Short sailing tip with big sailing lesson and slight humor

This is a real story with some details left out to protect the not so innocent. But it serves as a great sailing lesson to all of us and could save your boat from sinking. Read on!

A sinking boat taking down another

It was a regular weekend yacht club regatta – that turned out to be not so regular. One of the J22’s collided with another boat. The hole that was created was big enough to cause the boat to start taking on water. The club bought over their committee boat to tow the sinking sailboat back to the club house. The sailboat, instead of using a dock line for towing, gave the tow boat the anchor rode chain. Both boats cleated the chain part of the anchor rode to their boats and began the tow. The towed sailboat began taking on more and more water until it began to slowly slip under. Neither of the captains could untie the chain due to the tension and certainly did not have a set of bolt cutters onboard. The weight of the sailboat pulled the tow boat stern under the water and down they both went.

The ultimate irony was that upon diving the wreckage, the sailboat actually was sitting on top of the tow boat.

A few lessons to be heeded:

(1) Don’t tow a sinking boat

(2) Never use the chain

(3) In all circumstances make sure there is a knife readily available on both boats

(4) Don’t have a collision in the first place.

These kinds of tips are loaded through out the NauticEd Skipper Sailing Course. Just one tip like the above could save your boat, save a life, or spare some serious embarrassment.

Take the NauticEd Skipper Sailing Course today! And now, as of today, the Skipper Sailing Course is available in a PDF downloadable format.