Boat pull-out excitement

Taking the sailboat out of the water every fall is a pretty routine matter. The boat trailer is lowered into the water and sits there waiting for us with a person ready to catch the sailboat as it comes (hopefully) smoothly and gently in. Two people get in the dingy and go out to the moored sailboat. The dingy is tied on to the stern of the sailboat, one person mans the rudder and the other grabs the single oar used for when the boat is becalmed and starts rowing. At first, as you would expect, rowing on just one side of the boat makes it turn the other way but once the big boat gains some momentum, the rudder can more than compensate and the huge keel plus the rudder make the boat pretty easy to steer on a straight course. A short five minutes later we are usually sliding the boat straight onto the waiting trailer.

Not this year.

This was the windiest and coldest of any day in 15 years of taking the boat out of the water. The wind was coming from the south which is the direction the boat had to go from its mooring to the boat ramp. The tide was coming in and it was also making the water flow in the same direction as the wind. The tide is big up in Maine so its a lot of water to move in a scant six hours as well. Things started out just like normal and Dad was the one left at the boat trailer while Carole and I, as per our normal, went out to bring the boat in. Just getting the dingy out to the sailboat was more challenging than usual due to the wind, tide and waves. But we got to the Snowcap ok and took off the rain cover and untied the rudder. I got out the single oar and put the oar lock on the boat’s starboard side and cast off the mooring. I reminded Carole that we would start to go in a circle until we could build up a little head of steam. But pretty quickly I could see that this was not like every other year. I was pulling very hard on that oar and I could not get the boat to move upwind. We were losing ground not getting closer to the boat ramp. I switched sides to see if working a little with the wind on the same side of the boat the wind was coming from might help. Again, we turned but never made forward progress. I could not even get us back to the mooring we just released and now it was 30 yards upwind of us and getting farther and farther away. Switching sides to row from one more time also didn’t help so now I realized I needed to have a plan B. And perhaps a plan C as well. Could I drift into another mooring to buy us time to formulate plan B perhaps? Nope the only mooring left in the little marina we were in was too far in the direction of land and I did not have enough control of the boat to get it there in time.

Plan B was going to be for me to shift the little dingy from being pulled by the big sailboat to being the little tug boat turning the tables on the big boy. I wanted as little time wasted in shifting the dingy to be in front with a tow line as possible as we were drifting the wrong direction pretty fast. Luckily we had a line we could use so I quickly dropped the oar and unraveled the line, tied it to the cleat on the front of the sailboat and had Carole pass the dingy up alongside so I could get into it. Once in it I tied the tow line around the seat I was sitting on as there are no cleats or tie-off places on the dingy. It is a very small 6-foot long affair. I got things positioned where I wanted them probably in about two minutes and was now starting to row. The first thing I noticed was that I was able to stop the drift. That was the first good thing to happen. And then, very slowly as I pulled and pulled long deep strokes on the dingy oars I was able to see the inklings of forward progress. I now knew if I just had the strength, endurance and patience I would need I could pull this several ton Herreshoff wooden and fiberglass boat with the tiny dingy the 1000 yards or so we needed to go. Every 5 minutes or so we only went about 100 feet so it was a long hard pull. The dingy was getting buffeted by the increasing wind and waves. I was looking straight at the Snowcap with Carole steering and it was bouncing around on the waves as well. But every time I looked around we were getting incrementally closer to the docks and once I got around them, we were going to be in a quieter little bay and on our way to the boat ramp. Finally after what seemed like an hour we got into that quieter water. My arms were warm from the work but luckily all the crutch-hiking, swimming and rowing I keep up with regularly meant I did have the strength and endurance to keep going until we were home free. I never had to use Plan C. You are dying to know what that is right? It was to put up the sails and sail that bad boy until I was upwind of our goal, then drop the sails and go back to single oar rowing but this time with the wind helping me. I think Plan C would have worked but I’m glad we didn’t need it. We had plenty of excitement just with Plan B.