Retrieving the Irish Pennant . . . . from the bottom of Lake Weir. Part 1 of 3.

[Charles Brennan]

SATURDAY:
Not quite the Saturday I had originally envisioned . . . . .
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Worst nightmare ever, realized; however, I was soon to learn that even this nightmare could get ever so much worse. 

6 hours earlier . . . . . .

A guy that was attracted to the boat's appearance, was taking drone videos and got this and sent it to me.
(That horrible ramp-backing, was me experimenting with backing up, using only the side view mirrors, instead of twisting around in the seat and looking back; not doing that again.) 
SEEMED like a nice day in the offing! 

My niece, her boyfriend, and his 9 year old son, were here on vacation, in Florida.
They were invited by my son, Chris to go sailing on his Sea Pearl 21, the Black Pearl, and he also asked me to go with them in my SCAMP, the Irish Pennant.
We launched, as seen above, and my son, the boyfriend (we'll call him W) and his son (M) went on the Sea Pearl and my niece came aboard my SCAMP.
All the tourists were in PFDs, Chris was not and I was using my backup kayaking PFD, having inadvertently inflated my Type V, while pulling it out of a locker.
"Charles!" You say. "Don't you keep a spare cartridge aboard?!?" 
Why, YES!!    Yes, I do!! 
And if I had only remembered to retract the charging pin first, before I screwed in the second CO2 cartridge, then it wouldn't have inflated, as well!! 
DOHHHH!!! 

Off we went back and forth across Lake Weir in light 8 mph winds; lots of flat patches of water and occasional ripples, making for a leisurely 1 -2 knots.
Perfect for Mountain Folk, from North Carolina.
We sailed clear across the lake to Gator Joes, a restaurant celebrating their 100th year in business there, serving the likes of Ma Barker and other locals.
(The FBI killed Ma Barker and her son, after a 6 hour shoot-out in 1935, about 2 miles from there.)
After lunch, we set off from the beach adjacent the restaurant and at the very last minute, the 9 year old (M) wanted to sail on my boat, so he was plopped down without any discussion with me, at all.
After we had left the beach, I noticed that he was not wearing his PFD and called out to Chris to come alongside and provide one.
His Dad told us to just use the one that my niece had left aboard.
It was absurdly large, but I made the kid wear it anyway and it kept snagging on everything and sliding off while he was trying to fish from my boat.
Against my better judgement, I relented and allowed him to remove it after assurances from his Dad, who said he went white-water canoeing with him all the time and was a good swimmer.
He was enthralled with my fishing rod holders.
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Notice how flat the water is and how level the hull is? 

He also enjoyed playing with my binoculars, which I had given him, in an attempt to get him to shut up.
Kid could be the poster boy, for ADHD.
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Notice how flat the water is and how level the hull is? 

Here, he was getting ready for a high-five pass-by with his dad, on my son's boat, as we went by.
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Notice how flat the water is? 

Port tack, sitting on the windward side to keep the hull level, praying that the kid would shut up.
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Notice how flat the water is? 

I began to want to head back in, in order to beat out expected late afternoon thunderstorms, but Chris was still sailing back and forth across the lake and showed no signs of wanting to head in.
I didn't want to look like a kill joy, so I kept sailing too and watching the clouds.  Everything seemed OK.
Chris having gotten a pretty good lead on me (as he ALWAYS does, in that Sea Pearl!) began furling his sails, while still quite a ways from the ramp.
I figured I would get much closer and then drop my sails too and motor in.
I was sailing south, on a port tack, on a beat, in 8 - 10 mph winds and moving at 1.8 - 2 knots and everything was just fine.

Until it was not.

A large gust from the west (estimated at 20 mph) slammed the sail over and caught me unawares, sitting on what was suddenly the lee side of the boat and I was simply unable to get up and over, quickly enough.
And just like that, the boat capsized to port.

My first thought, was to mentally curse myself for not insisting on a proper PFD for the kid.
My second thought, was to see where the kid was. I had expected him to surface with me. No worse feeling, than a suddenly missing kid.
My third thought, was to curse myself for not putting on my kayaking PFD after lunch; I had not donned it, because it was a hot day in August.
And it was calm.

