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I wrote the following account mainly to record my own recollections since my memory stinks and thought some of you might enjoy or possibly relate to an incident we had with my "new" Hobie 16 last week. Despite sailing all my life this is the fist Hobie I've owned and I've enjoyed reading this forum for tips and what to expect. My boat is a 1990 H16 with a set of Gonzo sails from 1981.
How long is your Father your Dad?
My Dad has always been a force to be reckoned with. He is wise, has integrity, grew up poor, worked hard and became very successful. He always has the right answer and along with his brother, my uncle, a former bush pilot and missionary in South America, he has a large catalogue of true adventure stories spanning over 70 years that are akin to those of Indiana Jones. There have been many near-death episodes, too many to document here and most unbelievable unless you knew my Dad. He always gets up, dusts off, and keeps going. Each jaw-dropping tale is just another chapter in his story book and, when relevant, random excerpts will be shared with friends and family for years to come. Each telling will be just as riveting as the last to those of us who have heard them before or were witness. And first-time listeners are left stunned and skeptical at the outrageousness and fantastical nature of most of his adventures, but then a witness will corroborate the story, often adding additional, sometimes crazier detail that Dad had simply forgotten or saw as too mundane to mention. Many times I was right beside him for the adventure and always in awe of not only how we found ourselves in such a dicey situation, but that we always survived and could laugh about it later because he knew what to do.
He grew up in a time where real American adventure was still possible, whereas I grew up later when, as HST wrote, that wave had crested and started to recede, revealing restrictions, regulations, and dull compliance. Still, I worked with what life had to offer and managed at least an echo of my Dad’s glory. As we’ve both aged and now I have kids and his journey has left him a little physically threadbare and a lot grey, I’ve noticed that he’s started to defer to my “wisdom” in joint projects, but last week, though by no means a life or death situation, I learned that I’m not there yet and still my Dad’s son.
One thing we enjoy doing together is sailing. I was born in southern, Coastal NC and lived in several places between Wilmington and Myrtle Beach and we’ve sailed all over the place. We still make an annual trip to Oak Island and this year marks the 69th year there for us as a family. When I was young, Dad had a classic Lightning and later an 18’ Sol Cat catamaran, but he upgraded to a 44’ CSY when he retired 10 or 15 years ago, so it had been a while since we had something small like a beach cat. I bought a Hobie 16 last year with the hopes of getting in a few years of sailing with my kids before my knees and back completely crumble. I was a little concerned with Dad’s ability to manage a beach launch since it is a two-man process and you can get hammered if the surf is rough. I also knew if there was a sailboat, he’d be on it and it would be pointless to question him.
We decided to make use of the boat ramp at the marina on the back of the island and sail down around to the ocean and then up the beach to the beach house we rented. This would mean sailing nearly dead into the wind for most of the way down. My older son went with us and it was his first time on a sailboat. He was pretty excited by the small waves and light wind in the inlet. It’s hard to describe open ocean sailing in moderate wind on a small boat, but I knew he’d either be loving it or completely terrified.
We made it down to the inlet and could see open ocean, but were in irons at the turning point for nearly two hours. Finally, the wind shifted, we turned and made it out. My Dad was at the tiller and we were moving. It was like the clock turned back a quarter century. I felt like we were going fast enough for this untested boat. Neither of us had ever even sailed a Hobie, let alone one near the ragged edge. I’d watched videos of the pitch poling and was closely watching the leeward hull nearly buried and the windward side skimming the tops of the waves, which were easily rolling at 6 feet. In retrospect, it was probably a little too much for my 9 year old son, but he did well. Dad called for him to move up to the upper side with us and then he shouted, “Pull in the jib!” “You want more power?!”, I replied, not sure if I heard or understood what he meant since we were already moving up the beach pretty quick. “Yes, more!” So I pulled it in and there was a surge in speed and the shrouds started to hum. Not the singing of rudder hum, but the low frequency vibration of metal and fiberglass slicing through sea mist and water. I have no idea how fast we were going, but it was fast. We covered the first mile in what felt like seconds. Then there was a loud twang and the mast broke off. The windward shroud, one of three 1/8 stainless wires that support the mast, broke at the bottom thimble and the 26 foot mast fell into the water, dragging the sails and remaining standing rigging down with it.
