As a part of the New Years holiday, Kara’s kiddos came to visit and spend some time on our soon-to-be christened yacht, O’Shinn Flyer, or OSF for short. Slipping the lines on our own for the first time, we set off for a daysail to implement Capt Darren’s teachings, but … spoiler alert … unfortunately, not all goes to plan.
But before we get to that (and no, there was no sinking involved), let’s back up a bit. Due to my final exams and Kara’s work schedule, we hadn’t had the opportunity to continue to work on the skills that Capt Darren had taught us. So, we were a little rusty. If I sound like I’m making excuses, well, I am.
With David (20) and Tanner (17) here, we drove down from Charlottesville and spent the night on OSF so we could get an early shove-off from the dock to maximize the daylight we had to work with. As any parent of teenagers will tell you, trying to get them up and moving before 0800 during the holidays is a miracle that only saints can perform. Our plan was to sail up to an anchorage to our north at Fort Monroe, have lunch, and then sail back. A simple day sail, or so we thought.
Setting Sail
Once they were up and moving, we gave a safety brief and then slipped the lines. We motored out of the harbor and raised the mainsail with one reef in and unfurled the genoa. No sooner had we accomplished that, the winds began to increase with gusts reaching our threshold to furl the genoa and unfurl the staysail. One tiny problem – we dropped and stowed the staysail at the dock earlier to make tacking the genoa easier because the winds were forecasted to be relatively light. C’est la vie, right?
I set our trusty autopilot and we go to the foredeck to attach the furling drum and halyard. I return to the helm and we begin raising the staysail, but it keeps twisting the halyard into the mast and ultimately got bound 3/4’s of the way up. Less than ideal, huh? We were flummoxed, to be honest. The unexpected wind, the stress of having the kiddos aboard, and our own insecurities got the better of us and we frankly gave up. We turned the engine on and begin to lower the mainsail. Then, all of the sudden, the engine died. My heart skipped a beat… we had a lee shore and a narrow channel opening into the harbor to navigate back to the dock without a staysail and now without the engine?!
What Now?
I quickly tried to assess what the problem was but didn’t see anything glaringly obvious, so I attempted to restart the engine. It sputtered a bit and then came back, running smoothly. I was perplexed but relieved. However, my confidence was in crumbles and, after sharing a look with Kara, I knew we were both feeling overwhelmed. We made the call to scrub our plans and head back to the dock to see if we could figure out the engine and the staysail halyard binding issues.
As we navigate through the channel, we prepare our fenders and docklines. Soon after, we discovered our instructions on how to clear the deck after we left the dock were incomplete and the bowline on our center hull – the longest dockline we have – was left on the cleat and had fallen in the water.
Lessons Learned
Bad news: The bowline was long enough to reach the propeller and had briefly fouled the prop, which had resulted in the engine dying.
Good news: the bowline hadn’t lost much of its length and the propeller seemed to be working well, so disaster narrowly averted. That was an important lesson for Kara and me – verify all lines are pulled and properly stowed!
The staysail halyard was also a relatively easy fix back at the dock. The twists came from how we had set it up and we were able to lower it, reset, and rehoist it without further drama.
The other important lesson we took away from that is that we needed to relax a bit, slow down, and better assess. I think the quadfecta (is that a word?) of the wind & sailplan misjudgment, the engine dying, the bound staysail halyard, and the pressure of having the kids onboard made us both too anxious. All in all, it was the right call to scrub the trip and head back.