I popped under the coaming and came up inside and saw where the kid was, inside the hull.  He was a little wide-eyed,    but otherwise, calm.
Said: "Take a deep breath!    We're getting out of here, kid!"
Tucked him under my arm, like an over-sized football and ducked us both under and swam past the stern, and up to the surface.
This sudden gust seemed to be a tiny squall line and the sudden wave action made it hard to tread water in fresh water ( I do MUCH better in salt water; always have), while holding a kid who was now clinging to me, like a baby monkey to his mother.
I tried hanging on to the upside-down trolling motor, but the sudden wave action made it difficult.
The kid's Dad was screaming at Chris to swing the boat around, unaware that the sudden wind on the nose of the hull was much stronger than Chris' 2.5 Honda outboard could handle.
He was literally forced to "chicken gybe" the boat (under power) out of the wind, to swing around and come get us.
They took several minutes getting to me, before I was able to lift the kid up (dumb move, since it put me under water) and into his Father's waiting arms.
I grabbed onto the upside-down trolling motor to have something to hang onto, and it promptly came loose from the mount. (A design error I was aware of, but had not gotten around to rectifying, yet.) 
So, NOW I'm trying to tread water one-handed, while trying to pass the trolling motor up to Chris' Sea Pearl.
All that took just long enough, for the SCAMP to decide that Capsize Time was over, and it slowly turtled. 

Now that the kid was safe (and busily donning his PFD!)  I swam over to my boat with all of the confidence of the Truly Ignorant.
After all, I had watched ALL the SCAMP videos, hadn't I? 

Or this one, where the guy says: "Wow! Popped right up!" 

He got a sobering lesson on not having something to pull the centerboard out of the trunk, after (deliberately!)  turtling his SCAMP.

Claimed it took him 10 or 15 minutes and both his teenaged sons, to right the boat.
I was not to be so lucky. 

So I swam over to the hull  and climbed up onto the hull from the rear, in the Approved SCA SCAMP manner taught in the Sea Skills Seminars (one of which I had witnessed 8 or 9 years ago, at a Cedar Key Small Boat Meet).
Far more difficult than I thought, since in the ensuing excitement, I had lost one of my Sperry boat shoes and only had traction on one foot and the hull was very smooth and slippery.
Damn!    I had worked HARD, to get the hull that smooth and slippery! 
Got up there and grabbed my John Welsford Approved centerboard tail,    so I could lift the centerboard up from inside the trunk.
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You can see it dangling on the left side of the centerboard.
So while I was up there, I grabbed the top of the centerboard and leaned back.
Nada. 
Got back in the water and reached up to grab the top of the centerboard and try again, waiting for the expected: "Popped right up!"
Nada. 

Hmmmm . . . . . 
Decided I would get a line on the opposite side and tie it to a mid ships cleat, or an orange re-entry line and use the additional leverage to right the boat, so I swam underneath the hull to get to it more quickly.
Bad Move.
Going underneath, I got caught up in the folds of sail and kept trying to get clear to one edge of the sail, all the while feeling like I was wrapped up in laundry, at the bottom of a swimming pool.
I kept having to go further and further down, attempting to get clear and only managed that when I reached the peak of the sail.
Lordy!!    It was a ways up to the surface and I was already out of air.
I was extremely close to drowning down there; unfortunately, that's not a Brand New Experience to me, so I wasn't overly panicked, just scared because of knowing just how close I was to drowning.
Finally got to the surface and was so exhausted, I was having a hard time keeping my head above water, just to tread said water.
Chris, who had probably been mentally counting "One Mississippi, Two Mississippi . . . . " all while I was down there, looked a little alarmed and swung around to get me aboard his Sea Pearl.

