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Catalina 25 Specific Forum

The Rest Of the Story.....

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Leatherneck
Deckhand

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USA
4 Posts

Initially Posted - 07/15/2002 : 19:47:34

For almost a year now I have been a mostly silent observer of all the problems, suggestions, solutions and opinions that are shared in this forum. I can honestly say that I have been entertained, informed and motivated by most of the posts that I have read. I say that I have been mostly silent simply because I never really had anything to say or had a problem that wasn't easily solved regarding my C25. What I have to offer now is not so much a problem as a sea story. I am hoping that by sharing my recent experiences, unfortunate though they may be, I am able to give back a little to the forum that has helped me overcome the challenges of being a first time sailboat owner. If not in wisdom or experience then at least in entertainment value, for there is plenty to be had in the tale I'm about to tell.
I am a 34 year old male Captain in the Marine Corps (important later on) who began sailing about three years ago while stationed in Hawaii. I guess I started like most people who get into it later in life, I went out on some boats that belonged to friends or acquaintances and got bit by the bug pretty bad. I never missed an opportunity to crew ( I even created some) and, after a few rough night crossings of the Molokai Channel, I thought of myself as being quite adept at sailing. I even spent four hours solidly grounded on a reef one night before the tide floated us off. For some reason I was proud of that, like it was a necessary notch in my belt in order for me to be a true sailor. What I did not realize then was that hauling a line on some one else's boat, at someone else's command in the middle of a very deep ocean is very, very different from being the skipper of your own boat and being responsible for the boat and all aboard. Especially when Neptune decides to throw you a few curves.
I had resisted the urge to buy my own boat while I was in Hawaii but when I found myself getting orders to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot on scenic Parris Island in Beaufort, SC I knew that I would be in a perfect place to buy my own boat and "master" sailing. I started looking for a sailboat within a month of arriving in Beaufort. Looking is too weak a term. Fueled on by articles in slick cover magazines about "the cruising lifestyle" and about the adventure and romanticism to be had in traveling to the far corners of the Earth under sail, I burned the midnight oil searching countless websites and periodicals for the craft that would fulfill my dreams. I began to find it hard to concentrate on anything else and finding a boat that met my needs and was within my budget became my quest. I had been reading everything I could get my hands on about sailing and about boats. Deep down I realized that I really knew next to nothing about having my own boat but as a Marine you are taught to adapt, overcome adversity and get the mission accomplished. I would apply the same principals to learning to sail. Still, the fact remains that at that point I could not have explained the difference between a topping lift and a thru-hull valve. The only boat manufacturers I knew by name were Hunter and Southern Cross and I had been warned away from Hunters forever after a drunken conversation with a sailor in a bar in the Philippines. I don't recall exactly what was said that made such an impact on me regarding the Hunter product but, nonetheless, I knew that I shouldn't even consider them. It was then that I somehow stumbled onto Catalina's. In retrospect, I think it was the affordability of the older C25's that got me interested. In case you are new to this forum and are unaware, there are an awful lot of Catalinas out there for sale in the under $10,000 price range.
Not long into my quest, I came across an add for a 1985 C25 tall rig with a fixed keel (at that point I thought they all had fixed keels) named LEROY that was for sale and happened to be located at the Beaufort Marina, just a few miles from home and work. The asking price was reasonable and the owner was boasting about a brand new Honda 9.9 four stroke in the ad. I bit and arranged to meet the owner at the dock the following Saturday for a test sail. That day, I arrived on time wearing my new, blazingly white Topsiders and ready to set sail. The owner and the friend that he brought along as crew also seemed to be ready. The jib was hanked on and the motor was running. I took a quick look around the cockpit and the cabin to familiarize myself with the layout and we shoved off. The owner was affable enough, if not a bit of a hippie. He was a guy about my own age who was selling the boat because he was going off to Costa Rica to teach english. He told me that he hated to sell her but he wanted to get something a little smaller, like a Sunfish or Laser, that would be easier to travel with. I just nodded my head and acted like I knew what a Sunfish or a Laser was.
