I have just finished (like 6 hours ago) shepherding a crew of three college sailing students on a long weekend to Santa Barbara Island on my Itty Bitty Indomitable boat. I have had another nap. My head is buzzing slightly less. La Mouette, 1976 Islander 28, once again brought home a weary group of adventurers without a blister or bruise in spite of our occasional efforts to hurt ourselves. Proving once again I have lost every photographic instinct I may have once possessed, we have essentially no pictures of our adventures. So nothing new there, no evidence but our word for it. Well, not precisely no evidence. I do have a bag of small teak splinters picked up off our deck from a very early morning encounter with Pearson 365, Pilgrimage.
Sorry guys. Sorry boats. Proved once again: Two boats cannot become One in a pretty open anchorage. Rafting has it's limits. I almost hate to say La Mouette appears to have come away with only a little of the anodize rubbed off her toe rail. Far more importantly, no participant appears to have suffered a scratch much less what ex-Fire Captain Williams of our Crew explained as a potential traumatic amputation. Several times our four tons of boat disagreed quite violently with Pilgrimage's seven with lots of hands and arms in the vicinity. What a crunch it was! Twice, in fact. Not instantaneous bumps. More like short earthquakes that take a perceptible time to play out. Cr-uu-NNN-ch. Lit coldly by the beams of several LED headsets, flashlights and an unearthly glow from beneath Pilgrimage, it all seemed quite cinematic.
In the aftermath, my crew felt that maybe we should have abandoned our mutual efforts to side-tie after the first teak explosion as La Moutte delivered a vicious uppercut. Or was it Pilgrimage attempting to head-butt her smaller cousin? Fenders kept squirting out as the two boats occasionally rolled a yard against each other. My better instincts did not prevail as I watched our two crews attempt to join boats. I've never seen it done successfully, but influential members of both crews seemed certain of triumph if only we could throw enough fenders and lines into the fray. The concept: tie the boats tightly and they would move as one, just like pushing a stricken vessel. Saddleback College instructor Ron Grant's name was even invoked in support of the attempt. I thought, well, maybe I'm wrong, even after listening to a stout line between our vessels stretch-ch-ch-ch to almost the breaking point. So I wagered the integrity of my dear boat with what did not dramatically appear to be such a hazard to the limbs of our two crews.
I know a boat of similar robust 1970's construction to have survived an hour of pounding on the Newport breakwater bodily intact. Our rigging was widely separated, boats bow-to-stern. So my weary brain slowly comp-u-t-e-d the odds of survival to be excellent and allowed the attempt to continue while I busied myself attempting to unsnarl a small heap of line in the dark. A typical failure-to-exert-leadership by 'someone who should have known better' episode. Or, allowing a real-live lesson to impart seasoning to the assertive. This was, after all, a sailing class. The reason we charter Sea Scout boats like _Pilgrimage_ is their leadership expects some damage to occur in training. Why attempt such a thing, and at midnight no less? The eight boats in our flotilla swung on single anchors through the shifting evening breezes until the wind finally hung it up.
We were last in, as usual, having sailed as much as possible in the slowest boat. It took quite a while to recover from a rip in our spinnaker without losing the whole sail. I didn't like the look of things on arrival. The boats were too close together for my taste. We finally dropped anchor next to one of the outside boats with the idea of laying back behind the entire fleet and maybe setting a stern anchor to keep from swinging through the lot. Behind them, we would be out of their reach no matter how they swung. But the anchor would not set, even after dragging several hundred feet. Evidently grass. With our Danforth, a bad combination. Others told us there were good patches of sand closer to shore. In the fading twilight we moved forward, still attempting to set in front and outside any other anchors. After dragging 50 feet we set hard in about 40 feet of water. Paying back 270 feet, we landed what seemed to be a comfortable distance away from a Hunter. 10 minutes later we were only a boat length apart. I ordered the crew to take in rode. We settled in front of the Hunter on about the same length of rode they reported. Well, we can't swing into them! Pilgrimage was perhaps 400 feet closer to shore and we would probably swing in front of her.
I lit the grill for steak, shielding the coals from the breeze by hanging the cover on the windward side of the grill. I had noticed the grill was a little lose on it's support the last time we used it and had tightened the clamp at it's base. It rotated a little again it this time, but it seemed tight enough. Just as the coals were developing nice gray corners the grill flipped and dropped the whole load sizzling into the ocean. Wrong about "tight enough." The remaining charcoal was not nearly sufficient. Reluctantly, I told our volunteer cook to get ready to pan fry.
