Ok, so one more... you can file this one under the heading "we can laugh about this now since nobody died and it happened 30 years ago"... almost to this day.

Barb and I were still just dating, and I was introducing her to sailing. We'd sailed my fathers Watkins 23 sloop many times on the Potomac River near Washington DC. So she'd started to develop a comfort level with it.

I was doing a job in Little Creek VA, and convinced her to come down for the weekend since I was in a hotel there.

So they had Hobie 16's on the beach to rent near Lynhaven Inlet, and I hadn't killed her yet, so she foolishly agreed to go sailing with me. The wind was up that day.

I can't remember if I actually told her that this was my first experience at the helm of a Hobie 16. I'd sailed everything from a 14 foot sunfish to a 300 ton schooner, so how hard could this be? <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Blush.gif" alt="" />


We sailed waaaaaay out to the bridge-tunnel opening, managed to tack her around and went screaming back to the beach sometimes flying one hull. We were honkin!

Eventually we had to tack again, but we just couldn't get the boat around, so we decided to jibe. Bad idea.

When we tried to jibe the port hull dug in and the Hobie 16 went over in slow motion. Barb sailed past the boom and landed straddled on the opposite pontoon. Serious pain, grapefruit sized bruise. I went past the boom and leeward pontoon and face-first into the water.

The hobie turned turtle.
We tried mightily but could not right her.
(I was not smart enough to blow the sheets back then.)

Fortunately the wind was blowing on-shore and we got blown into a swim area.

A swimmer grabbed the top of the mast and held it up while we assumed the position. (well, I did).

The Hobie righted and in the blink of an eye off we went at about 15 knots, and almost flying one hull. I say we... except when I looked around Barb was not in view!

Then I heard her yelling! I looked back and she was holding on for dear life to the aft pipe between the hulls and yelling at me at the top of her lungs to "stop this effing thing!!!" This vision of her body-surfing back there was awe-inspiring. Oh to have had a video camera at that moment! <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Laugh.gif" alt="" /> We can laugh about this now.

Sadly, the sheets were on the leeward side and every time I tried to inch down there to grab the main-sheet the boat would fly up on one hull and threatened to capsize. I could not hold the tiller AND reach the main sheet.

After several seconds of this I looked back at Barb body surfing along and she gave me me a look that said "If I live through this I'm gonna kill you!" <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Hairy.gif" alt="" />

Finally it occurred to me that if I headed up I might just have a couple of seconds to dive for the main sheet and pop it out of the cleat before we bore off and capsized. This plan worked and so we came to rest.

We managed to get the boat back to shore after a few more tense minutes.

You can well imagine how the rest of the day went.

However, she still married me... 25 years ago come October!