The sail lasted about two hours and went well, although I was so excited about the prospect of owning an honest to God sailboat that I would not have noticed otherwise. When we got back to the dock I inspected the cabin again, this time even being meticulous enough to check the bilges. All I found was an electric bilge pump that didn't work. I was assured that it had just been installed and had been working only a few days before. The owner said that it probably just needed a new fuse. I nodded in agreement. I also noticed that the sink pumps did not seem to be working ("no water in the holding tank") and that the owner preferred to use a five-gallon bucket over the marine head ("because it costs money to have the holding tank pumped out"). I decided right then that I would pay the fee rather than endure the strong odor of urine that his solution created. I did think to check the service panel and test all the lights but quickly learned that many of the nav lights did not work. Again the blame was placed squarely on the fuses. Little buggers. As far as the aesthetics of the boat, I was a little disappointed in the condition of the interior teak but knew that it could be spruced up. As a matter of fact, I felt that way about the whole boat. I realized that it needed a few repairs and some serious elbow grease but I figured that it was going to take me awhile to get knowledgeable enough to take it out on my own anyway and what better way to get to know your boat than by spending time cleaning and repairing it. Above all else, including the little voice in my head telling me to slow down, I just couldn't stop thinking about how good it had felt to be out on the water, listening to the wind in the sails and feeling the sheer satisfaction associated with a good downhill run. I made a half-hearted effort to haggle over the asking price but, truth be known, at that point I would have still bought the boat even if he had raised the price. I was hooked and, furthermore, I was ecstatic over the prospect of finally owning a sailboat. I gave him a check and even detected a twinge of sadness in his voice as we talked about the title transfer. Oh yeah, there was that. The title. Since we were conducting this business transaction on a Saturday, we had a big problem finding a notary public to witness the title transfer. I was eager for the boat to officially be mine and he was eager to get busy getting ready for his impending move to Costa Rico (and to cash my check) so we agreed to go ahead and conduct the transaction and I would have a friend's girlfriend (who was a notary public) sign the title later. A little shady but we're talking sailboats here. A little leeway with the rules is allowed (pun intended).
Over the next few weeks I spent every bit of my free time on the boat. I had gone over the boat with a fine toothed comb and made an extensive list of repairs and upgrades that had to done. I completely stripped the cabin of anything that could be removed. I set up a teak refinishing operation in my bathtub at home (yes, I'm single) and brought every piece of wood from the boat there for a thorough cleaning. I also cleaned all the bulkheads, the overhead and anything else that I could. I began making weekend trips to the West Marine in Charleston and spending more than the GNP of some third world countries on bags full of nautical items ranging from running rigging to barometers to VHF radios. In short, I focused all of my efforts on getting the boat in tip top condition. I had been right about one thing. Working on the boat, day in and day out, taught me more about boats than I could have learned from crewing on other people's boats for the rest of my life. In between trips to the boat store and dockside maintenance sessions, I actually found time to sail her a few times. My first time out was a solo effort that resulted in me motoring out in the middle of the Beaufort River on a windy afternoon and spending the remainder of the day "sailing" around in circles while I tried to raise the jib. The current moves pretty swift in the Beaufort River and I did not have the boat rigged for solo sailing. Every time I would point her into the wind and run up on top of the cabin to raise the sail, she would inevitably start heeling over before I was ready for her to and I would lower the sail and start all over again. Although this went on for hours, I did not become discouraged or have any regrets. I just resolved to either get the boat rigged for single handed sailing or always have a crew. Both resolutions turned out to be much easier said than done.
The next time I went out I took a new friend that I had met at the Marina. He was older than me and was a weekend live aboard on the boat two slips over from me. He knew what he was doing. He had even sailed all the way to Key West a few years back. Fred proved to be a lifesaver in that he never missed an opportunity to tell me what I was doing wrong and show me the right way to do it. When I wanted him to, he would take the helm and get us through the hard stuff and other times he would be content to just sit and drink beer while I figured out what the hell I was doing. In time my abilities, as well as my confidence level, increased to the point that I began to take the boat out on my own or with my other, non-sailing friends. One of those times would be the last time that I would ever take Leroy out, alone or with a friend.
