Flailing for Fenders

Jul 29 2008

Flailing for Fenders

Published by Capt. Dan at 17:26 under Sailing

Guest Speaker/Writer Randy Bush recounts efforts to save a fender and Capt. Dan analyzes what the group grope would mean if this had been a real MOB.

Randy Bush - guest commentator

Greetings Capt.–

Of course every good sailor knows that you always pull up your fenders after you leave the dock. A seasoned mariner (probably Capt. Dan) once quipped that sailing off with your fenders hanging over the side is like walking around with your fly open: It doesn’t really do any harm, but makes you look stupid as hell. Well, a couple of evenings ago, we not only sailed off with our fly open, something flopped out.

Steve Van Hook and I were on our final Sailtime check ride with Capt. Dan about a mile or so offshore. Things were progressing uneventfully until one of our forgotten fenders worked loose and began to bob away tauntingly. Now of course, fenders are maybe $19.99 at West Marine, but being self-respecting sailors (not to mention embarrassed sailors), we weren’t about to sail off until the bloody thing was back on board.

So, we did a few MOB maneuvers, trying to pick up the errant fender with a boat hook. The problem was there was really nothing to grab a hold of. We basically have an amorphous plastic blob attached to a limp line: kinda like trying pick up cooked spaghetti with a single chop stick.

This was getting ridiculous, but the look of steely-eyed determination on the Capt.’s face told me that this exercise was far from over.

Tactic # 2: Fire up the engine, fold the transom down on our sugar scoop stern and position some poor soul (yep, me) on the swim step, while Capt. Dan attempts to back down on the fender. So all I had to do was reach out and grab the line. Simple enough, but the seas were just sloppy enough to make the whole exercise look like a drunk trying to catch flies. After two failed attempts, and becoming wetter and madder, I hunkered down on the swim step to get closer to our quarry A the Capt. came around again.

Suddenly the water erupted a few feet away and a brown object launched across our stern. Apparently a local sea lion had decided to join the fun, and what fun he had. He would leap from the water, splash down about 10 feet away, and come about and do it again. Perhaps he thought the whole exercise was for his benefit, or maybe he just wanted to get a closer look at these pitiful humans trying to function iN his element. Whatever the reason, we were all hoping that he would nose up under the fender and toss it into the boat, but I guess that only happens at Sea World.

The next attempt was successful, and we all let out a triumphant yell and headed for home.

Plastic boat fender–20 bucks. Flailing around in the ocean for over an hour, emerging victorious, and getting up close and personal with a sea lion–priceless.

Capt Dan here – So what’s the lesson here – other than secure your fenders?

I think this episode drives home once again that MOB in the real world is going to be tough. Even though we had seas of less than 2 feet our experience shows that bringing an MOB to the swim step and having them walk up the ladder would be very difficult and probably dangerous. If the victim were helpless – like the fender – someone would have to get in the water to tie them to the halyard.

Lesson: practice your MOB maneuvers, but better yet, rig jacklines and insist that folks clip in. If the weather turns foul, clip in even when sitting in the cockpit ditto if it gets dark.

One more thing: sea lions are carnivores

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