In last week’s Just Cruising I fessed up about running aground through a lifetime of sailing and cruising. We’ve hit bottom all over the world, not out of carelessness but because we often sail in remote areas with less than perfect charts and we try to find perfect little anchorages that may or may not have unseen and unmarked hazards. A couple of readers responded to my offer to run their grounding stories. Cheers, GD
Hi George,
I agree that if you don’t bump the bottom you aren’t exploring enough. When I designed Prestissimo, a lifting keel was in the initial description of the project. She has a 6,000 lb bulb keel that can lift, using the manual halyard winches, from 8-feet to 4-feet, which is the depth of the twin rudders.
Since I enjoy exploring and have done the ICW many times, grounding is a normal part of sailing. Typically, it is a matter of pulling the keel up only six inches to get off. A couple of times we were being blown into shallow water where we had to set a kedge anchor before raising the keel. But mostly it is just bump, reverse, raise keel, and we are sailing again in less than five minutes.
With a 64-, 8-inch mast, bumping the ICW bridges is much more of a worry. I use a laser tool to measure the bridge from the bow, being prepared to reverse out when necessary. Then, with a large bag of water off the boom, we heel the boat to get under the bridge. This process can take as little as 10 minutes. Here’s a video of the process from a boat that was sailing near us. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZgySLbUvjs
Joseph Huberman
s/v Prestissimo
Greetings George, I earned the nickname “Scotch on the Rocks” at the George Town Cruising Regatta in 2013 because of an unusual grounding. We anchored off Sand Dollar beach in what I thought was a spot appropriate for the prevailing east wind. One evening (after my wife flew home for a meeting) I hosted a Scotch tasting on Grand Cru (our Island Packet 440). After my guests left I went to bed, at which time the wind dropped to nothing then shifted to the west. Naturally, the boat swung closer to shore. Then the tide went out. At some early hour I awoke to the sound of bottles sliding off the galley counter as the now grounded boat listed to one side. After a brief panic, I did some checking and learned that the next high tide would lift me off the sand. Unfortunately, the next high tide was the next morning so my neighbors all saw “Scotch on the Rocks”. Once refloated, I relocated the boat further from the beach. When my wife returned she asked “weren’t we anchored closer to the beach?”.
Bob Mersereau
Grand Cru, Island Packet 440