On June 2nd of this year, I had some friends coming into Charleston to stay at a rented beach house for a week. I decided to bring Leroy up the ICW, from Beaufort to Charleston, so that my friends and I could spend some time sailing in the harbor up there. I talked a buddy into accompanying me. I had done some research on that leg of the ICW and planned to spend the first night of the trip in an anchorage about halfway there and then proceed on into Charleston the next day. On Friday, June 1st, at 3:30pm we passed thru the open drawbridge separating Beaufort proper from Lady's Island and began what would be the first trip up the ICW for both of us. We could not have asked for better weather, although it had stormed badly the day before. As the scenic ante-bellum homes of Beaufort disappeared beyond the bend of the river, life could not have been any better. After almost a year of working on the boat and never sailing her more than a couple of miles from her slip, I was finally taking her on a voyage. A voyage whose end had just enough uncertainty about it to make it an adventure.
Our first big challenge came when we left the Beaufort River and entered the Coosaw River. The Coosaw is a very wide river that eventually turns into a Sound and ultimately empties into the Atlantic. We had been motoring along when we hit the Coosaw. Most of the ICW between Beaufort and Charleston is too narrow (for me anyway) to put up a sail. I did have the jib hanked on though and really wanted to get some sailing in. I had figured on the Coosaw being my best bet but, unfortunately, the wind was blowing from bow to stern and I did not feel like beating all the way to the Sound where our turn into a small cut was located. Up to that point, I found the ICW to be very simple to navigate in. As a Lieutenant I had been assigned to a small boat company and was well versed in maritime navigation. However, I was in unfamiliar waters and as we got further and further into the Sound, the waves seemed to be getting bigger and bigger. The markers indicating our position started getting further and further apart until we could not see the next one. I had my buddy scanning the horizon with the Binos while I checked and double checked the chart, confirming our position by GPS and by terrain association. I kept thinking that we should have already seen the marker indicating our turn into the cut. Meanwhile, the waves were beginning to toss us around a bit more than I was comfortable with. It reminded me of my trips in the pacific aboard a 42 footer, except that my boat was much smaller and taking a hell of a pounding. We were plowing bow first into what I estimated to be approx 4 ft waves. In retrospect it doesn't sound that bad and we even began to enjoy it after awhile but when we were first experiencing it, it was a little hairy. To make matters worse, when I finally saw the next marker, I realized that we had somehow missed our turn and were practically in the Atlantic Ocean. I quickly turned us around and we began heading back the way we came. The pounding from the waves continued but now they were coming directly over the transom and into the cockpit. We got soaked and also got the wits scared out of us several times when the whole transom (including the outboard) went underwater. On top of everything else, a shark was swimming around about twenty yards off of our port side. I swear that I am not making this up. After three years of living and diving in Hawaii I am somewhat less apprehensive about sharks than your average person (judging solely by the reaction my friend was having at the time) but with the probability of getting tossed out of the boat getting more and more real with every wave I must say that I was a bit concerned. Fortunately for us, we made it to our marker without the boat sinking and without either of us becoming a shark snack. When we finally saw the marker we realized why we had missed it so easily. Instead of the large signs that mark most of the ICW, this critical marker was a small, red can buoy that would have been hard to spot in calm water much less in moderate seas. In any event, we were in the calm waters of the narrow cut and were both feeling surly for having survived the Sound. After a round of congratulatory high fives, I checked the chart and confirmed that we were only about an hour away from one of the anchorages that I had chosen along the route. We had spent more time in the sound than we had anticipated and were running out of daylight. We decided to head to the anchorage as quickly as possible. I had two cases of Corona and two steaks on ice in the cooler and couldn't wait to drop the hook, fire up the grill and relax. As with the rest of the trip, Neptune had something else in mind.
I heard it before I felt it. We had been clipping along at a good 7 knots (wind at our backs, with the current) in a another of the narrow creeks that make up that stretch of the ICW. I was scanning the charts religiously and keeping boat in the deepest part of the creek. Then it happened. I heard the high pitched whine of the outboard coming out of the water. An instant later, I felt the boat tilt violently forward, go level again for an second and then surge again. We had hit bottom and hit pretty hard. I immediately killed the engine. According to the chart, we should have been in about 8ft of water but as we looked around we saw that all forward movement had stopped. I restarted the outboard, put it in reverse and began to try and back off of the shoal. No dice. We were stuck. I repeatedly gunned the engine while we rocked the boat from side to side. I knew that the tide was going back out to sea rapidly and that we probably had about ten minutes at best to free ourselves or we would spend the night right there. Just when I was convinced that the engine was going to explode, we started going backwards. Our movement was painfully slow and only inches at a time but we were moving. Eventually, the 9.9 horses of the Honda 4 stroke proved to be too much for the lowcountry pluff mud and Neptune reluctantly released his grasp on my keel. I had won again and was feeling quite proud of myself for all of the adversity that I was overcoming. I was also thinking a lot about how good that first Corona was going to taste.
