Sunday, September 28, 2008

Dingding's revenge


I guess one shouldn't make fun of the name of a river while still anchored there. This one goes under the category of careless cruiser instead of clueless...

How did this happen? I came in at low tide, knew the range was about 2 meters which is more than I draw, and there were two sailboats upriver of mine towards the shallower side!

The cause? It turns out one of the two boats was a trimaran which I should have realized draws nothing, and the other had recently broken from its mooring and was grounded. The boats deceived me about the true nature of the anchorage. Plus, I never took soundings around my entire "circle." So when a strong squall kept the boat on the upriver side of my anchor, stretching the rode to the max, it put me on the tip of the mud which juts into the anchorage at only one point! Water goes out, boat goes on its side.

Makes for a blog entry and of course everyone at the yacht club knows me as the guy that hit the mud...

No problem getting off with a 2 meter range.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

what the ???

chai guy said...

Hope you're Ok!

Anonymous said...

Just started reading about your journey..."kissing the bottom" happens to us all!