Next Problem:
I couldn't board his boat. 
He had a pretty fancy nylon strap rope ladder, but had never used it, until now. 
Tied it off to a mast and the first problem was that the lowest rung had no weight on it and it kept floating up to the surface, so it was difficult to put  my foot in the lowest rung.
Then, when I tried to stand,  the ladder hugged against the (very!) curved hull and I was trying to pull myself up and away from the ladder and had insufficient strength in my arms, to do so.
After several failed attempts, including some fruitless attempts from Chris and W to help pull me aboard (without capsizing THEIR hull!)    I was completely exhausted and just hung there, trying to gather myself.
Looking around, I noticed the Sea Pearl lee board and got my (shod) foot between the lee board and the up haul line.
Good Idea, but too low.  I pulled myself up on the gunnel, to get my weight off the lee board and asked them to pull in on the lee board up haul, a little.
After a few more adjustments, we got to where I could lift up almost to the deck and with help, was pulled aboard.

Chris decided that with him and me pulling on the centerboard, that our combined weight (400+ pounds!) should right the hull.
(He'd seen the videos, too.)
So we both jumped in, swam over and tried righting the hull.
Nada. 
Had to repeat the re-boarding process again with both of us this time, although Chris was able to pull himself aboard.

OK, if human power won't do the job, how about horsepower? 
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Tied the line on the opposite side gunnel (the one that almost got me killed!)  and used the Honda outboard to pull the boat upright.
Nada. 
We made about a dozen attempts (stubbornness runs strong, in our family!) all variations on a theme, with predictable results.
Nada. 

OK, what we need is MORE horsepower.
I borrowed Chris' phone (since mine was on the bottom of Lake Weir) to call TowBoatUS.
Hmm . . .  lost my glasses in the Great Underwater Sail Battle, so Chris had to dial for me.  Got on the phone and after about 10 minutes of maddeningly frustrating IVR loops, got a human being and explained my predicament.
Said all I needed, was for a tow boat driver to hook on the line and flip the boat up.
Uhhh . . . . . .  no. 
They'll bring you gas, or tow you all day long, but they considered THIS operation as: Marine Salvage.
Really?!?    Two minutes of parbuckling a 600 lb hull, is Major Marine Salvage? 
They further said that the salvage cost exceeded the value of the dinghy, so they weren't going to dispatch anyone, unless I was willing to cough up $2500 to $3000 bucks.
And the nearest guy they had, was over an hour away on the St John's river. 
I declined. 
Chris noticed on his depth sounder, that the water depth was equal to my mast length  and we slowly realized maybe it wasn't working like all the SCAMP videos, because the mast was probably stuck in the mud.
And I likely had not helped matters any, when I had stood up on the over-turned hull. 

It was now very late in the afternoon and I did not like the looks of the western sky but at least, my brain (finally!) went out of chittering-attacked-monkey mode and finally started reasoning, again.
Have never shied away from Hard Decisions, so I considered all my options, currently ranging from: Bad to Horrendous.
We had risked enough passenger safety for one day, thank you very much, so I asked Chris for the use of his bright orange Pelican box and tied it to the failed righting line, tossed it in and had Chris take some GPS way points.
We HAD to get the crew back on land ahead of the expected storms, and that's all there was to it.
Speaking of hard decisions, I had to go back over the side again and back under and into the SCAMP's veranda, to fetch my clipped-on yellow dry bag to get the truck keys; struggled to get aboard (again!)  and left my boat abandoned in the water, about ½ mile from the ramp.
Figured I would return in the morning with scuba gear and Short Ribs my RIB, to go down and dig out the mast end and then pull the hull upright with 25 hp, instead of 2½ hp, since this was about the only option left open to me.

You know the incongruous kinds of thoughts you get, during disasters? 
On the way back to the ramp, I wondered if I was ever again going to be able to wear my "But, did we SINK??" tee-shirt that Chris had given me for my birthday one year, since NOW, the answer was: YES!! 
Chris was still thinking more clearly than me and suggested I drop off the SCAMP trailer at his house (20 minutes away) and he could bring it back to the lake in the morning, while I brought Short Ribs in on my truck.
And for the final heart-breaking chore of the day: 
I called my wife.

Charles Brennan

[Noemi - Ensenada 20]

Yikes, friend.