We arrived at the anchorage about an hour later. I picked a nice protected spot and dropped the hook and then instructed my buddy on the procedures for lighting the grill while I went around securing various aspects of the boat. Thinking back to our crossing of the Sound and the large amount of water that had washed across my deck, I decided to check the bilge. What I saw alarmed me. When I took the bilge hatch off, I saw that the bilge was completely full of water. I'm not exaggerating, the waterline was right at the hatch. Although I had never seen this much water in the bilge before, I was able to convince myself that crossing the Sound had been pretty rough and that we could have conceivably taken on that much water. I knew that I had a leak in the anchor locker and in the past I always had some water in the boat after a good rainstorm. Never more than a few inches but I had never crossed a big Sound in what I was now calling "heavy weather". I knew I had to pump out the bilge and, as the original broken electric pump stared back at me through several feet of water ( I had never fixed or replaced it), I knew that it would be by hand. I broke out the small manual pump that I keep in the cockpit gear locker and put one end in the bilge and the hose end into an empty 5 gallon ice chest. Twenty-Five gallons later, the bilge was dry and I was sweating like a slave and oh so ready for a beer. I stared at the empty bilge long enough to make sure than no additional water was coming in then replaced the hatch. I could smell the steak beginning to cook on the grill and my buddy had Jimmy Buffett playing on the CD player. Fifteen minutes later I was sitting in the cockpit under the bimini, washing down one of the best steaks that I've ever had with one of the coldest beers ever while JB was singing about Mother Ocean. Leroy was swinging gently at anchor and as the day surrendered to dusk I could not have been more pleased. We had hit a few snags to be sure but we had overcome them and now we were reaping the rewards of sailboat ownership. There was no place that I would have rather been at that moment.
Five minutes after that thought entered my mind, the breeze dropped off and we quickly found out why the peaceful little anchorage we were in is called Mosquito Creek. I'm talking jumbo sized blood suckers that were so big I swear some of them had stewardesses and an in-flight movie. And we were covered in them. I don't know if anyone remembers those OFF commercials in the Seventies where the guy sticks his arm in the tank full of mosquitoes and they immediately cover his whole arm. That is what we looked like, except that instead of our arms it was our whole bodies. Citronella candles had no effect except to provide enough light on the whole scene as to make it macabre. We were literally getting drained of our blood. We hurriedly finished our meals and retreated to safety of the cockpit, which I had painstakingly prepared earlier in the day to serve as a bug proof strongpoint by attaching pieces of screen coated in Skin-So Soft to any and all areas which might allow bugs access to my little sanctuary. I soon realized that no man made item in the SC lowcountry can accurately be described as bug proof. Bugs come in all sizes. It didn't take long to see that they were still coming in, albeit in reduced numbers. What was even worse though than the bugs was the fact that it had to have been at least a thousand degrees in the "sealed-up" cabin. Realizing that our planned night's activities of drinking beer in the cockpit until we passed out was not going to happen, we decided to spend the rest of the evening drinking our Coronas in the stifling heat of the cabin which, we did until long after midnight. Again, adapt and overcome.
The next morning was routine enough. I made a pot of coffee on the grill, although I purposely made it weak because I had not ever gotten very proficient with the marine head. I know it seems like a simple concept to master but in-between all the other things I was having to learn about sailing and boats in general, figuring out the exact sequence of events that would lead to a successful flushing kept slipping on the priority list. I had read a magazine article about it and thought that I could probably figure it out if I had too but, truth be known, I had never had to. The Marina has really nice facilities and I saw no need for potentially unpleasant odors onboard as long as I was paying for theirs. After the coffee, I checked the bilge again. No water to speak of. I cranked up the outboard while my buddy pulled in the anchor and soon we were off on day two. The next couple of hours passed uneventful with the exception of every power boater on the eastern seaboard screaming past us at 30 knots. Seems that there was a storm lingering somewhere offshore and a lot of the bigger boats were opting for the safety of the ICW. I guess that I had been fortunate prior to this trip in that I had always had good experiences with our powerboat brethren. Every now and then somebody would not wake me pretty hard but most