Home>Free Stuff>Lists & Quizzes>Skip's Tips The 9 Essentials for the On-Deck Grab & Run Kit They say that experience is a tough schoolmaster, since you take the test first, then get the lesson afterward. Well, about a year ago I took the test, failed miserably, then studied my lessons over the next few days. It's embarrassing to relate this story, as it shows just how ill-prepared and complacent I was. But it was an eye opener for me, and if I can help a few fellow sailors avoid the same fiasco I had, it's worth it. I was anchored at Solomons, Maryland on the western Chesapeake shore in crisp fall weather. All was calm, the holding was good sticky mud, and with 60 feet of chain out and my 35-pound CQR dug in, I felt securely parked. I did a cursory job of stowing my gear and dinghied in to explore the area, returning after dark with a belly full of chowder and mahi-mahi and a nice chardonnay buzz. I read a bit, then stripped and hit the bunk for some blissful slumber. The wind had piped up a bit, but I wasn't really concerned. That changed radically at 2 AM when the boat's motion woke me abruptly. She was swinging briskly back and forth and heeling sharply in the gusts. The whistling in the rigging registered about 30 knots on my brain's anemometer. I sat up and looked out the porthole. I wondered for a few seconds if the poor guy anchored adjacent to me realized he was dragging, as his anchor light appeared to be moving from my beam forward at a pretty good clip. Then it hit me: I was the one who was dragging! I was up in a flash, and that's when the scene became slapstick. Where were my pants? Jacket? Gloves? Shoes? Scattered all around the boat was where. I finally got them together and frantically began to get them on, and the jacket zipper jammed. Damn! I abandoned the effort and grabbed the flashlight...click, nothing, batteries dead. Fumbling up on deck in the dark, jacket flapping open in the wind, in rapid order I 1) bonked my head on the boom gallows (minor injury, but lots of blood), 2) tripped over my untied shoelace, and 3) proceeded to execute what I'll call a "face plant". I was almost to the bow when I realized that I was steadily closing in on a row of very expensive powerboats in the marina just ahead. Dollar signs danced before my eyes in the split second that I contemplated the damage I might do to those mighty sterns. Nehalennia (Celtic goddess of seafarers and namesake of our boat) had mercy on me at this point. I heard (or rather, felt) a solid "thud' as the boat docked herself against a piling just at the edge of the row of yachts. I quickly threw a dockline around the piling, then lassoed another and secured the boat. Fenders went overboard, anchor came up, and I sat for a while in the cockpit to let my heart calm down before heading for the v-berth. Lessons learned? Plenty, but the bottom line is this: When at anchor on Nehalennia, I now make a beddy-bye ritual of gathering together EVERYTHING I may need in an emergency and arranging the items methodically for instant deployment. All these items are laid out in the same spot, every time, so I can find them even in the dark. So that's my story of a potentially disastrous dragging incident, how I dodged the bullet, and lessons learned. These are the items I stage when we are at anchor in case we need to deal with anything that goes bump (or clunk or whoosh) in the night. Everything gets put in the same spot every night so we can get at them quickly in the dark. Halogen headlamp (we test the headlamp each night and have a spare one nearby) Flashlight (ditto test and spare!) Gloves (cold weather) Boots or shoes (slip on kind, not laced!) Jacket (cold weather) Shirt Pants or shorts (drawstring or elastic waist) Rigging knife on a lanyard Multitool
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