Finally we settled down to dinner at about 2130. As we finished up Reggie went topsides for a look. That Hunter 40 feet behind us? Now it's in front of us. Nahhhh. Making our way on deck, we watched the larger Hunter just off our stern drop back and then move forward again. Very slowly she sailed a complete 360 around us in the near-calm. This calls for moving or a strict anchor watch. The course instructor, captaining the Hunter, chose to deal with what we had and post anchor watches. With our rodes now wrapped, I decided this did not portend a safe evening. My limited experience with anchor watches is that they are so boring with a small, tired crew that the watch only becomes fully alert after the first collision. Then it's boat hooks and bumper cars for a few minutes until sleep steals in again. My firm preference follows my first sailing instructor's advice. Either anchor in so close that no one has the guts to come nearby or anchor out so far you're out of range. I carry extra lengths of anchor line which can be shackled into service for such opportunities. Periodically inspecting the anchor for dragging is one thing. Watching for wayward boats sailing around on their slack lines is another. The whole theory of boats neatly swinging together on single hooks works only so long as the wind dominates.
At least one other boat had already retrieved her anchor and was motoring around looking for a better place to reset. With the Hunter prepping for another circuit, I donned my PFD and harness and muttered "this is not OK with me." I busied myself at the bow. My crew drifted forward in support. I took in enough of our 230 foot rode to see the Hunter's white three-strand angling across ours in the red glow of my headlamp, everything shimmering enough in the clear water to make depth uncertain. My crew produced a thin seven-foot expendable oak spar with a rusty hook screwed into the end. I fished out the Hunter's rode and hooked it on the pulpit. I then proceeded to unshackle the end of our rode from the anchor locker while Reggie coiled our un-played rode to pass under the captive Hunter's. I threaded our rode through and flicked off the Hunter's, which quickly disappeared. Free. The deed done, I led our rode to the starboard stern. Calculating we would have to head to port to effect our escape, I continued around to the port stern cleat and let 40 feet of line disappear into the water underneath the boat. Confirming that our rode extended from the bow cleat in the direction of the anchor and also straight down, I commanded release of the line at the bow. As anticipated, the bow part of the line disappeared and the rest hung straight down from the port stern cleat. A towed line will not foul in the prop. I started the engine and slowly steered away from the group, all looking a little ghostly with their anchor lights waving in the air, shuffled up and unrecognizable. My intention was to pull our rode as far in the opposite direction as possible and then drop a stern hook to keep us at a safe distance. But we fetched up at the full 275 feet not nearly as far as I'd hoped and 90 degrees from where I wanted to be.
After several attempts to coax the boat in the right direction I realized that one does not easily steer with the rode taut off the stern cleat, propwash on the rudder or not. The keel was not about to let us pivot in place. So I ordered the rode moved to the bow again and fully retrieved. Let's reset further away. As the anchor lifted off the bottom a call came out from Pilgrimage 100 yards away. "Come and side tie, our chain will hold us both." Not realizing that they thought we had abandoned our anchor to escape the embrace of the Hunter and were offering their support to a vessel they thought anchorless, the idea had a certain late hour appeal. Boats have rafted up in calm water overnight. Pilgrimage is much heavier than us and was glued to the bottom on chain. I had something like a loose raft-up in mind, but not clearly thought out. I proposed to execute a semi-circle around to pull up on their port side. This would have placed them between us and the rest of the fleet. I was reminded that we would intercept their flopper-stopper poled out on the unseen port side. Oops, don't want to do that. So starboard to starboard it would be, putting both our masts at maximum distance from each other.
We drifted in beside them and arms reached out to lifelines to hold us together. Fenders swung into place and before long four lines had passed between us. Then the trouble started. The occasional peak swell would set us rolling against each other and public debate over the wisdom of the process ensued. 20 minutes later, after the second violent crunch, we decided to abandon the effort, retrieved our lines and floated away, each wishing the other crew well and no foul committed in the abortive attempt.
We stole away to the other side of the unfamiliar anchorage, the shoreline invisible with only the fishfinder to guide us. The fishfinder power connection had become intermittent and I had to keep restarting it. Suddenly the bottom changed from flat at 30 feet to pinnacles and holes ranging from 20 to 40. Nasty. I was not going to drop an anchor here. We drifted to a stop as I showed the trace to the crew. "No way," they echoed. I flipped through our options. Motoring five hours back to Los Angeles had the most certain outcome. We were lower on fuel than I would have liked, at least according to the gauge. So I flipped on the running lights and we stole away due North at reduced rpm, with our stern light slowly disappearing from the other boats. Pretty evident what we're doing, I thought. No need to wake everyone after midnight and some with troubles of their own.
I thought it odd that the shallow field of pinnacles extended out quite far from an island whose depth ordinarily dropped at 40 degrees or so. Then it hit me. During one of the restarts the fishfinder had come up in demo mode. One more restart showed the bottom at 200 feet and dropping fast. Well, false alarm but we're underway now. I brought up Iron Mike to take us home. Two others volunteered to take the first watch as I needed sleep badly.
The next I remember LA was 30 minutes out. I could pilot us past LA light to safety. I took the tiller and settled in as the rotating green swelled from a speck against the sodium vapor glare to the silhouette of a lighthouse. Avoiding a few other craft, we putted through the harbor entrance at about 0530.
15 minutes later a fast boat moved past our stern headed for the sea. Then the blue flashing light came on that could be meant for us alone.
No comments:
Post a Comment