Snafu

Posted By: John
Date: 1/19/07 3:34a.m.

Report: outside forum guidelines

In Response To: Great news (Tom T. House)

Hey Tom, This is the story as it was pased to me by Don. He might post something here later FYI. He was in San Sebastion with some friends on his boat. For those who haven't been there, San Sebastion is a great little anchorage that has protection both from the south and the north, the predominant directions in the sea most times of the year. But it is a small little anchorage with room for maybe 4 or 5 boats at the most. There ussually are some boats on permanent moorings there owned by the residents that take up a good amount of room. In October, when Don was there, there was a hurricane passing just south of Cabo and over to the mainland. This just happened to produce some large swell from the east at San Sebastion. Don woke up one morning to this alarming swell with some high winds. Feeling uncomfortable being on a lee shore, he decided to weigh anchor and leave the Bahia. He started the diesel and had his crew go forward to raise the anchor. When the anchor was raised the diesel stalled! By the time they got the anchor back down Snafu was in the shore break with the boat pitching 6 feet at the bow. Don tried frantically to get the diesel running again but could not. Fearing that he or his crew would get hurt with the boat pitching so violently and water coming over it, he decided to raise the headsail and get the boat up on the beach as much as possible. He was able to move the boat over to a somewhat more protected shore and ran her up on the beach. Don't know if he had much choice. He certainly didn't want anyone to get hurt and once the boat was in the surf without the diesel running it would have been nearly impossible to get the boat back out away from shore. If there is any lesson here I think it is that you can never feel really safe no matter where you are anchored. Predominant wind directions do not mean always in that direction. Also, the hurricane was at least 200 miles away! I was in Conception at this time and we had no wind, just over the ridgeline from San Sebastion! Also, there is nothing more important than a good reliable engine. Don't know what happened to Don's engine, could have been some type of fluke, but most of us aren't as good of sailors as we like to claim and engines can get, and keep, us out of a lot of trouble.