Thread: First sailing venture - GIS by MAM

Bud was content to enjoy the scenery which consisted of a young lady who showed up and promptly removed her shirt to reveal a skimpy bikini top. "We're stuck but that's OK--the scenery's great! And we'll have water again shortly." I wasn't so sure but I was disinclined to wallow around in thigh-deep mud trying to drag the Goat around to the face side of the dock.

The bikini-lady finally departed with her friends in their small Carolina Skiff. Watching them working through the shallow water on the better side of the dock got me even more concerned about our predicament.

At this point a small john-boat that had been hovering about 50 feet out in the channel tied up after struggling through the mud. "We've got a real problem," I thought.

Chatting with the guy from the john-boat, I confessed that I didn't know the state of the tide; he said it was about dead low. Bud said, "so we'll have water again in a few, right?"

"A few? More like two hours. There isn't much going on at slack low. See that stick? It ain't moving."

At this point I'm thinking we need some drastic action so I reach down and grab the bow of the boat and raise it up about two feet out of the water. Bud and the other guy are watching and lights start going off in their heads. This was a light that had been burning in mine for a while but I'm not the pushy sort.

But I don't have a problem leading by example.

my goodness, a drama in chapters! Cool.

I am waiting for the next exciting installment!

MIK

I had an advantage, of course. Bud and the stranger didn't realize how light a Goat is. When they saw what one old fat guy could do they hopped to it and in no time we had her re-positioned to the face of the dock. She floated just fine there. And we did it without leaving the dock. No one got mud on his legs.

Bud and I climbed in, cast off, and the wind blew us out to deeper water. We were sailing.

When there is no particular destination I always prefer to start off sailing upwind so that is what we did. The part of the river we were in was mostly north-south so the southerly breeze gave us upwind and downwind practice. We went south to the large bridge (this is in the ICW) at which point I decided to test her downwind capabilities. No problems other than the centerboard wanting to float up. Bud thought it was hitting bottom and with my laryngitis it wasn't worth the effort to play instructor so I left the centerboard position to him. I was busy enough steering and handling the sheet.

At some point I realized I had grabbed the mainsheet between the ratchet block and the forward boom block. Duh!

Around this same time I noticed the small line leading from inside over the gunwale. The fenders are still out! Ee gads, that's lubberly! Get those things back inside!

We made about four passes back and forth past the launch point, about a half-mile on each leg. On each pass we could see the tide was getting lower and lower. Motorboats were stranded 50 feet from the launch dock. Boats were no longer being launched and anyone wanting to come out had to really work at it. The john-boat stranger had said this was one of those extreme low tides, the ones that happen once or twice a year.

And I hadn't even checked the tides!

Bud and I weren't prepared to spend 5 or 6 hours out on the water so when I started spitting cotton I decided we were going for it.

We sailed upwind a few hundred feet past the launch site and as I turned I told Bud, "we're going for it." When the centerboard hit Bud pulled it up and I told him to go ahead and take it all the way out. The rudder was next and I pulled it up at first and then removed it from the rudder box. We were still about 20 feet from the dock and stuck in the mud.

We probably could have sailed right up to the ramp (the water was deepest there) but without a centerboard we were driven down toward the dock. With both of us standing aft I managed to pole her through the mud (with a canoe paddle) until the bow just touched the "floating" dock; the quotation marks are there because the dock was no longer floating.

I had just enough line tied on at the bow to carry it up the 45 degree ramp at which point I was able to give a strong pull and get her about 10 feet closer to the ramp. At this point I figured we had one chance and one chance only. I would have to drop the line down to the mud and oysters alongside the ramp, hoping for the best, then walk around to retrieve it.

It was that or go buy more, about 200 feet of line, enough to run the length of the fixed dock.

I stretched the line as far shoreward as I could and let it go. After the wind finished with the lightweight line there was about 5 feet of it that wasn't in the water.

At this point I did get mud on my shoes.

But not on my legs. The scattered oyster shells gave me just barely enough surface to keep me from sinking knee deep as I retrieved the line. After that it was a piece of cake pulling her over to the deeper water at the bottom end of the launch ramp.

Home free!

(Pictures to follow just as soon as Bud emails them to me.)

Excellent tale! You got to demonstrate one of Mik's design features - light weight! Looking forward to the pictures.

Bob

Hey MAM,

You have a bit of the writer about you.

Not sure if you are making me think of "Swallows and Amazons" or "Riddle of the Sands".

Glad the lightweight side of the boat played out satisfactorily on the day!

MIK

Cor, I read all that only to find you didn't get muddy. Sheesh, talk about disappointment

And what is 'spitting cotton'?

Them ultra low tides can be fun can't they, especially when you don't expect them.

Richard

Daddles,

As a writer yourself ... did you notice the writerly trick of introducing the girl in the bikini.

The presence of a girl in a bikini at the beginning of a novel has often been enough for me to read many otherwise boring pages.

However, once MAM has introduced this incidental character, he gets on with the main business of telling us what happened.

I could TASTE the mud the way he wrote about it!

MIK

I grew up on a farm with lots of goats that didn't mind the mud. But the thought of mud on that beautiful finish work of MAM's. THAT's OK...these boats are meant to be used and dirtified!!!

Looking fwd to pics: Is it a full moon tide?! I'm in NC right now but didn't notice the tide....but I could more easily picture you MAM short tacking up the ICW!

Clint

Originally Posted by Boatmik

Daddles,


I could TASTE the mud the way he wrote about it!

MIK

Here's some mud for you.



Enjoy!

I had stuffed my large Panasonic Lumix into the aft flotation chamber where it remained throughout the adventure. Bud was shooting pics and videos on his little mini camera so until he sends those all I have to show for today's adventure is a little mud on the transom, rudder box and port quarter.

The mud on the sail would have been a much more dramatic shot but I finally washed that off a few minutes ago, just before dark-thirty. Not enough light for a picture.

Daddles--"Spitting cotton" is extreme dry mouth.

I really enjoyed reading your story about your first adventure with the Goat. May many more follow!!!

Looking forward to seeing the pictures of Cosmos Mariner sailing.

Regards, Joost

There's a short video of the launch on Bud's Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1529340056

The infamous floating-nonfloating dock can be seen in the background.

One thing that may not be apparent is that the boat rolls off the trailer, it isn't just sliding. I mounted a 9-inch roller just behind the after bunk. It is hard up against the bottom so when the bow is lifted just a little it takes the weight.

Bud shot this one after parking the trailer. Looks like enough water to me.



Here I'm tying the square lashing. Way too much sail ahead of the mast but the downhaul took care of that.



Now that we're all set...