Do you know the cool part about having so many people along for the ride with me?  It’s that I get to share so many small victories with so many people.  Yesterday I had to make a decision, do I tell everyone about the low points as well?  My mind kept drifting back to a book I read called, A Voyage for Madmen.  In it there is a guy named Donald Crowhurst who lost his mind and took his own life during the first around the world race, single handed, non-stop.  He couldn’t tolerate the idea of failure.  Crowhurst be damned.  I am as proud of my failures as I am my victories.  It takes both to be any kind of a real person.  Yesterday could be chalked up as either a win or a loss depending on your perspective. 

On the way down the ship channel I was waffling on going for the offshore jaunt.  In the end, I tried to error on the side of caution and head towards a little hole called Offats Bayou.  That decision ultimately led to a serious of events that with the tide, wind, wave, and geography had disaster all over it.  I committed to Offats right as I reached the turn for that channel.  However, with nothing but the 100% jib up I was ripping along at 9 knots.  I had to turn to get back up to the channel as I had run quickly south of it.  Once I was lined up to enter the channel a little west of the Houston Ship Channel I kicked the engine over and started furling in the headsail.

Here was problem number one.  It’s a brand new foam luff headsail.  It turned out to be unspeakable more difficult to furl than the old sail.  As I was working the now flogging sail in I noticed the autopilot started beeping.  It had lost its course through no fault of its own.  The flogging sail had pulled all slack from the port jib sheet forward and dropped it overboard.  I guess the loop in the water was just long enough to reach the prop and as it did so it wrapped up tight instantly killing the engine.  All this came clear the second time I restarted Rusty and put the boat in gear and she instantly quit again.

So now, I am hauling ass towards land that is only about 200 yards off my port bow.  The engine won’t start and my sail is flogging itself to death because I can’t furl it since the sheet is now tied to the prop.  This is bad.  At first I tried tacking to see if I couldn’t sail off the lee shore and back into deeper water.  Unfortunately, with the line hung I couldn’t make it through the wind.  I tried to quickly jibe, but that’s when she struck bottom for the first time.  Then the effort changed direction completely. 

My boat is aground, or more precisely bouncing on the ground with every swell.  The flogging sail is heeling the boat reducing draft now helping her work even closer to the shore.  Out comes the Leatherman and the line cuts with an imperceptible amount of pressure.  While I am on the bow I instantly launch the 60 lb CQR to ensure I don’t work any closer to the shore.  Going back to the cockpit I furl the sail in quickly, now much easier without the hung line.  It was right about here I jumped on the radio and began calling for SeaTow.  It was the first time I’d ever had to call in assistance to get off of a grounding, but help was available and I wasn’t going to take a chance.  (Another sailboat relayed my call for assistance.  I lost your name in the heat of the moment, but I’ll be forever grateful.)

Back on deck I grabbed the cut end of the jib sheet.  I knew I was in forward when the line wrapped and I hoped that maybe if I went slowly I could put the gear in reverse and unwrap enough of the line to pull it clear.  It worked briefly and my heart rose as about 3 feet of line spun off the fouled prop.  Heartbreakingly, that’s all she gave before, like a twisted game of tug-o-war, the line spooled right back down.  The next 50 minutes was sheer emotional torture.

I made a walking tour around on the boat like man in prison.  I checked the anchor and prepared to drop the secondary, back to the cockpit to check my position from the Man Overboard mark I’d made on the GPS when I first went aground, went down below and checked to bilge to make sure no water was coming aboard, tried once again to free the fouled prop, fought the urge to jump overboard with a knife to free it myself, and then looked yet again for the tow boat.  About halfway through my wait I saw a man on shore looking at me through binoculars and I hated him.  He was an onlooker who probably heard my distress call on the VHF he monitored sitting next to his recliner.  At least that’s who he was in that moment in my mind.  A vulture.

Eventually the tow boat did find me.  They brought me into the nearly defunct Galveston Yacht Basin which was almost destroyed by IKE.  My spirits were laid low last night, but the relief of having my boat safe allowed the restrictions on my heart to ease and let my blood pressure come back to a non fatal state.  I slept through the night unmoving and woke up cold, but able to laugh.  I knew I’d have my ups and downs on this trip, but never so many in the first 24 hours.

Lee