Break Out Another Thousand

[And-Con]

So I get in the boat for a short trip, the boats a 40' sloop with a 5.5 foot draft, and the guestimation on time was a 4 hour trip, just moving from one slip to a new slip a few miles down the ICW. Well I cast off and every thing's going great, I vastly over estimated time and make it to the mouth of the channel leading to my new canal in about 90 minutes.

The depth sounder is now giving me low readings, and I'm scraping bottom. I cut the throttle so that if I get stuck I don't dig myself in. I have the wind dead on my stern and end up grounding. I proceed to run below turn on the faucets, and start draining my 1200lbs of fresh water, slam the engine in reverse, drop an anchor off the stern, and start trying to winch myself off-I winch my jeep out of mud all the time, and the boats already got winches installed, so it's perfect.

Well just because something works in a jeep does not mean it will work in a sailboat. The boat never budges, and I call seatow I'm a member for just this reason, they pull me off and every thing's dandy. Wrong. All I have on my is my license and debit card, no keys no wallet, so I call the house and have someone relay me my member number. Uh oh I'm not a sea member-I'm a boat us member. Their bill for my tow-$1080.00. ouch. 300/hr+12/ft.

Moral of the story-Don't get stuck. I think?

 

[renny1]

Re: Break Out Another Thousand

OMG,it does pay to keep an eye on these things

 

[kenmyfam]

Re: Break Out Another Thousand

And it would have paid to call the correct people !!! and keep a membership card on the boat maybe.

 

[ziggy]

Re: Break Out Another Thousand

Moral of the story-Don't get stuck. I think?

i'm interested in what got ya think got ya into the predicament.
ie. wind? current? didn't go fast enough or went to slow? miss read charts? miss interpreted tide table?

maybe others can learn from the mistake.

 

[And-Con]

Re: Break Out Another Thousand

what got me into the situation-pushing my luck(dumb); i knew it was going to be a tight squeeze, and should have backed off when i was scraping bottom-if i can't get in during a decent tide i don't want to keep her there. I went in at the top of the tide, so if i got stuck there would be no waiting to float off, at least not until the next high tide.

Bad instruments-my depth sounder reads high; 2.4 generally means no water, but i have been under way with it reading 1.8. As far as charts, i was dead center in the channel, but this particular channel has silted in a lot.

being too proud to admit my mistake; i could have called home and gotten my information, but that would have required admitting i got stuck. I have never called for help before; its a new procedure to me-i didn't even know what company i use.

The wind was dead on my stern, the shoal was ahead of(and under) me; i now not only had to break the boat loose, but now against the wind and waves. I could go on but this seems a good summary.

#1 concentrated stupidity
#2 pride
those two always kill me
On the bright side the boat ran beautifully