folks had been fairly courteous and had slowed to a respectful speed when passing Leroy. That was definitely not the case that day. I was getting waked by big boats with names like FOREPLAY and REBEL YELL whose drivers would smile and wave at us as if they weren't really causing us to experience a near knockdown every time they sped by. Pretty soon I stopped waving back and shortly after that I started returning their waves with a little one finger salute of my own. It was during one of these near knockdowns that I happened to look into the cabin as we were getting rocked violently from side to side. What I saw gave me the same empty, sinking feeling that I had gotten at fourteen when, after returning from a day of bird hunting, I accidentally shot the back window out of my grandfathers prized antique Chevy while unloading a shotgun in the driveway. Water was sloshing up out of the bilge every time we rolled to one side. I gave the helm to my buddy, jumped in the cabin and quickly opened the bilge hatch to see that the bilge was full again. We motored on for about another half hour before the water level in the cabin had me in a silent panic. I tried to reassure my buddy that, while it was not "normal" to have a foot of water in the cabin, it certainly by no means a dangerous situation. I made the call to pull to one side of the main channel and, despite very shallow water, throw out the anchor and pump out the boat. Again by hand and, again, it was hotter than hell in the cabin. After getting waked a few times while at anchor, I decided that it was also time to let others know about our situation. I got on the VHF and gave a description of the boat, our position and our situation. I did not request assistance but I did ask everyone to be mindful of our plight and please, please slow down when passing. I got a few positive responses along with a few warnings about the depth (or lack thereof) of the water that we were anchored in. The tide was starting to go out again and time was of the essence.
We managed to get the boat pumped out and back on our way before we got grounded, although the depth finder was reading less than a foot of water under the keel when we pulled back out into the main channel. We started getting close enough to Charleston that I began to think that we just might make it to the relative safety of the dock without sinking. I was still being plagued by obviously drunken power boaters who seemed bound and determine to come as close to me as possible before changing course. These were not the same people with whom I was having trouble before. These people looked like extras in a mid-seventies Burt Reynolds movie, with sleek, fast boats that looked like they had been built in somebody's backyard shop and sprayed with glitter. I saw one guy who was driving a low-slung bass boat with what appeared to be a funny car engine mounted on the transom. At least the skippers of the big boats were only passing me once as they went about they're way. These yahoos were crisscrossing all over the water. And then there were the Jet Skis. I remember hearing a story in the news a few months back about a sailor who fired some sort of gun at the owner of a PWC that seemed to menacing him while he was out for a sail. The cops were waiting at the dock for him and, last that I heard, he was in some serious trouble. After my own experience with several of these folks, I am convinced that the cops got the wrong man. Still, as I observed the mayhem around me I couldn't help but smile thinking of the scene in Caddyshack when Rodney Dangerfield's character is driving the cabin cruiser around the bay creating havoc.
My smile soon disappeared when on one of my frequent glances into the cabin, I again saw water rising out of the bilge. I had already thought of a million places that it might be coming from but nothing checked out. The thru-hulls were in solid and dry as a bone, it wasn't the motor mount nor did it seem to be the drain hole in the transom which had been plugged with a big cork ever since I bought the boat. The keel was a definite suspect but after the second time that I had pumped the boat out, I had checked all of the keel bolts (all that I could get to) and just didn't see any water coming in. Still, the fact remained that the cabin was filling with water and it seemed to be rising at a faster rate than it had before. None of that mattered to me very much at the time though. I was getting very close to my destination and the safety it offered. I had only to traverse one more small cut, the Wapoo Cut (named after the river that it connects to Charleston harbor). I had read about the Wapoo cut and knew several things for sure. It was narrow, it was deep and the cut had a reputation for having a very strong current. It was also not a good place to anchor. One book that I had read suggested that small boat skippers were better off if they waited for a slack tide before going through its narrow confines. By the time I entered the cut, the tide had been rushing out for about four hours but because of the ever increasing amount of water in Leroy's cabin, I did not have the luxury of waiting a few more hours. I also knew, and confirmed on my chart, that there was a drawbridge at the harbor end of the cut that was charted as having 33 feet of vertical clearance at high tide. The cut was everything that I had expected and a little more on top of that. You would think that a place like that would be a no-wake zone when, in