I guess I never considered the possibility of being dismasted. Someone nearly drowning, maybe. Dad having a heart attack, possibly. Capsizing, getting rope burns the full width of my legs from my butt to ankles, very likely to happen… again. Like Mike Tyson said, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.” I hadn’t even considered this happening much less planned for it. We were floundering a ½ to ¾ of a mile off the coast with waves so big you couldn’t stand up. I felt no fear though and had no doubt that we would be fine. Dad was there and he can fix anything.
I could see people on the beach, tiny specs moving slowly up the beach or down, aimlessly walking along the shore like you do at the beach. One of them probably saw the colorful sail and then noticed it missing an instant later. Maybe from shore they could see the sparkle of setting sunlight as it glistened on what had to be no more than a sliver of our saltwater slicked hulls, occasionally visible between the waves. Maybe they’d recognize the problem of having a sailless sailboat that far out. Maybe they’d notice the two guys in blue lifejackets desperately fighting the sea to reclaim their mast and sails and a boy in a red life jacket on his first sailboat ride quietly watching them, thinking “This is how sailboats work?”
We managed to get the mast up and lash it parallel to the hulls and free the main sail from the luff track and pile the main and jib up on the trampoline. Dad held a bit of jib up in the wind and I had enough forward motion to turn the boat toward shore. From there I just tried to surf the waves in and eventually we made it to the beach. Of all the police officers I’ve met over the course of my life, those waiting for us there were among the nicest. And my first encounter with the Coast Guard was equally pleasant. I had been facing backward, out to sea, the whole time in, working the rudders in an attempt to keep the growing waves on the stern and trying to hold the mast up off the boat. The flashing lights and vehicles on the beach were a surprise to me when I finally turned around once the boat beached itself.
I was equally surprised to see my wife there, thankfully with just slightly more relief than anger in her eyes over yet another one of our adventures. She’d been on the porch and could just see the sails as we approached way down the beach. Then she saw them disappear and assumed we capsized, so she waited for us to right the boat and she waited and waited… Assuming we sank and tried to swim for shore, she walked down the beach periodically asking if anyone had seen a sailboat. They all said no so she continued on. Eventually she made it to a hatching sea turtle nest and asked one of the attendants. She also denied seeing us and was concerned enough to call 911, who then called the Coast Guard. By the time everyone arrived, we were nearly on shore.
In the end, Dad used the jib halyard and some rope to rig a makeshift shroud and we sailed off the beach and the last mile up to the house with no jib, a reefed main and the leeward shroud and forestay frighteningly, or rather dangerously loose. It’s something I’ll never forget and a story my son will probably tell his grandkids. The next day, still unphased by the event, just another of life’s scenic detours, Dad commented that had the shroud broken again or had we lost the mast entirely or had the tide been going out, he felt sure he could have still made pretty good time sailing up the beach with the boom rigged as a mast and the jib used as a spinnaker. By his reflective tone, he struck me as almost disappointed that the makeshift shroud held. What’s stuck with me though, is how glad I am that Dad was there. The outcome might have been the same; I would have rigged something together or come up with some other solution to get home, like putting the boat on the trailer once I made it to shore. But Dad always has the right answer and like he said in this case, “Sailing is a lot less work and a lot more fun than pushing a boat across the sand.” It donned on me that despite the advancing years and the subtle change in our lives and no matter how well I think I can handle life’s ups and downs, my perspective will never change. If your father is a dad, then Dad will always be Dad. Maybe that’s just one of those universal truths.
When vacation was over and we were all back settled into our own homes, hours apart, back at our normal routines, I overheard my younger son ask his big brother, the now weathered deckhand, to repair a toy. “Take it to Dad. He knows how to fix everything.”, was his reply. “No, son.”, I thought to myself, “Take it to Grandpa HE knows how to fix everything.”
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