Running Aground!
By Linda Cullum, Thu Dec 8th

RUNNING AGROUND AND GETTING OFF

In every sailor's life lurks the inevitability of an eventualgrounding. If you're a sailor and you haven't yet run aground,chances are very good that one day you will.

WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU RUN AGROUND DON'T PANIC -- doing the wrongthing can put you on harder.

Now that you're on the bottom, take a minute to evaluate thesituation. Check the bilge to be sure that you haven't holed theboat and aren't taking on water. What is the nature of thebottom? If it's soft sand or grass, chances are good that theboat is undamaged, and that if you need to motor or kedge offyou won't grind a hole in the boat.Your objective is to getsafely into deeper water.

Motoring off -- If you have a motor or engine your firstinclination will be to start it up and try to back out. This maywork, but be careful. In sandy or muddy bottoms you are likelyto suck sand up into the cooling system and render the motoruseless. A powerful engine in shallow water can actually pushsand from the stern to under the keel, making the situationworse. If you're on rocks and you reverse hard, you may drag thehull along the rocks and damage or even hole the boat.

Set out an anchor. One of the first things to do is to set outan anchor to keep your boat from being pushed even farther ontothe shoal. If you have a dingy you can use it to carry out ananchor. If you don't have a dingy, and if conditions are calm,maybe someone wearing buoyant flotation gear can swim an anchorout. Be aware that this is not an easy task and a person canbecome totally exhausted very quickly. If your boat is a smallone, your anchor is also probably small enough and light enoughfor you to be able to throw it far enough for it to work, but becareful if you do this. You don't want to go overboard with it.Keep as much tension on the anchor line as you can. This alonemay help free you up, especially if you have a rising tide, orif passing boats create enough of a wake to raise you upmomentarily.

What is the state of the tide? If you've gone aground on arising tide, you may just be able to wait a couple of hoursuntil it rises enough to refloat the boat. If you've goneaground on a falling tide, however, you need to get into deeperwater fast, or you may be stuck where you are for an entire tidechange. If this happens, and if the boat is likely to end uplying on its side, close up hatches and companionways to keep itfrom flooding. If you'd be better off lying on one side than onthe other, try to kedge off an anchor from what you want to bethe low side. You may also be able to control which side ends uphigh by shifting crew and gear weight. Where is the deeperwater? It may seem obvious that deeper water lies behind you,but it might be even deeper beside you. Of course it's notdirectly in front of you -- if it were, you wouldn't have runaground in the first place. To find where the deeper water is,you have some options. If you have a lead line you can lower itoff the boat from all sides to get a measurement of the depth.You can make a lead line by taking

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a light line and attaching aweight to the end. You could also very quickly put a boat hookor an oar in the water.

How do you get there? If you have a centerboard, raise it. Thiswill decrease the draft, possibly enough to free the boat. Canyou sail off? If you were sailing down wind when you ranaground, harden up and try to go to windward. If you weresailing close hauled, tack immediately and move crew weight toleeward. If sailing off on a reach or downwind would put youinto deeper water, ease the sails and fall off toward the deeperwater. Move crew weight around to heel the boat in the directionwhich is most likely to help it to slide off - this alone mayreduce the boat's draft enough to free her up. If this doesn'twork, drop sails, as the wind on the sails will continue to pushyou harder onto the shallow water. Furl them out of the way. Ondeck they will become a slippery liability.

Kedging off -- Once you've set an anchor in deeper water, youmay be able to winch it in and pull the boat off that way.Again, moving crew weight around may help immeasurably. It mayhelp to rock the boat by shifting crew weight back and forth asyou winch in on the anchor.

Use a halyard -- If you know that heeling the boat in onedirection will help, hand a halyard to someone in a dingy whocan then carefully motor off the boat's beam and pull it overfarther. If you don't have a dingy, a crew member can grab ahalyard and swing out over the beam of the boat to try toincrease heel.

Get off and push - This technique is obviously only safe andeffective in very shallow water, and thus will only work with avery shallow draft boat, such as a day sailor or a multihull.Before getting in the water, be sure to put shoes on. Make surethat the boat won't sail off without you, and that you have away to get back onto the boat.

Accept tow? As a last resort, if all other options have failed.This may require a VHF call to a towing company. Be careful -- abig powerful powerboat may be able to pull with more force thanthe boat's equipment can handle--the boat's hull can be damaged.The boat must have a cleat strong enough to take the strain of atow, which may be considerable. If there is no cleat strongenough, consider tying off to the base of the mast. If the mastis stepped through the deck it will take the strain, if it'sstepped on deck it may not. The line used as tow line also mustbe strong enough to take the strain of towing -- if it breaksunder the strain of the pull of a tow boat, it will become alethal weapon.

When you may not want to refloat the boat -- if you have a holein the bottom you may be better off right where you are, atleast until you've been able to carry out enough of an emergencyrepair to keep the boat from sinking.

About the author:Linda Cullum is from Cape Cod, MA, with a second home inVermont. She is the author of Learn to Sail! with Multimedia! anInteractive Sailing training CDROM which teaches all aspects ofSailing including Knots, Piloting, Rules of the Road, Weatherwith digital video from Sail Magazine, narration, animation andquizzes.Visit her site at http://learntosail.net HappySailing_/)__