If you have to have a bad experience cruising, it's nice to have it happen at the end of your trip. The worst experience of our 1997 cruise on our Hans Christian 33 from Seattle to Ketchikan occurred on August 19 while we were in the Broken Group in Barkley Sound on the outside of Vancouver Island. As we found out, they don't call it the Broken Group for nothing.
It was a clear, breezy day and we had a nice sail out to Turtle Bay after picking up our mail and refueling in Ucluelet. We got the sails down, and on our way in to the anchorage I was conning from the bow as usual. The sun was almost straight ahead which makes it harder to see down into the water. We were motoring at about 4 knots, which is faster than we usually go when there are known hazards like underwater rocky reefs nearby, but we had this down pat by now, right?. All of a sudden I saw rocks under the water's surface to my left and rocks deeper down to the right. I yelled at John to go right, hoping that those rocks would be deep enough for us to get over. They weren't, and we bumped our way right up onto the middle of the rocky reef. John immediately threw the engine hard in reverse, but we didn't budge.
Since we were two hours into a falling tide John flew into action. Fortunately we were towing our inflatable dinghy, so John was able to row out a bow anchor. Pulling on this anchor didn't move Nakia so he rowed out a stern anchor too, and we ground the rode in on the winches as much as we could. About this time a ski boat from the kayak camp on the nearby shore came by to see if they could lend a hand. The 5/8" line I tossed to them from our stern looked like a hawser on their tiny stern cleat, and I know the owner was afraid he might rip the cleat right out of his boat, but he gamely continued trying to pull us backwards off the reef.
Nakia wasn't going anywhere, so John's next tactic was to knot and rig the bow anchor rode to our main halyard shackle to try heeling us over to starboard to float us off. It was immediately apparent that there wasn't enough scope on this anchor, so he rowed it further away from the boat and we winched it in tight. Ariana and John from Whisker came by in their small dinghy and asked if they could help. (They later told us that they almost didn't stop because it looked like we had everything under control!) John put them to work jumping their combined body weight up and down on the anchor rode attached to the main halyard to try heeling us over more.
The ski boat was still pulling away with no effect. John realized that it wasn't maximizing power trying to pull us from his stern. The ski boat's stern wanted to slew around under full throttle with our tow line to one side of the engine. Once John got them to move the tow line to their bow cleat and put their engine in reverse, we could see how much more effective this was. John climbed out to the end of the boom in yet another effort to heel the boat over enough to get it to float. At one point I was out there with him (briefly) with my feet barely clearing the water and our throttle in full reverse.
Finally the ski boat really turned on the gas, which he had been reluctant to do for fear of ripping out his small bow cleat. Using his boat in reverse to pull us off did the trick, and we were free! John went sailing up into the air as the boom came up, and I had to haul in on the main sheet to pull him into the cockpit. Ariana and John stayed with us to bring in both anchors and to offer moral support. Now that it was technically all over, I went into delayed shock, first feeling like I needed a good cry and then feeling like I was going to be sick.
I don't think I ever really thought we were going to get the boat off that reef because I never felt it give way at all. But John shouted encouragement to everyone whenever he thought he felt the boat rock or move just a bit. He told me later that he didn't really think the boat was moving, but his positive attitude kept us all going past the point where we thought it was hopeless. We didn't look at the time, but our best estimate is that the entire process took about 30-40 minutes.
We came into the anchorage feeling very humble, and anchored well away from the other boats in case they had any concerns about our seamanship. The next day we were able to help the ski boat charge their battery, and we gave cans of smoked Alaskan salmon as thank yous to all the people who helped us. John got his wet suit on to check the bottom. He saw rocks stuck in the keel, and at low tide found some of our fiberglass on the exposed reef, but it was nothing serious. We spent several days at anchor recuperating, socializing, waiting for the weather to improve, cleaning the boat, fishing, and getting things ready for our upcoming passage to San Francisco. We were very lucky, and fortunately we can look back on this episode as "just another cruising rite of passage."
Lessons learned: