Hi David
So sorry to hear of your misadventure. Best part is no one was injured and hopefully insurance will fix the boat. Have been there and done that and can only say skipper lack of focus or imprudence were the cause. Am intimately familiar with Horseshoe Reef and know many a vessel that has discovered its exact location. Sounds like the RC established the finish line in its normal location so nothing new there. Best of luck moving forward John and Maryann Legacy III 1982 C&C 34 Noank, CT From: CnC-List [mailto:cnc-list-boun...@cnc-list.com] On Behalf Of David Knecht via CnC-List Sent: Monday, July 16, 2018 11:18 AM To: CnC CnC discussion list Cc: David Knecht Subject: Stus-List Catharsis message It is a sad morning here and I need some help to drag me out of my depression. This list is my support group, advisers, experts and therapists. Or maybe you will kick my butt for being an idiot and that could help as well. Aries had a serious grounding on a reef on Saturday and is currently awaiting insurance to start assessing the situation. We were barely towed off the reef by SeaTow and the boat is on the hard at a local marina. The damage is worse than I had hoped and better than it could have been. When they were able to pull us off the lip of the reef (tide going out, getting desperate) the rudder hit the reef and bent the shaft, damaged the hull around the shaft and pushed the rear tip of the rudder up through the hull. The bottom of the wing keel is also chewed up from grinding on the reef. That sound of hull grinding over rock is now forever seared into my brain. South Shore yachts actually lists the rudder on their site (thanks to the list for making me aware of their C&C parts), and I am hoping there is nothing else damaged that was not obvious. No one was hurt, except my pride and confidence. Leaving the marina, I now have an appreciation for the emotions of people who abandon their floating homes at sea. At least I will hopefully get mine back. I have gone over the incident a thousand times trying to understand what happened and how I could have prevented it. I thought I was hyperaware of all the hazards in the Fishers Island Sound area and swore that I would never ground the boat again after an incident with an unmarked reef during a race a few years ago. I try to race with a priority of safety, fun and speed, in that order. I almost always have crew who are not sailors other than racing with me, which I enjoy, but takes some of my focus away from other things. We had spent the day in a long race all over Fishers Island sound. It was blowing 15+ and we had worked very hard to get around the course and the last leg was a straight downwind sprint to the finish heading due North toward the CT coast. With 3 inexperienced crew I was happy that we were in second place in our class and focused on getting to the line. We crossed the line, then jibed over to head back west to parallel the coast to our home port of New London and had just taken a deep breath, congratulated the crew when we hit the reef. It turns out that the Race Committee had set the finish line inshore and just East of the single offshore buoy marking Horseshoe Reef. I never saw (or recognized) the buoy because it was behind the mainsail as we approached the finish and I was looking for the finish line, not other buoys. By the time we jibed, it was essentially over my shoulder. I did not see the buoy until I looked around when we hit the reef and realized where we were. A hundred yards inshore and we would have been fine and a hundred yards offshore and we would have seen the buoy and passed the correct side of it. I think the Race Committee deserves some part of the blame for setting the finish line in a dangerous location but certainly my lack of awareness of where I was relative to dangers (of which there are many in Fishers Island Sound) was the major factor. If I had looked carefully at the chart at any point, I presume I would have recognized the danger of the finishing area, but we were closely following the lead boat and so our location was not an issue until we finished. I was in familiar waters but I just did not recognize precisely where I was in familiar waters. The other boats near us turned East while we turned West so we were not following anyone after the turn. If anyone has any suggestions, comments or strategies to help prevent this, I am all ears. A moments inattention is all it took and it makes me concerned about several factors- age, racing with non-sailor crew, racing in general. In our Wednesday night races, we race around the same marks every week, and it has taken time, but I now think I know every hazard and am aware of where we are relative to them while also keeping on top of the boat and crew. This was an area I have sailed in many times but rarely race there. Also in terms of the incident itself, if Seatow had not happened to be in the area and seen us and we were not able to get the boat off the reef until the next high tide, I have no idea what we would have done. I know I have learned from other people’s disasters (always the first thing I read when a new Sail magazine is delivered), so maybe this will help someone else not have this happen or make someone feel better about things that have happened to them. Relevant to the issue of thinking you know where you are when you don’t, if you have not read Laurence Gonzales’s book Deep Survival, I highly recommend it. He talks a lot about the psychology of visual perception of your local environment and how it affects decisions. I think there are lessons there for everyone, as many of the things he alerted me to I can see over and over in everyday life and this is perhaps another example. Dave Aries 1990 C&C 34+ New London, CT
_______________________________________________ Thanks everyone for supporting this list with your contributions. Each and every one is greatly appreciated. If you want to support the list - use PayPal to send contribution -- https://www.paypal.me/stumurray
