What Is the Funniest Time You Have Run Aground ?

[Tingum]

The run aground thread was getting interesting so lets try this one. My most unusual time was in the Tennnesse River. I was dead in the middle of the channel (aren't we always) When with a crashing noise the bow of our 50' aluminium trawler pointed skyward and we hame to a jaring halt. Upon looking down instead of mud, rocks, or logs, I saw shingles! We had hit a roof! I backed out of the new skylight unscathed and saw that we had hit the entire roof of a pretty good sized structure that clearly was not folowing the rules of the road.

[David M]

With my work I have to run into very shallow water occasionally to get samples. The boat is designed so the bottom tips of the propeller blades are above the bottom of the keel, plus there are metal guards below the tips of the blades. Quite often I intentionally run aground because there is no harm if it is a soft bottom and it is easy enough to back off. The boat has more than adequate power to do this.

You should see some of the looks of horror I sometimes get when I tell people that we are aground. I think some people are visualizing an oil tanker with a broken back up on the rocks.

[mrohr]

Cruising with my wife years back, nightfall was fast approaching when a pretty cove beckoned. I said :Why don't we anchor in that cove where those seagulls are swimming?

They were standing! You know the rest.

[barnakiel]

Once on a river bend - I had to ask passing rowers which way the deep water was. Embarassing, but funny too ;-).

Once when coming up to a pontoon moored to a huge pillar ... the pillar had a huge conical concrete base ... the tide was ebbing ... we stopped maybe five feet from the pontoon ... I could not quite understand why and pressed on ... ;-))))

oh my ;-)
b.

[bstreep]

We took off for a 4 day weekend on a friend's trawler. We had 7 women (5 teenage girls) and 2 guys on board. We quickly determined that we had only 1/2 of one roll of toilet paper! We called a fishing club on a different VHF channel, and talked them out of a few rolls. Unfortunately, we forgot to change the channel back to 16 right away. An opposing tow with a string of empties was wanting our side of the channel, but we obviously didn't know that. At the point we ran aground, we noticed were weren't on 16... He was VERY understanding, and appreciated the apology, which is rare. Fortunately, no collision. We DID tell him the toilet paper story, and it cracked up his crew. He pushed some water for us, and we bounced off. All in all, it worked out.

[avb3]

Not on a sailboat or ocean, but going upriver in a jet boat. Come around a bend and that "oh sh!t" factor kicked in as the sand bar stretched across most of the width.

Momentum got us clear on the sand bar in about 1' of water (no rising tide within 200 miles). Fortunately the bottom was lined with 1/ 2 inch Teflon sheeting, otherwise the friction of aluminum on sand would have been too much. As it was, it took us over 2 hours of prodding, digging, pry baring, cursing, slipping, using jets in reverse etc. etc. to finally get off of it.

Oh, did I tell you the scenery was spectacular? We only realized that after we were done

[kaimusailing]

Capn Ed was a newbie who picked up a free boat and rehabbed it, rather crudely, but eventually he thought it was ready to sail. He said, "I want to go sailing and I don't know how, can you guys show me how?" So, I and a fellow skipper, even more experienced, jumped on the little sailboat and we proceeded down the inlet, showing Capn Ed how to hoist and trim the sails. We were taking turns at the tiller and as we came down to the end of the inlet, a notorious shallow was off our port bow. "You know, it wouldn't hurt to tack right about now", I suggested. The other skipper said he thought he could make it. Shortly after, we suddenly stopped, aground. The rest of the day was various mistreatment by power boaters, but they at least got us off, and without any tickets from the marine police. The newbie said, "I thought you guys were going to show me how to sail." We said we were showing him how NOT to sail.

[goboatingnow]

I race, every time the owner says "naw were fine here, theres plenty of wat...", thump. 4 times so far!!!


Dave

[Therapy]

I had the centerboard down about half way on the Gem coming to a place I thought I could anchor. I had misread the chart and there was a 1' strip of water in my path that I thought was 3'.

Idling along the boat stopped. So what did I do? I raised the centerboard and allowed the boat to get closer. Then the prop was digging grass so I stopped it and raised the drive leg. That let me float closer till the rudders were in the mud.

So I raised the rudders. DOOH! That let me drift onto a hull in 2' of water. So I was now figuring out that I had misread the chart and I was not going to "get there from here".