reality, the tight spots just seemed to present more of a challenge to the aforementioned stunt drivers piloting the redneck water rockets. There was even one idiot attempting to pull a kid on a wakeboard. Again, I was amazed at the carelessness and the seeming reckless abandon that many boaters seemed to have. I know that there must be many, many responsible boaters out there who know much more than I do about all aspects of boating so I don't want to come off as a "sailing snob" but I did not witness many that day who fit the bill. Just a lot of people who could afford a boat and turn a key. Okay, back to Leroy who was at this time putting along with a good foot of water in the cabin. I made it through the cut and got within a hundred yards of the bridge and the safety it promised on the other side. I could clearly see Charleston harbor and also many sailboats moored in the outer vicinity of the marina. I radioed the bridge operator and asked when the next scheduled bridge opening would be. She replied that I had thirty minutes to wait before she could open the bridge again. I didn't feel very comfortable about waiting that long. In hindsight I realize that I, to put it in country boy terms, could smell the barn and was anxious to get inside. I told the bridge operator that I was taking on a good deal of water and asked if there was any way that she could open the bridge early. She replied that she could but that she would have to notify the Coastguard and make a report. Again, in hindsight, I should have just let her call the Coasties and do whatever she had to do to open the bridge so that I could get the boat to safety. For some reason though, call it hardheadedness or just plain pride, I wanted to make sure that before I caused an "incident", all other solutions had been tried. Maybe that comes from the Marine Corps, maybe it just goes with being a guy. Kind of like the same reason most guys will get lost before they stop and ask for directions when driving. In any event, I decided to try one more option before asking the operator to open the bridge early. I informed the bridge operator that I had the bridge charted at 33 feet of clearance at high tide. I asked if this was correct. She gave me a not very reassuring, "well, that's what it's supposed to be". I confirmed the time of low tide with her and then told her that I believed that my mast would clear. I could see by the waterline on the bridge's depth markers that the water level had dropped about six feet from the high water mark. I told her that I was going to try and get as close to the bridge as possible and "eyeball" the mast/bridge heights and that if I saw that I had it, I was going to proceed under the bridge. I motored very slowly towards the bridge, one eye on the mast and one eye on the water filled cabin. I was still getting waked and there were still many boaters going past in both directions. I passed the Charleston Crab House, which sits on the bank right before you get to the bridge. I got as close as I dared get and found that I just could not tell whether I had the clearance or not. It looked to be very, very close. I thought that the mast would clear but that maybe the antenna or wind vane might hit. My buddy thought the same thing. I briefly considered risking losing these items as a small sacrifice to pay to finally get to the dock. I was getting tired of adapting and overcoming and just wanted the trip to be over. I also considered calling the operator and asking her to please open the bridge.
In the end, I didn't have to make a decision at all. I remember very clearly the exact moment that I realized that we were caught in the current. Truth be told, I will probably never forget it. I was still trying to decide which course of action to take regarding going through the bridge when I thought that it might be a good idea to back up a little and maintain a safer distance from the looming steel structure of the drawbridge. I put the idling outboard in reverse and gently turned the throttle. We were still moving forward. I opened the throttle a little more. Same thing. My heart beating a little faster now, I cranked the throttle wide open. Leroy started to turn sideways and go broadside first under the bridge. What happened next seemed to last an eternity. For a brief moment, I thought that we had cleared as I saw the mast go under the outside edge of the bridge. That illusion shattered when I heard the sickening screech of metal being dragged across metal and felt the whole boat jar. The mast head was caught up in the combination of steel girders and cables that made up the underside of the bridge. Instinctively, I radioed the bridge operator and told her that we had hit the bridge and needed an emergency opening. No sooner had I said that I realized that the masthead was firmly caught. I quickly radioed the operator back and told her not to open the bridge for fear that it would cause a dismasting. The current still had us pretty good and the boat began to swing over to one side like a pendulum on a clock, made worse by the large amount of water shifting around in the cabin. The starboard rail was almost in the water when the mast head popped free of the bridge. Leroy did what she was designed to do and began to right herself only to get caught up in the bridge again. I was doing a million things while all this was happening. Part of my military training has always been that doing something is always better than doing nothing, even if you're