A Lesson in Seamanship

I had a bit of a scare Friday.  I had a couple days off, and had taken my three boys to a local state park to camp and sail our 8' dinghy.  Thursday night conditions were ideal, and the two older boys had a fun adventure sailing from the boat ramp to the campground.  Friday morning, though, the wind began to pick up to dangerous levels and I made the difficult decision to scrap any plans for sailing that day.  That's where the trouble began.

Elliott, my youngest, was in tears that he hadn't had a chance to sail yet.  And then the winds calmed down for a bit and stayed moderate for 10 or 15 minutes, luring me into a false sense of security.  I caved, and took Elliott out for a quick sail towards the boat ramp.

Within 10 minutes of launching, the wind began to rise again, and changed direction drastically.  What had been a favorable south breeze pushing us gently north to the ramp was suddenly coming out of the northwest, putting the ramp directly upwind.  Worse, as the breeze strengthened to force 6 or greater, I found that I couldn't get the boat to sail.  It was weather-cocking, turning the bow almost directly into the wind, leaving us drifting to leeward and bouncing in the whitecapped chop.

I'm pretty sure that shifting my weight far aft would have allowed us to sail again, but I'm not sure it would have been a good idea to try it.  I wasn't certain I could hold the boat down in such a strong wind.  And Elliott is very lean, and I'm not sure how long he would have lasted in the 60-degree water if we'd capsized.  So I did the only smart thing I could do after making the stupid mistake of trying to sail in marginal conditions: I took the sail down, and we surfed downwind to the opposite shore of the lake.  To give an idea of how bad the winds had gotten, we were moving at a faster-than-walking pace with no sail up, in whitecaps that had grown to 16-24" height. I got Elliott ashore, and hauled the boat out.

This left us about 4 miles (by land) from my other sons, but we were in cell phone contact.  I soon secured a ride back to the state park side of the lake from a kindly retiree in the neighborhood, and we were reunited within the hour.  After retrieving the boat, we drove home with plenty of fodder for a post-mortem discussion of what had gone wrong.

In my mind, the primary problem is that I allowed my role as "Dad" to interfere with my role as "skipper."  "Dad" wants to be fair and give each kid a chance to experience the joy of sailing; "skipper" knows not to sail in dangerous conditions or when dangerous conditions may be expected.  I'm proud of how well I handled it once I was in trouble, but I'm ashamed that I allowed myself to get in trouble with my most vulnerable child aboard.

My dad, who's a pilot, likes to quote the old saw that "any landing you can walk away from is a good landing."  There's some truth in it here: the boat and its crew both came away unharmed, and I gained some valuable experience that will make me think twice about launching when the weather's questionable next time.