A Hot
Dogger in the Water
Best Drawing of a man over board ever!!!!!!!!! Thank you Denny Vangogh.
I really think the drawing needs three Old Stooges stick
men on our boat.
Three Stooges had a really good start last night. As a sidebar, has anyone noticed that Check
Ride starts behind everyone right at the pin every race? What gives? Anyway, off we went.
Earlier that day I dove Stooges bottom, put up the mast by
myself (yeah right, knuk, knuk, knuk), attached the forestay, stolen an engine,
all 10 minutes before the leaving dock – we were ready to kick some serious
river ass.
After the start, we came into the windward mark and had a decent
rounding. Spinnaker up – pole on, starboard bear-away. Textbook. Mo and Curling
were talking about gybing as we jostled for position with Ollie’s Hot Dog to
leeward and behind. We were in good shape. Curly is an awesome trimmer (by his
own admission), and Mo is a man that can drive a boat blindfolded (come to
think of it, sometimes it feels that way). I see things they don’t, like the
wind and, well, other stuff like MOBs.
Freddy calls for the gybe. We throw the main across, and I go
forward and switch the pole. I look back toward the comp Hot Dog.
Me - “Hey – somebody just went in the water – did you guys
see that? It’s Hot Dog.“
Me – “Man Overboard – Man Overboard”
Mo – “Yep”
Curley – “Yep”
Mo – “Other boats are close – let’s see what happens.”
Within the space of another 10 seconds the other boats had sailed
on by Tom in the water. I had my eye on him and never looked away. When it was
clear that none of the other boats has seen the MOB or did not have the
capacity to help, we shifted gears.
Mo and Curley – “Spinnaker down – we are going back!”
Immediately we doused sails - all the time I was crowing
“Man Overboard, Man Overboard” like a possessed Tourette’s Syndrome sailor.
I kept my eye on the MOB while helping to douse the chute
as best I could. Curley got the throw
rope up from below. Fred kept yelling to
get the jib back up so that we had steerage.
Boats from the next starting fleet were sailing down river
on their weather leg toward Hot Dog, and we screamed at them to make sure they
stayed clear of the situation. None of them had a clue someone was in the
water.
Ollie (who sort of inadvertently decided to sail single-handed
for a few minutes – knuk, knuk, knuk) did a really good job of dousing his
sails.
Curley “Where is our ladder?”
Me “I don’t friggin know. I couldn’t find it earlier in the
day.” I had looked for it when I dove the bottom and couldn’t find it. I know
we have one. We had purchased it last year when we had our own MOB incident
last year. Gremlins.
By this point, Ollie had gotten his boat under control and
had stationed himself downriver of the MOB. He brought Tom alongside and had a
hold of his arms. I kept yelling at Ollie about using his legs, and even though
only a few boat lengths away, he couldn’t hear me. While I yelled, I was also giving
him my “pull the man on the boat pantomime” from my Boy Scout training, but my
acting sucked. I looked like a Foggy Bottom Bluegrass bearded guy stomping out
“I am a Man of Constant Sorrow.”
Curley yelled to Ollie – “Lower the motor mount and have
him climb on that.” It was like a
stairway to heaven for a waterlogged MOB.
Tom climbed on the motor mount, then over the transom with
Ollie pulling hard, and we all sighed a little relief.
Things
I learned:
Make sure that you have your throw rope, extra life jackets
and ladder where they can be easily accessed.
You may be the only boat that can render assistance. I took
a poll of the other boats. Only 2 of them were aware of the situation even
though there were at least 10 boats within 20 yards. None of the oncoming boats
had any idea of the situation before we notified them after the race. The 2
boats that were aware could not render assistance due to other factors.
I am buying a cheap VHF handheld today – we should have
notified race committee – they would have rendered assistance immediately.
I am also going to find that damn ladder.
On a more personal level, Curley is ecstatic about getting
rid of his prestigious “Whoops!” award at the end of this year. Unless
something changes, Hot Dog has that award locked.
Mr.
Damore’s rendition to the Committee for redress.
Tonight, the Cal 20 fleet had a course of XX (S-1-5-1-4-F).
After rounding Mark 1 on a starboard bear away set, we continued on starboard
with Oliver "Ollie" Kunz's boat Hot Dog SN1509, another Cal 20,
several boat lengths to leeward. He was sailing with Tom Pfeiffer. On our boat
was Dennis Damore, Fred Hazard, and John Cole. Approximately a third of the way
to Mark 5, we gybed on to port. At the time, we were third behind Scooter and
Check Ride. After completing the gybe, John Cole looked back to see Tom
Pfeiffer being knocked off of Hot Dog by the boom as they completed their gybe.
John immediately yelled "Man Overboard" and kept yelling it to the
other Cals on the spinnaker run who where closer to them. We could see that Tom
did not have a life jacket on and that Ollie was struggling to get his chute
down. Other boats either did not see the incident, hear the three of us yelling,
or were having their own troubles with their chutes. We immediately made the
decision to do a crash douse of our chute. And we turned around to lend
assistance.
By this point, Tom had gotten hold of a cushion and was
floating down river and Ollie had gotten his boat somewhat under control. We
readied our throw line and our floating cushion as well as our spare life
jacket to throw to him. While approaching, we continued to yell "Man
Overboard" especially to the fleet who was behind us sailing their weather
leg so that they wouldn't interfere with the recovery or inadvertently hit Tom
who was still in the water. As we got to within about 5 boat lengths of Hot Dog
we could see that Ollie had gotten a line to Tom. However, Ollie, who is much
smaller than Tom could not get him aboard. As we circled them, we yelled for
them to get Tom to the back of the boat, get the motor mount down, and use the
motor mount as a boarding ladder, which they did. We circled again within a
half a boat length and once we were clear that he was aboard and they told us
they didn't need more assistance, we untangled our spinnaker and other gear and
resumed racing. Hot Dog retired from the race and we continued even though more
than a leg behind.
We would like redress for our assistance under Rule 62.1
(c) "giving help...in compliance with rule 1.1". The redress we are
requesting is based upon our position at the time we turned around, third, and
the evidence that our previous finishes in this series show that we would
likely have finished in the top three. We also note that the average of those
finishes over the previous four races is third place. We would like to have our
actual position of last be changed to third place.
Tom Pfeiffer, Ollie Kunz, and Benny Quintanilla who was on
another Cal but had spinnaker issues and couldn't help, will all provide their
verification of these facts if requested.
Required diagram included
