Failure to Launch

Day 16, 17, etc. - Newport, Oregon, USA

Here we are for the foreseeable future.

Yesterday, we were all ready to leave around 1:30 PM. The day was hot and the winds had died and the forecast was for light winds and seas until after midnight, then a shift to light south winds. By this morning we should have been safely in Coos Bay, just in time to wait out the approaching storm front.

Just as we started backing out of our slip, the winds came up from the NW, making it virtually impossible to get the boat out. We waited for about 1/2 hour, but it would not let up. By 3:30, we were getting too close to maximum ebb over the river bar for my comfort, so we decided we would stay put.

Shortly after we shut down the boat and got settled, one of the other boats decided to take off. This was the same boat that had all the problems getting here and we were not confident that he was really ready, but we went to help him with his lines anyway. As soon as he left the dock, he was in trouble.
 The wind was pushing him down the channel towards the shallow water when he suddenly lost power. The engine was running ok, but it would not go into gear.

He quickly threw out an anchor and managed to stop before hitting the rocks, and then several of us fellow boaters attempted to get a line to him. Sue and I launched our dinghy and I used that to carry a line out to his boat. However, in the meantime he thought he had the problem solved and tried to power over to the fuel dock with his anchor still down. Needless to say, this did not work. Then, he tried again, and when he was close to the dock, he started taking his anchor up. When he tried to put the boat in gear again, it failed again. Before we could do anything, he drifted down onto the rocks at the end of the dock. Fortunately, the winds had died down a lot and he did not really hit hard - just settled his bow onto some rocks.

We finally got a line to him and one of the commercial boats at our dock came to the rescue and towed him back to the dock, basically where he started from.

The silver lining in all of this is that by around 5 PM, the winds shifted, now coming from the south, and getting much stronger. If we had been out there, we would be fighting head winds all the way.

Today, several other boats have come in looking for shelter. They are reporting very ugly conditions off shore, especially last night. The last boat that came in was a beautiful 54' Tayana with a crew of 5 men, heading north. They said it was very bad out there - and they were going with the wind. Again, we are just so glad we did not leave last night.

The current weather forecasts are not encouraging. These conditions are going to get worse over the next couple of days, and may persist for almost a week. So, here we sit, thankful that we are in such a nice place to pass the time.

{GMST}44|37.4337|N|124|3.1412|W|Newport, Oregon|Newport, Oregon{GEND}