Our boat is a Zhik Flying Tiger 7.5 metre and I had 7 beginner sailing students on board. It has a goodsized cockpit and can accommodate the number on board. The day had started fine with a session in the classroom reviewing points of sail, and a crew overboard recovery procedure. Then it was out for a sail to keep building on the prior day's work and to just keep drilling and repeating maneuvers to gain traction and confidence. The winds were forecast to be a light 7 knots building later in the day to about 12 knots - all from the East.
Our helmsman, as were most of the other students, was a bit lacking in comfort and confidence which became strongly apparent after the first tack.
What happened through the rest of the sailing session became an ever increasing litany of events - some potentially serious, some moderately challenging and some in hindsight a bit humourous. As a result the tone of the day was set with these first initial events.
The winds had now built up very nicely and could have been about 12 knots. We did our first tack with our helm having difficulty staying upright and maintaining their balance through the tack and at the helm. They were struggling to try to hang on to something - anything. All this while the boat kept turning around through and beyond the tack into that dangerous world of the accidental gybe. I kept telling them to stop turning the whole time that they were struggling to stay standing and maintaining their balance - what a cad that I am!
In addition to almost losing our helm, the increase in wind made the boat heel more than most of the people were expecting or felt comfortable with. It was a pretty normal heel but for the 7 on board, it caused a bit of a commotion until I was able direct the main sheet trimmer to spill some wind. All good now.
We did another tack - again more struggle at the helm and again needing spill to reduce heel. I am pretty sure that the wind was hitting 14 knots as I was starting to see the occasional white caps now. I thought to myself that this could be interesting if this kept up.
I knew that the helm wanted a change - so that was done, but in the act of changing positions we had a struggle while they were stepping clear of the tiller - there was jostling and pressure against the helm that caused the new helm to cry out to stop pushing on the tiller as this again was causing the boat to be turning into a direction that was not desired.
And this was only the beginning.
I had a look around, still seeing strong wind action on the water and occasional whitecaps as well. I said to the crew that we would be going back into the dock and the feedback that I got was complete agreement and relief - they had all had enough. I did as well as it is a challenge to try sailing in very nice wind with a group of very inexperienced sailors - who sometimes do what is directed, and sometimes not.
During one of the tacks after I had taken over the helm - some injuries occurred - an elbow (mine) to someone's nose - they are fine, as well as a scrape to a shin (mine again) - I will live. Another person claimed to have received a gift elbow from another but they too are still vertical. In one of those tacks when I directed the main sheet to be let out to ease the heel - the main sheet trimmer proceeded to haul in (tighten) the main rather than easing - this meant for a few moments, until they recovered, we were heeling even more.
Okay - now we were headed back into the basin outside the NYC breakwater where we would be letting down the sails before motoring back in.
We got the boat lined up nicely into the wind - I had who I felt would be the most reliable person on the helm to steer a straight course and I went to the mast to get things happening to drop the sails. We got the head sail down without any issues. The main was being dropped until about half way it wouldn't go down any further. I looked down to follow the halyard and see what the problem might be. There was a huge hornet's nest of a knot and tangle that would keep the sail from going down any further until it was cleared. I handed the knot to a crew member directing them to clear it as quickly as possible. I saw that the wind was catching the boat and the remaining main sail and was turning the boat off the wind. I rushed back to the helm to help them out so that we could get back head to wind. The engine was on full power and the boat was not turning back. In good time the knot on the halyard got cleared and the crew had managed to get the rest of the main sail down - well done!
However, it seemed that we couldn't make any way back up to the wind. I looked down at the prop and saw that at full power that it was barely turning. Evidently we no longer had any propulsion that was desperately needed. I looked up to see that we were starting to be blown towards the Ontario Place rocky shore - it was a deadly lee shore! This was not good. I called to someone to dig out the anchor from the cabin and bring it back to me. I also called out to have someone hoist the head sail as I needed something to help us get some steerage and make way away from the rocks. Once the head sail was up, there was slow and steady progress away from shore towards the keep out zone at the west end of the Toronto Island Airport. Whew - catastrophe averted!
As suspected and confirmed once back at the dock, the shear pin had sheared and therefore the loss of propulsion. Shear pins usually shear if the prop hits something like a propeller inspector and wants to resist turning very quickly - like a rock! We hadn't hit anything so it must have been just wear and tear.
I was thinking to myself that as it appeared we had no engine that could take us back now - I would try to sail back under the head sail. I tried pointing up in order to head more upwind towards NYC but there was nothing that I could do to make any progress in that direction.
