So what did I learn? Nothing!!

[hamburking]

Originally Posted by olaf hart

Use floating poly rope for your dinghy painter?

I always use a floating line for the dinghy.
I thought everyone does that?
Did the prop suck the floating line down?

[ozskipper]

Thanks for all the positive comments so far..

FYI, we were using floating line. It still managed to go under.

[ozskipper]

Originally Posted by deblen

You kept your calm,notified the neighbor boat & kept a sober watch. Not bad!! S... happens.
Always use floating painter as suggested-I use lifering rope-bright & floats.
Could you have freed the dink & secured it alongside the stern qtr?

Cheers/ Len

Yes, we cut the dink free and tied on a new painter to re-secure it.
It was a floating painter btw. It just got sucked into the wrong place at the wrong time sadly.

[patprice]

Was it a hard dink or a ducky? Somehow I assume hard. Different beasts. Lots more options as to where to safely tether a ducky and not come to grief.

[ozskipper]

Originally Posted by patprice

Was it a hard dink or a ducky? Somehow I assume hard. Different beasts. Lots more options as to where to safely tether a ducky and not come to grief.

I was using the hard one at the time. I only use the inflatable if I am going to do a passage as it can be stowed below.

[hpeer]

Some are very slooooow learners....dock line, jib sheet, dingy painter, just plain hanging line (x2). Been there, done that!

But the BEST was not even my fault. I had already wrapped a job sheet (2days after wrapping a dock line) and was just barely sailing in very light winds, well off shore, alone on a beautiful day in the Labrador Sea. I was below making tea when I noticed the light coming in the wrong port hole.

I bound up, look around, nothing.
Over the starboard stern, a float!
Over the port stren, another float!
I had split the difference between a net float and its toggle, which was now wrapped around the keel.
I was firmly anchored to a net.

Perversely I cut the toggle line to free the keel and retied it with a bit of my own (very different) line in the middle. I'll bet some poor deck hand is still scratching his head over that one.

[iseadreamer]

Me too sailray!

[topmast]

So, twenty miles offshore in lots of drifting bergy bits I find a seal tangle net in the prop. Nice day so rig a ladder off the stern and knife between the lips incounter the beast somewhere up under the flat stern. Success of course. but amazed at the amount of heat given off when swimming in the Beaufort Quite the rush..Beet red and steaming

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

I don't see much of a reason the berate yourself. This stuff happens, occasionally. You did well in the situation.
I think we all get into problems, but its the getting out of them that makes the seaman.

Every body listen up! MarkJ has just made the most profound statement of his verbose career.

In case you missed the point, getting things out of the **** is a very important part of seamanship, sailing and life in general.

Well said, mate!

Jim

[skipgundlach]

We do a lot of beach walking in the far-outs of the Bahamas, where flotsam is massively found.

Thus I collected a half-dozen egg-shaped floats, which we threaded our mooring line through, and, via a few wraps of self-amalgamating tape, provided stopper points for them.

These then lay on the surface when we're at anchor, and take up the slack/act like a catenary for times when we might be pitching. For the few times we tow, we use that line, too, as it's 3-strand, which has a nice stretch to it, along with the aforementioned catenary effect.

I still move the dink to abeam, but if we SHOULD happen to forget, those have a lot more resistance to being sucked under when backing...

[Sandero]

My disaster also involved a fouled prop... Many years ago when I first sailed down the Carib I had with me a few in crew one of the was an ex CG guy, manager of the SI yacht club and now the harbor master of Greenport, and boat owner. Clearly he was not novice at boats.

So we sailed from Pointe a Pitre to Ile de Saints one weekend... and the winds were pretty stiff as I recall and we dropped the sails and motored into the anchorage to look for a spot for the evening... Great plans... a French meal etc... sight seeing the next day....

The anchorage was very crowded by I though anchor in the lee of the tall hill/mountain to the east... Of course that's were most of the boat were. OK we'll find a spot. We did but it was definitely a tight fit. But the bottom was something like 30 or 35' and we'd need a lot of scope. I decided to hook a float to the anchor so no one would drop their hook on or close to mine. Seemed like a clever idea.

So I clip on the float with apparently too much scope on it's painter... and the boat was not actually dropping back.. the chain was dropping down and the float was bobbing unseen along side the boat. Buddy puts it in reverse to back the boat down and set the anchor and the painter gets wrapped around the prop and the engine stops of course. Lovely. Obviously the anchor could not set... YIKES

I had a spare in the anchor locker with 200 feet of nylon and a bruce... so first brought all the chain up which must have been in a pile under the boat. Of course we are not sitting still and we begin to be blown down wind through the crowd of anchored boats. Buddy is try to steer to avoid hitting anyone. Thank dog we didn't. I am trying to get the new rode on deck and read to deploy the Bruce and we are now behind all the anchored boats and bearing down on a French tall cruise ships.

Two choices... roll out the head sail and sail downwind out of the harbor... or deply the bruce and hope the anchor sets and were and not banging up against the tall ship. YIKES.

I dropped the bruce and released the line... all 200' of it. and the hook grabbed and the bow turned to windward. PHEW. Close to the French not not too close to get in trouble. YIKES. We almost got in to a really really bad situation.

Sailing out was not a great idea because we'd have to figure out how to dive the boat out there... it was getting to night and that seemed completely a non starter. Sail back to Freeman Bay at Antigua... YIKES.

In the morning some guy in a dink..a fellow sailor and diver who witnessed the ordeal offered to dive and cut the painter. In 3 minutes the prop was free, the engine fired... we retrieved.... we offered goodies to the diver and headed off to shallower water to anchor with the chain.

That one ended OK... but it clearly could have been a terrible disaster. I still have the occasional nightmare.

Painters and props don't get get along too well.

[Scout 30]

Years ago we picked up a crab trap line & pulled the metal trap right up to the boat. It promptly wrapped around the trap around the prop. Luckily it was in the summer so the water was warm but I had to cut it away with wire cutters. After that I decided to get a small hookah rig, which I found on Ebay, & always carry a wet suit.

Brownies Pressurized Snorkel P-SNORK with reviews at scuba.com

[roygee]

I run a line through a bow soft shackle, ect, to the stern of whats being towed; when forces try to slew the bow of the towed vessel, it automatically corrects bow angle. Easy enough to take out the slop out of a single tow line to anchor.

[JPA Cate]

Fwiw, we use two lines when towing. One to each quarter of the mother ship. When we are about to anchor, I shorten the non-floating line to about 4-5 ft., before I begin backing down. [We are among those who try to pull our anchor out, in order to feel more secure when it does not pull out.]

Ann

[2Wind]

Thanks for posting a good story of just how easily things can go bad, when in retrospect you can't believe you "let" it happen. Brave post, but few here can honestly say that they haven't been party to the odd self inflicted mishap.

Along these lines, long ago, I decided that every night at anchor, I lift the tender onto the davits, lift the surf ski, kayak or SUP and ensure there are no ropes in the water, because it will be the last thing you think of should you suddenly find yourself drifting or needing to move in a hurry during the night. (Also, its much quieter with them not slapping about all night).