So I walked an anchor out and instead of pulling the boat away, I winched the anchor in through the soft mud. Anchor out further = same result (X4).

So I learned what you do with a Gem is leave the anchor out and have the wife keep tension and go to the back (stern) and push. Heh.

About the time I was pinning the anchor while we were on the (long/correct) way around to the anchorage I saw a dink head out in our direction. I don't know if they just noticed us or got their breath back from laughing for 45min.

NOT funny then.

Now is OK.

[kaimusailing]

I'm a great navigator, I always find land!

I ran aground on the intracoastal, so many times.

I was schooled by an experienced Christian sailor about the intracoastal waterway, "I always want to have the hook set by 5 in the afternoon", he said. "Oh, you set the hook to stop?", I replied, "I set the hook to kedge off and get going!"

[Kettlewell]

Running the ICW south in a 32-foot cat we were pressed for time and just ran until after dark, then felt our way into a little cove off to one side south of Swansboro. We only needed 1.5 feet of water to float so we were tucked up in nicely. Woke up at dawn to get going and looked out the back of the boat and there was nothing but mud for 50 feet behind the boat. The wind had blown all the water out of the cove over night and not only were we aground, but we weren't even in the water! Waited for the little bit of tide there which just about reached the bottom of our keels and then managed to kedge backwards through the mud using an anchor line lead from one cockpit winch to the other and two people grinding.

[Bash]

Back in my scuba instructor days I ran my zoom-zoom up on a mud flat in Elkhorn Slough. This was back in the days when it was still legal to hit a sandbar at 30 knots in the slough. Jumped out and tried to push off, but the mud was so soft we immediately sank crotch-deep. So we cleaned off and then started drinking beer, which was in plentiful supply aboard. Tide was still falling, and we calculated it would be dark long before the boat floated free. This wasn't a problem for me and my buddy, but at some point his wife and Wonderblond became distressed about my boat's lack of a head, the two of them having put away a few brews as well.

When Wonderblond finally couldn't stand it any more, she asked the gents to turn their heads and then hung her bum over the side. Just as she attained maximum relief, we heard a hail from the game warden, standing shoreside, who interpreted my wife's distress signal incorrectly and wanted to know whether we needed help.

This was back before they closed Fort Ord, which used to have a MAST helicopter unit. The game warden called them, even though we assured him that we were fine, and the helicopter came and evacuated us from our boat, which at this point was sitting in less than an inch of water. This was fine with us because it was free and the Army said they needed the practice.

Fortunately, I remembered to throw an anchor out into the mud before abandoning ship. Was able to rescue the zoom-zoom with my inflatable at high tide the following morning.

Unfortunately, a newspaper reporter got to the scene before the Army was able to get there, and the next morning the Monterey paper ran a front-page photo of me being air-evacuated from my boat by the United States Army. Hard to live that one down when half your business is training rescue divers.

[Kettlewell]

Thought of another one that wasn't exactly funny, though I must admit to having a small chuckle to myself about it. Was just leaving Albemarle Sound heading into the Alligator River when a big, Ted Hood Little Harbor go-fast express cruiser came flying by at full tilt boogy throwing an enormous wake and proceeded to barrel full speed on the wrong side of the markers dead ahead where they came to a grinding halt. They appeared to be fine sitting there high and dry so we went on our merry way, thinking about Karma and all that. A couple of days later we saw them being towed down Adams Creek by Sea Tow while the owners and/or crew were bailing with buckets being passed up from down below.

[capngeo]

Returning from Key West to Osprey in my Bertram 28. Entered the jetty, went about 2 miles up in the dark.... Explaining to my buddies that I don't need no stinking spotlight... This is my back yard! Fetched up on a sandbar 20 seconds later at 30 kts! Splashed the 6 horse dink, and washed a channel back to refloat her... Then towed the 28 back the last mile back to her slip with the dink because both props were folded flat!

12 years later, the boys won't let me live it down!

[Dulcesuenos]

Ran aground at high tide on a little strip south of anclote sandbar maps's said it was supposed to be deeper . Ran 100 line out tied around my waist to the main halyard. I heaved the boat over and the wife hammered the throttle on the diesel we got off the bar and she thought it was funny to.keep dragging me an extra half mile. Finally she winched me in laughing the entire time. Good thing my arms were too worn out to beat her ass.