Rescue By Committee

It's been fairly windy lately, so we've been spending more time "watching the world go by." Yesterday we looked up just in time to witness another sailboat run hard aground (this seems to happen frequently). The big problem was that the skipper did this just after high tide, and with our spring tides, the low tide was going to be -.6 below datum. He tried getting an anchor out to try and kedge himself off into deeper water, but this method didn't work and only made him start leaning over more...and the tide was falling rapidly. That's when several fellow cruisers showed up to assist.

When you get a bunch of people together, everyone has a different way to do things. The committee decided to try and pull the boat over with the halyard, hopefully reducing the draft of the boat (the keel wouldn't be straight down) and letting him float off. Did I mention the tide was falling rapidly? Then at one point someone must have thought that the boat should be pulled to the shore side, because we watched as a dinghy brought the halyard to the high side of the boat. And the tide continued to fall. It was too late and all efforts were futile. All they could do was wait out a cycle of the tide and they were floating about 7 hours later. If I see a couple walking on land at an angle today I'll know which boat they are off of!