not sure what you're doing. I was rapidly gunning the outboard forward and then in reverse in a vain effort to free the masthead of it's latest entanglement. I was also on the VHF talking to the bridge operator, who was asking what I thought were insane questions like, what's your home port and how do you spell your boat's name. We were further traumatized by the wakes of boats who had come to a screeching halt to watch the moron in the sailboat who was hung up under the bridge. Every time we went into the trough of a wake wave, the mast head would come loose but as soon as we rode up on a crest, the mast head would slam back into the bottom of the bridge with a vengeance, as if to teach me a lesson for not respecting the ancient god of bridges enough. I wish I could say that we made it all the way through the bridge without anything more serious than damaged pride and a healthy, new respect for bascule bridges. Sadly, that is not the case. In the midst of trying to extricate us from under the bridge, I heard a loud groan followed by several loud percussions, similar in sound to pistol shots. I watched in slow motion as the mast was bent back to the point that it was putting a lot of pressure on the forestay. Surprisingly, the forestay held fast but something had to give and that something was the bow deck. The pressure from the forestay ripped the deck right up from the hull for about two feet on either side of the bow. Seconds later the mast head snapped off of the mast and came careening down, landing in the water on the starboard side of the boat and bringing the forestay and backstay with it. Thankfully, the bimini was up and the boom fell harmless on top of it instead of braining one of us. I looked into the cabin and thought I saw a lot more water rushing in which I assumed was from the gaping hole in the bow. For a few seconds, I literally thought that we were sinking as my severely crippled boat finally came out on the other side of the bridge and into Charleston harbor proper. I am quite sure that I probably went through a whole range of emotions while all this was going on but I don't remember most of them. I remember silly stuff like looking over at the Crab House while we were under the bridge and thinking about the good story that the happy hour crowd would have to tell. I also remember the expressions on the faces of all the boaters who had stopped to watch what I am sure must have been a spectacle worthy of any. And, again, I remember thinking that we were going to honest-to-God sink right at the end of the Wapoo cut, within throwing distance of the marina dock. Surprisingly, I was more worried about being responsible for having to pay for any salvage operations if the boat did sink and somehow blocked the entrance to the cut than I was about losing my life or getting injured.
The rest of the story is more mundane. I did call the Coasties after we came out from under the bridge. They asked if we were wearing PDF's ( by that time we were) and they asked for my Latt/Long Position which struck me as strange because you can spit on the Coastguard station from the Wapoo Bridge. The one thing that they did do that really helped me out was to get everyone in the harbor with a radio to go to idle speed until we got to a dock. I also had an anonymous boater in a yellow See-Doo power boat hail me on the VHF and guide me through the unfamiliar approach to the marina and take me right to the dock, where I had radioed ahead for dock hands, who were there waiting along with several police officers. The cops asked a few questions and then, once they had determined that alcohol was not involved, went on their way. I managed to get the boat secured, borrowed an electric pump and pumped it out again. The boat stayed at the dock for 4 days while I arranged a tow to a nearby boatyard and never had any water in the bilge. I had to pump it out three times on the four hour tow to the yard. Upon haul out, the culprit was deemed to be damage to the keel (stripped bolts) probably done when I ran aground the first evening. The fiberglass work alone was estimated to be more than the boat is insured for. It is a total loss but, once I settle with the boatyard and the bank, I will not make a dime. I learned more in those two days than I could have ever hoped to learn before the trip. For one, I was pleasantly surprised at how I handled what could have been a situation with a much different outcome. For the most part I remained calm and focused my efforts where they needed to be. I learned to be honest with yourself about your own abilities and not to rush into anything when it comes to boats and safety. I learned that you should always have a boat surveyed and be willing to ignore that longing in your heart when you fall head over heels for a beautiful boat and just walk away. I learned that after you have had a sailboat and have put time and effort into it, you will never get what it is truly worth in money but you can in satisfaction had. I also learned that the C25 is a tougher little boat than I would have thought. I did just about everything that I could to sink her but she held fast and got me to safety. And of course, I learned to wait for the bridges to open before trying to get to the other side. The list goes on and on...... I will buy another boat, maybe not this summer and maybe not a C25, but soon and when I do I will continue to learn something new about being a sailor every time I take her out. I'm still hooked.

