The shakedown wasn’t over yet! We felt like the pounding would never stop. Lothlorien would come up over some of the swells and surf down the other side. Sometimes she would come up and pound down on the other side with a huge bang, shuddering the whole boat.
After one of those particularly hard crashes, water started flooding into the cabin until we had several inches of water standing. I really wasn't ready to have my brand new boat sink! I had an image of the entire hull splitting in half beneath us. We started to bail out water, but they had not hooked up the pump, so we had to use an empty coffee can.
We finally got most of it out, so we started trying to figure out what was happening. When the water started coming in again, this time I decided to taste it - it was fresh water! With a little investigation, we found that the hose to the faucet had come off and every time we turned the water on, we were flooding the cabin. It could have been worse, and although it turned out to be a simple problem, with an equally simple solution, it was scary.
Because we decided to motor sail rather than try to sail into that mess, we had lashed the jib down with bungee cords on the bow deck. The jib came loose and started flying all around, going over the side into the water. Once more the boys made their way along the lifelines and were securing the jib. They would go down and green water would wash up over them and the deck. All I could do was watch - and pray, "Dear God, let them come up again!" I don't know if they ever realized how much danger they were in, and of course, there were no safety lines.
After fifteen hours of non-stop pounding, and when we felt we couldn't stand any more, we finally were able to put into Newport Beach. Any one of these incidents could have been total disaster. I could have lost my boys or we could have lost our mast.
During that whole trip, all I thought was, "Peace be still! God, please quiet the storm!" Three days later, we sailed into Oceanside Harbor under fair skies and calm seas to make our home.
This was truly a woman-owned boat, held together with bobby pins and prayer.
After one of those particularly hard crashes, water started flooding into the cabin until we had several inches of water standing. I really wasn't ready to have my brand new boat sink! I had an image of the entire hull splitting in half beneath us. We started to bail out water, but they had not hooked up the pump, so we had to use an empty coffee can.
We finally got most of it out, so we started trying to figure out what was happening. When the water started coming in again, this time I decided to taste it - it was fresh water! With a little investigation, we found that the hose to the faucet had come off and every time we turned the water on, we were flooding the cabin. It could have been worse, and although it turned out to be a simple problem, with an equally simple solution, it was scary.
Because we decided to motor sail rather than try to sail into that mess, we had lashed the jib down with bungee cords on the bow deck. The jib came loose and started flying all around, going over the side into the water. Once more the boys made their way along the lifelines and were securing the jib. They would go down and green water would wash up over them and the deck. All I could do was watch - and pray, "Dear God, let them come up again!" I don't know if they ever realized how much danger they were in, and of course, there were no safety lines.
After fifteen hours of non-stop pounding, and when we felt we couldn't stand any more, we finally were able to put into Newport Beach. Any one of these incidents could have been total disaster. I could have lost my boys or we could have lost our mast.
During that whole trip, all I thought was, "Peace be still! God, please quiet the storm!" Three days later, we sailed into Oceanside Harbor under fair skies and calm seas to make our home.
This was truly a woman-owned boat, held together with bobby pins and prayer.
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1 comment:
It's nice to see other people traveling and on boats!
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