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Sailing Adventure #5: Sinking in the NavesinkMonday, May 28. 2012
The clouds were rolling in steadily, and their distorted reflections now danced inquisitively in the dark stillness of the water. I continued to row, moving my eyes periodically from the luffing sail above my head to the shriveled and distorted shape of the boat hull, as it gave way to the force I applied to the oarlocks and then returned to its proper form, as if I were pumping some huge red bellows for some distant furnace. My destination, formerly my point of origin, continued to loom in the distance behind me, reminding me each time I turned my head of just how fast 2 miles per hour really is. Looking aft I would encounter the compassionate stare of my wife, helpless in her desire to assist me in some way, but finding no help from either the entirely absent wind or the partially broken rear oar locks.
I was grateful, for the moment, for the sudden disappearance of trumpeting power boats passing us on either side. Each pass of these vessels added insult to helplessness in the form of a limp sail flapping back and forth as we bobbed in their powerful wake. Now even these sources of noise and unrest were gone and all that disturbed our slow progress back to shore were the gnats, silently landing on us in small but appreciable quantities. Every few oar strokes I would break my rhythm to inform the gnats of how I truly feel about them. But all of this happened 4 hours later.... here is how it began: The day was beautiful, about 82 degrees and mostly sunny - with fairly steady winds from the West. We got in the water by 2:30 from downtown Red Bank and headed almost steadily downwind, towards the ocean. The sailing was quick and easy and we occasionally hit 3mph in the 6-8mph winds. The only thing that was less than ideal were the passing boats and jet skis - some so loud even from a quarter mile away that we couldn't hold a conversation. Their wake shook us a bit but it was nothing the boat couldn't handle.
We managed to get out of the guide channel and closer to the north bank, all while being passed by a tiny sailboat powered by a surfing sail. He quickly disappeared downwind, demonstrating the difference between a small fiberglass hull and an inflatable raft. Still, our experience was mostly relaxing. We were almost 2 miles downriver when the wind suddenly stopped and then reversed direction. I decided not to argue with nature and headed back. The wind laughed at us for a bit and then quit - occasionally teasing us with gusts from either side, but nothing sufficient to make much progress. After about 2 hours, we made it less than half way back under sail, at the average speed of 0.4 mph. The wind stopped entirely, and this was the signal the gnat armies were waiting for, to indicate that its time to reveal their ambush. I counted perhaps 50 casualties and then decided that rowing was beginning to sound more and more attractive. Since the boat has two sets of oarlocks (one for steering oars), I tried rowing with the rears. This worked well enough and we managed to row at 2.5mph with 4 oars up until the rear oarlock crossbar bent in half under the force I was applying to it. Rear rowing was no longer an option. The passing motorboats now found us even more amusing (an odd craft rowing under sail?) yet nobody thought of offering to tow us (I'm not sure if I would have accepted, but I was thinking about it). It was around this time that I started to notice that the port side of the boat was deflating. I was willing to believe that this was a pre-existing condition, right up until the tube-mounted oarlocks started moving up and down under my force. Upon closer observation, the sail was also leaning as the mast mount was sagging into the tube. The situation did not demand a call for rescue simply because river banks were quite near, but it was nonetheless not ideal. By the time we returned to shore, we had been out for 4 hours. The boat did not continue to deflate indefinitely, and the puncture turned out to be a tiny pinhole leak in the bottom of a tube just rear of the transom - I'm not sure how that happened, but it was small enough that it only leaked at high pressure. Having considered ourselves survivors of a small but lengthy adventure we had excellent Mexican at Senor Peppers in Red Bank, which actually does serve home cooked food because the whole family is cooking. Here is what the patched boat looks like - I probably used an unnecessarily large patch but I wanted to increase the thickness in what might be a puncture-prone region. Three coats of MEK sealant later, it looks to be ready to be used again  Repaired hole Trackbacks
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