As it was we were safely away from shore so that I could relax and try to get some speed in order to tack and try to get a line back to NYC. No go. After several gybes under head sail only - our progress was getting further and further away from our desired destination. I thought to myself that I should have been able to point higher, should have been able to build up some speed, and should have been able to tack at some point. All no go.
Soon thereafter I decided that I would try to call NYC for an assist back. No one on board had a cell phone and I didn't want to fumble around with my phone while steering the boat - so I made a VHF call on channel 68. They answered right away and after telling them about our dilemma - they said they would try and pull something together and come out to get us.
Feeling a bit better that help was on the way. I spent the time trying to point up without success while gybing to stay close but far enough away from shore, and all the while we were being pushed further and further away from NYC.
I couldn't understand why we couldn't point higher and actually sail back while beating upwind. I thought about raising the main sail to get a better sailing response, but there was no way for that. We wouldn't be able to raise it due to the windage and pressure on the bolt rope in the track on the mast. No way that this group would be able to do such a thing. Was there anything else that I could do?
After more gybing and radio call that NYC were now coming - I seemed to have been able to pick up some speed and was now actually pointing higher and making some progress upwind, albeit on a heading southeast and away from NYC. Given what was now happening I felt that we could now tack on demand and could actually sail back.
Back on the radio, the NYC rescue team were inquiring about our current position which was now just east of the Morse 'A' Fairway buoy. My original call to NYC told them that we were just outside of the Ontario Place Marina entry. We had been blown off a considerable distance since that first call.
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| Getting Further and Further Away!!! |
Off in the distance we could the rescue boat coming - hurray!
Once close by we were instructed to drop our head sail, which we did, and they tossed us a tow line. In earnest I told the rescue boat that they would have no salvage rights - to which they agreed. I wasn't taking chances even though I seriously did not expect them to salvage the boat. We all laughed about this later.
Once I secured the tow line to the boat, we made slow and steady progress back to NYC. The crew on the boat appeared to be relieved although I am not sure that they appreciated the pickle we had been in. It seemed as if they were kind of enjoying the experience as it was being bandied about as a great learning situation.
We got through the narrow gap at the breakwater and were preparing to separate from the tow boat to glide into our slip. Just to be sure, I tried the engine once more just to see if we had regained propulsion - no dice.
As we got close to the slip, we were cast off the tow boat hoping to have enough momentum to coast the rest of the way in. The wind being against us prevented that from happening. Once more we tied up alongside the tow boat to get another push in. Again we were let go hoping to get into our slip. Once more the wind was mightier than our efforts and we ended up getting an adjoining slip instead of the one we were aiming for, and only with the assistance on the receiving finger from the crew of Spitfire, who were there to catch our docking lines.
Whew - what a day, but everyone was in good spirits as they all seemed to appreciate the great adventure we had all just gone through.
After a while it was a relief to be back on shore. I was very glad that we had finished with a good outcome.
So in retrospect and reviewing in my mind all of the things that conspired to occur - heeling that caused discomfort, trying to maintain one's balance while taking the boat into accidental gybe territory, an elbow in the nose, people doing the opposite of what was asked to be done, a well knotted halyard, loss of engine propulsion, being blown onto the rocks, getting head sail up and preparing anchor for use, being blown further and further away from our goal, and ultimately biting the bullet to make the rescue call - what a series of events!
The only thing that could have been calamitous was our original helmsman in their moment of finding their feet and balance - they might easily have fallen overboard. It could have happened. Everything else was pretty benign and could have been dealt with. Even when we were being blown towards the rocks - the anchor was prepared for use in case we got too close.
Did we learn anything out of all this? Yes. I probably learned more than all the others. For the most part we did all the right things given the circumstances. It would have been interesting to have tried sailing back in the end once I had better steerage and was actually making progress upwind. Would I have been able to get all the way back in? Hopefully. If the wind had been from any other direction than from the east as it was - it would have been a lot easier to have sailed back I believe.
One would never want to do any of this, ie. losing the engine, on purpose, but definitely an excellent learning experience nonetheless.
The thing that challenges me is whether one should ever go out on a boat with an entire crew that is inexperienced to the degree that they were. Besides the number of things that could have been prevented and might likely have never happened with an experienced crew - I was the only experienced sailor on the boat and if anything had ever happened to me, another less favourable outcome might have been what you would be reading now.
For now I can look at the seriousness of it all, as well as seeing some humour in the way things turned out.
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