My first, hopefully my last, shipwreck

Ahoy!

This morning, I consulted the weather carefully and learned that the bad weather wasn't going to hit our area until 4:30 or 5:00.  A full service marina was only about 3 hours away, so I decided to leave our quiet little anchorage and sail to the marina.  We need to wash clothes, buy a few things and fix a few things on the boat.  For instance, I ran hoses between the engine and the water heater so that we would have hot water while en route.  Well, it doesn't work and we have no hot water. This means that if we stay away from marinas to save money, we don't shower. Yuk!  There are a few other minor repairs I needed to make, so I was anxious to get to the marina.  Sitting around in the little harbor all day waiting for a storm to come that night just didn't seem the thing to do.

So I pulled up anchor and sailed out of the relative safety of the harbor and into the open lake.  Let me say, Guntersville Lake seems to go on forever!  It's 67,000 acres and 76 miles long, compared to Chickamauga at 34,500 acres and 59 miles long.  As soon as I entered the lake, I was hit with 14 mph winds directly on the nose.  Without a headwind, I can make about 6.5-7 mph motoring.  With this headwind, I was only able to plow ahead at about 5 mph.  But Happytat plowed on faithfully for hour after hour.

After about 3 hard hours of head winds and one to two foot waves, I was thinking: "I hope this old Westerbeke engine doesn't fail me now.  I wonder what I should do if it does?"  Within minutes of thinking this, I got my chance to find out what I would do, because the engine coughed, then ran normally, then coughed harder, then ran, then coughed a few more times and died.  There was still a 14-16 mph wind blowing and the boat immediately started blowing toward land.  Alison took the wheel and guided the boat while I attempted to clear out any water in the fuel filter. When I came back up from the engine, Alison said the boat was still heading toward land.  I tried the engine again and nothing.  So I said: "I'll put up some Jib sail to help us sail away from land," and proceeded to open up the jib.  The wind was blowing ferociously and tried to pull the Jib all the way out, but I quickly locked it in and tried to use it to sail away from land.  It worked for a while and I thought I had it going my way, but the wind just pushed the jib over and turned the boat toward land.  There were houses all along the shore, but nowhere I could just pull into and tie up. So I was concerned that the boat would go aground in a place that would damage her hull in these wind and waves.  I ran forward and dropped the anchor in the hopes of stopping the boat from going any farther toward land.  I was partially successful, but the boat still swung around into shallow water.  Fortunately, it was a soft sand, mud bottom and the boat just bobbed gently in the shallow water.  Also fortunately, the wind slowed to a gentle breeze of 5-8 mph.

I got on the phone and called my friends at US Boat to ask for their help - again.  When the dispatcher heard who I was, she said, "Is this the same boat we help yesterday?"  I ashamedly said it was the same boat.  So they sent a boat to help me.

While I was waiting on them, I worked earnestly on my fuel system.  I changed 2 fuel filters and checked fuel levels.  The fuel in the filter bowl had some dirt and water in it, so i re-assembled everything and tried the motor again. Nothing.  No fuel was being pulled into the filter. It was empty!  I finally determined that the main problem was the fuel pump.  I had spares of other parts and spare filters, but no fuel pump!  That meant I was out of commission.

Meanwhile, someone must have called 911 for me, because a boat was speeding my way with flashing lights. They almost passed me by, then stopped, turned and headed my way. Then another emergency boat came too!  He slid his boat up to mine and asked how I was doing.  I replied that I've had better days, but I was glad to see him!  It was the marine version of the fire department and sheriff's office who had come to save the day.  And they did!  They towed me to deep water, then the Sheriff's boat towed me the final 40 minutes or so to the marina. On the way, the predicted storm began to rumble. There were bursts of lightening and loud thunder surrounding us and the wind began to pick back up.  As we were pulling into the marina, with dock hands waiting help my crippled boat safely into a slip, the rain started in earnest.  I released my rope from the Sheriff's boat and gave him a very sincere thank you, and started pulling into the slip. Alison had passed me a poncho, so I stayed drier than the poor dock hands who stood in the rain while they guided me in.

Guntersville sheriff towing me to Guntersville Marina after the "shipwreck."

So we're sitting safely in the marina dock riding out the big storm, warm. well-fed and comfortable, but tired.  I have always heard of the term "safe harbor" but never really felt the full meaning of that phrase until today. We were never in any danger, but the boat could have been damaged seriously had it gone aground in on a rocky shore.  I've learned a few things from this experience:

• Carry a spare fuel pump.  This is an older motor of unknown history.  I have had a mechanic look it over and replace things he thought needed replacement. But the fuel pump was working, so there was no need to replace it.
• Keep my sails uncovered and ready for quick deployment for emergency.  If I hadn't had the mainsail covered up, I could have quickly raised it along with the jib and safely sailed away from shore and all the way to the marina without the motor.
• I can call 911 around bigger cities and they have water rescue facilities that can get to me more quickly than US Boat.
• Un-clutter the boat inside and out.  When I was trying to move about quickly, little things got in my way and slowed me down in trying to keep control of the boat.  When I had the jib sail up trying to sail away from shore, Alison was desperately trying to keep all the "stuff" we had laying around on the table, counters, and shelves from falling all over the cabin floor.  In the process, she was being thrown back and forth by the rocking and rolling of the boat in the wind and will probably be bruised from some of the impacts.
• Stay as upwind of land as the channel allows when there is much wind. That will give me more time to react if something goes wrong.  I had been hugging the landward side of the channel to cut the corner shorter.  That meant when the motor quit, I was already near land.

The good thing is that this 3 week motor trip is putting the motor-and us- to the test.  If anything is going to break, I want it to break while I'm on the river and close to services.  

This blog isn't to be all about how wonderful sailing away is, without balancing it with the reality of the challenges that come with it. Sure, there are the days when we're sailing down the river on a beautiful spring day, singing a happy song as we sail along. But there will be days when things don't go so well.  I'm not the least bit discouraged and fully confident that we will be in the Keys in a few weeks, safe and sound.  Maybe a little bruised and a little wiser, but better sailors.  Then we can anchor the boat, relax and enjoy the rewards for our struggles.

Larry