{"id":34400,"date":"2020-02-05T14:46:16","date_gmt":"2020-02-05T14:46:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/?p=34400"},"modified":"2020-02-05T14:46:16","modified_gmt":"2020-02-05T14:46:16","slug":"up-front-groundings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/2020\/02\/up-front-groundings\/","title":{"rendered":"UP FRONT – Groundings"},"content":{"rendered":"

In last week\u2019s Just Cruising I fessed up about running aground through a lifetime of sailing and cruising. We\u2019ve 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<\/em><\/p>\n

Hi George,
\nI agree that if you don’t bump the bottom you aren’t exploring enough. When I designed Prestissimo<\/em>, 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.
\nSince I enjoy exploring and have done the ICW many times, grounding is a normal part of sailing.\u00a0 Typically, it is a matter of pulling the keel up only six inches to get off.\u00a0 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.
\nWith a 64-, 8-inch mast, bumping the ICW bridges is much more of a worry.\u00a0 I use a laser tool to measure the bridge from the bow, being prepared to reverse out when necessary.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a video of the process from a boat that was sailing near us. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=4ZgySLbUvjs<\/a><\/p>\n

Joseph Huberman
\ns\/v Prestissimo<\/em><\/p>\n

Greetings George,\u2028\u2028I earned the nickname \u201cScotch on the Rocks\u201d at the George Town Cruising Regatta in 2013 because of an unusual grounding.\u2028 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<\/em> (our Island Packet 440).\u2028 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.\u00a0 Then the tide went out.\u2028 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.\u2028 After a brief panic, I did some checking and learned that the next high tide would lift me off the sand.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the next high tide was the next morning so my neighbors all saw \u201cScotch on the Rocks\u201d.\u2028 Once refloated, I relocated the boat further from the beach.\u00a0 When my wife returned she asked\u00a0 \u201cweren\u2019t we anchored closer to the beach?\u201d.<\/p>\n

Bob Mersereau<\/p>\n

Grand Cru<\/em>, Island Packet 440<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In last week\u2019s Just Cruising I fessed up about running aground through a lifetime of sailing and cruising. We\u2019ve 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.\u00a0 Typically, it is a matter of pulling the keel up only six inches to get off.\u00a0 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 …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":34402,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1877],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34400"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34400"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34403,"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34400\/revisions\/34403"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/cc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}