Aground!

[rollo_cd26]

Cruising L. Ouachita (Washita) yesterday I ran aground on a pile of rocks and gravel about 300 yards north of Crawdad Island. The lake is low (569.5 ft above sea level) and there are several new islands. The depth finder is set to alarm at 8 feet, but all I got was a few beeps (going fom 25 ft to 3 feet quickly) before impact - kinda ground to a halt going about 2-3 Kts. I must have easily cleared this hump of rocks two weeks ago. A brisk swim to inspect the hull showed that about 1-2 feet of bottom paint is gone from the lowest bottom front part of the keel. No impact to the rudder or prop. My CD26D draws 4 feet and the water depth in this area was about 3 ft 8 inches. I had to call the mariina for help and they sent a pontoon boat to drag me off. My pride is hurt and I am embarassed, but here was no way to see this beforehand. We resumed sailing for another 5 hours.

Question: how bad is this? The collision took the paint off (Trinidad red) down to the white stuff underneath. How deep is the fiberglass here? Should I haul it out and repaint? My bottom paint has had only 7 had months in he wet.

Thanks,

Rollo

[Ed Haley]

Take another swim under your boat and determine if the bottom or sides of the keel have been gouged or scraped deeply. Most of the groundings as you described take the paint off and some deeper scrape damage. The fiberglass on the bottom is at least an inch thick. Any major gouging can be filled with thickened epoxy once the boat is out of the water. Then coat with InterProtect 2000E or similar fiberglass protection followed by 2 or 3 coats of antifouling paint.

These CD keels are very forgiving in minor grounding incidents (rocky gravel) if the boat isn't left grounded for longer time periods.

[CruiseAlong]

Sorry to hear about the grounding...however....I once took my CD26 over a rock ledge...no one knew it was there...and I was doing 3 knots under power...lifted the boat up a couple of inches...damage, yes...but not so bad...can be repaired easily when pulled...until then, no problem...they are so thick down there......
Dana

[rollo_cd26]

My survey indicates that the scraped are is fairly smooth and I only took off the anti-fouling paint and some of the barrier coat from the very bottom. No deep gouges. We were not grounded for long, maybe an hour, but we rocked the boat back and forth to try easing it off. Perhaps the water was a little deeper than I thought. At any rate the pontoon boat was necessary to pull us off. I did figure out that with a simple grounding that pulling the boat over with a halyard and any crew to the lee side may ease it off the rocks. Getting her hauled out on the trailer is a real chore and with the hardiness of construction it can possibly wait.

Thanx

Rollo

[Bill Goldsmith]

My pride is hurt and I am embarassed

Don't be too hurt or embarrassed. Ya know, captains fall into two categories: 1) Those who have run aground, and 2) Those who lie and said they haven't.

[drysuit2]

My pride is hurt and I am embarassed

Don't be too hurt or embarrassed. Ya know, captains fall into two categories: 1) Those who have run aground, and 2) Those who lie and said they haven't.

good point.