Charles B. Lynn

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Phredde
Navigator

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125 Posts

Response Posted - 07/15/2002 : 20:15:16

Wow, what a story! That makes some of my 'close calls' seem tiny. I will remember that bridge story as long as I sail. Thanks for sharing.

Phredde
Catalina 25
San Francisco

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Libecchio
Deckhand

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10 Posts

Response Posted - 07/15/2002 : 21:23:12

Thank you so much for a wonderfully written and wonderfully entertaining story. I have to believe that the Murphy of Murphy's Law was a sailor.
I must say that your disasters make my disasters look pretty small -- although that is far more due to luck than my seamanship. My worst disaster occurred on land, when I backed my trailered daysailor's mast into a powerline hard enough to bend the mast (after I'd eyeballed it and assured myself there was plenty of clearance). Fortunately, the powerline was well insulated and all I got was an irreparably bent mast, but my son was sitting in the cockpit and I still shudder to think of what might have happened.
After several years daysailing, I bought my C-25 last year. No major disasters so far, but I do know a lot of experienced sailors and the thing that gets me is that almost all of them have some horror story about mistaking a buoy or misreading a chart or a compass heading or entering the wrong coordinates into their GPS (a friend of mine tells about how two crewmembers on his boat, both very experienced sailors, separately entered the same, but wrong, coordinates into their personal handheld GPSs, and almost ran up on a ledge. And I'm not even getting into all the fog stories, which are a dime a dozen here in Maine. The former owner of my boat, who runs an ASA-certified sailing school, likes to say, "You ain't been around if you ain't been aground."
But cautionary tales are great, for those are smart enough to learn from them, and yours in one of the greatest I've seen on this site. You are obviously a ballsy guy. Of course, I wouldn't expect any less from one of Uncle Sam's Misguided Children. (Sorry, but I'm an Army vet.) If you could handle what you describe in your story, it's got to be uphill from there.
Again, thanks for a great story. . . .

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William Matley
1st Mate

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52 Posts

Response Posted - 07/15/2002 : 21:53:49

Chuck, thanks for having the guts to share your story with us. I have not had anything happen to me like what you describe, but I have had my share of "feeling pretty foolish". Dumb stuff like gettin up in the morning after having dragged my anchor 1/2 a mile to the other side of a "safe harbor". I heard people talking about some dumb guy who failed to set his anchor,in the marina later that day.

I think it's not the things we do but what we learn about ourselves along the way.

Nature has her own way and her own plans for us.

Don't give up, get a new boat and you'll be a better captain because of your experience.

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Doug
Captain

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USA
457 Posts

Response Posted - 07/15/2002 : 22:40:34

I read the story. Not a great first run, but here is the first thought that came to mind: Buy another boat. Do it today. Get back out there. True, I haven't knocked pieces of my mast into the water or had the local constables waiting at the dock, but I have rammed piers, gone aground, and dropped far, far too much stainless steel and/or electronic bits over the side. You replace what you drop & fix the fiberglass. You pour some rum and cola into a glass and reflect on the lesson the sea just gave you. You sip your drink, look across the harbor, and realize it's just the price you pay to be there.

And though it doesn't seem like it right now, the price is worth it...

Doug - #1913 Noeta

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Leatherneck
Deckhand

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USA
4 Posts

Response Posted - 07/16/2002 : 19:20:12

Thanks for the kind words guys and the "been there, done that" sentiment. There are probably a million little things that I left out of my tale but, hopefully, someone will read it and not make some of the mistakes that I made. In all honesty, I had mixed feelings when I found out that Leroy was going to be declared a total loss. One the one hand, I sure didn't want to lose something that I had put so much time and effort into. I am certainly not the most knowledgeable or experienced sailor on the water but I have a good eye for detail and I love to work on boats. Additionaly, I know that with all the improvements that I made to the boat, I could have sold her for a few thousand more than I paid for her. On the other hand, I think that after having had the boat for a year, I know more about what I really want in a sailboat. There were many things that I love about the C25. There are also a few things that I didn't like and would like to be different on my next boat. Speaking of which, I am indeed already looking at several boats in my area and have begun to make arrangements with the bank for the next one. I have also arranged to take a three day coastal cruising course next month. Again, thanks for the comments....

Charles B. Lynn

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