us ate any of it.
I took the bacon grease-filled pan out from the grill, cooled it down by filling it with water out and laid flat over the sink. I then went up topsides to tuck in to a massive plate of fried cholesterol. It was a lovely late Spring day with a perfect breeze. With a combination of great sailing conditions, amazing scenery and a fantastic breakfast, I guess I forgot about the pan.
After heading South for about a mile past the Needles, we decided to tack and head East along the South Coast of the Isle of Wight. As the boat shifted from a Starboard heal to Port, the pan went flying.
The wooden sole was covered in a wet film of bacon grease spreading out over half the cabin. I went below to clean up and nearly slid the whole way down the boat.
It took me an hour of scrubbing with paper towels and salt to get the mess cleaned up.
What was I thinking?
If you have similarly moronic experiences, blog them and let me know and I will delight in sharing them. T-shirt to the best dumb thing done sailing.
I guess http://propercourse.blogspot.com/2009/03/ouch.html describes the dumbest thing I ever did sailing.
Once whilst drifting past the Isle of Man, I popped a (readymeal) Lasagne into the gas oven.
You may imagine the great dread and consternation that followed when, 5mins later the cabin filled with smoke and smoke wafted up out of the stairwell
Your hero dashed below expecting the worst, and it transpired that the “brain of britain” had left the box of matches in the oven with the lasagne which, not surprisingly, had burst into flames.
Mine is well-documented and I look forward to topping it. I misjudged the wind strength for the day and then caught a 30+ kt gust on the wrong point of sail and ended up in the water, dinghy turtled, and daughters deciding that sailing is not for them. 🙁
For me, it’s the docking. And the undocking. One of the worst was the day I discovered you’ve got to cast off all of the docklines before leaving, not just most of them.