That time our boat got stuck under the dock

Last night was an interesting night. When we arrived at the marina on Tuesday we were directed to a very small slip. It would probably be a good fit for a boat about two feet narrower and six or seven feet shorter. To say that is it a tight fit is an understatement. The tide swings about three feet in this marina and it is difficult to get enough fenders around the boat to keep us off of pilings and off of the dock.

Well, last night we went to bed around 10pm and at 1:30am I woke up needing to head to the bathroom. I stepped out of bed and fell into the wall because the boat was leaning over. If we were sailing that would be typical, but in a marina that shouldn’t happen. It only took a second to realize what was going on. The starboard side of the boat must have gotten stuck under the dock. I was hoping I would be able to just push it out from under the dock and everything would be ok. That’s not how it worked out.

The sides of the boat have lifelines that help keep people onboard in case they slip and fall. The lifelines are held up by little posts called stanchions. Last night the stanchions got caught under the dock as the tide was coming up. When I arrived on deck boat was almost as high as the dock, but the stanchions were bent all the way over and causing the boat to lean way over to the side. I tried to push the boat down to get it out from under the dock and that did nothing at all. I called down for Wendy to come up and help. As she was getting out of bed and putting on clothes I released the boom and swung it all the way out to the side. Having the boom out to the side gave us a long lever to hopefully, use to pry the boat over a little more so it could be released from under the dock. With Wendy and me hanging on the boom the pressure was slightly less on the dock, but not nearly enough to get the boat out.

We have some friends, Paul and Julia, in this marina so I ran over to their boat. Amazing they were awake! Another boat had been planning on leaving at 2am and Paul and Julia had offered to help. We got Paul, Julia and the guy from the other boat, Bob, to come over to our boat. Several of us hung from the boom while someone tried to push the boat out. No deal. The problem was that our boat has 22,000 pounds of displacement. That means it would take 22,000 lbs to push our boat under water. It also has 7,600 lbs of lead in the keel to help hold it upright while sailing. With three of us on the boom there was still far too little weight to heel the boat enough.

The tide was over an hour from reaching it's highest point. We could hear the dock creaking and popping every couple of minutes. The pressure on the stanchions and the deck was still building. Paul said, “Man, those stanchions are a total loss, but we need to get the pressure off them before they rip a hole in your boat.” Then a light bulb went on in my head. I raced down below, grabbed the hacksaw, ran back up on deck and started sawing the stanchions off. Stainless steel is tough to get a cut started, but once it gets going it moves pretty fast. The first one I had to cut almost all the way through before it gave way. The second one now had all the pressure on it. When I got about half way I asked everyone to move back. Once I was about ¾ of the way through it snapped off and the boat righted itself. I’ve never been so happy with so much damage.

As it turns out there was very little damage. The two stanchions will need to be replaced, one of the stanchion bases is bent and may be able to be straighten back out and both stanchion base will need to be re-bedded. We had already planned to re-bed the stanchion bases, so no big deal there. That just moves it up on our never ending list. There is no real damage to the hull, but for the base that was bent I’ll probably install a larger backing plate when we put it all back together. My only concern is yesterday we paid $2.50 for a regular can of lima beans. I can’t imagine what they are going to want for a pair of stainless steel stanchions.

Tomorrow our neighbors will be leaving and we’ll take over their wider slip. Wendy said we should have taken some photos last night while the boat was stuck. For some reason neither of us thought to do that. It seems cruising is an adventure even in a marina.

 

Stanchion base a little bent out of shape.

 

This should be straight.

 

 

The pieces of the wreckage.