I seem to be able to find trouble at the moment. I attended part 1 (3 of 5-days) of a competent crew training course designed to get me on the ladder to bigger and better sailing experience and finally teach me what the wind has to do with sailing.
Over the three days we started with the basics, like how to make a distress call, only ever abandon a boat when you will be stepping up into a life raft, clothing, life jackets and how to use a toilet on a boat.
We then progressed to the basics of sailing, so the naming of the various parts of the boat (I have real trouble remembering the shrouds). Finally we got on with the sailing and had some awesome days learning to sail in all weathers.
As should be the way with sailing, each night was spent with much merriment and drinking, but as many of you know, I don't drink, smoke or swear ever, so I was always 1st up :-). We also arranged it so that the 3 men on the boat all had cabins and the 2 ladies shared the communal area - this might sound mean, but the men managed a snoring symphony, so being behind doors was good for everyone.
On the second night we stopped at a lovely location - The Folly Inn in East Cowes and even managed to berth alongside the Inn, something most of the skippers and experienced sailors had never done before. The time here was spent having great food, some nice drink and watching the wedding party and two stag groups having fun besides the 6 sailing boats that we had brought. Bindi found an amazing dog that she brought out to show us, so we decided to set her a challenge of bringing us one of the stag boys and in less than 10 seconds, she bounded back with one as shown on the picture on the left.
On the final day we had started late and had been sailing for about 2 hours when we decided to anchor up for a warm lunch before sailing back to Port Solent. We had already experienced a very rude Wight ferry that tried to run us down as we dared to sail the solent, even though they have the maneuverability and are supposed to avoid sail boats, meaning that we were playing it nice and safe before going home. We were told how to do the anchor chain and even had a chat about "old" vs "new" ways of doing anchoring. I then went to the bow with another crew member and loaded the anchor onto the rollers. All was well.
I then started lowering the anchor slowly over the side and this is when things went wrong. The boat was moved by a gust, wave or something that pulled the anchor, taking me and the chain further forward. The end result was my hands being on the rollers and the anchor chain traveling over one of my fingers. The other crew members managed to secure the anchor, but my finger was very hurt.
I was taken back to the cockpit where a large bandage was applied and then the decision was made to call the coast guard and tell them what had happened. I went into shock on seeing a mangled finger, so I am not sure of exactly everything that happened, but the final decision resulted in a police launch picking me up from the boat, then powering at high speed to a waiting ambulance and coast guard group at shore before being taken to hospital.
In hospital I met some very happy and humorous people (I had taken to apologising to everyone for being sooooo very silly and taking up their time) who examined my finger, determined that a little bit was missing, but with some really careful work it might be possible to save the top of it. The bone was broken and a little of it was missing, but then tendon was still in some way intact and I had some sensation in the tip. They then spent the next 2 hours joking with me, giving me pain killers and working on my badly hurt hand (I hope it was jokes anyway when the doctor stitching my finger back together said it was the 1st time he had ever done anything like this, but wanted a go). The end result is a splinted well wrapped hand, some anti-biotic's, some knock-out pain killers and the ability to type with only 3 fingers across both hands as the rest are bruised and swollen. This does mean that I will be publishing stuff I have already written rather than new material on the blog for a while.
One thing I did discover was that while finger and hand injuries are common at the IoW hospital, mine was somehow more interesting, so they wanted to take a bunch of photos of my finger before and after, however the batteries on the hospital digital camera had run out, so I offered them mine which means that I do have some not so nice piccies of my finger, If you want to see what all the fuss in about without the gore, try this gallery for x-rays, finished bandaged hand and medical card showing the depth of the laceration, have a look at this. If you want to see the hospital photos of my finger before and after, then you need to click on these, however please note, they are not nice photos. (before top and side, after top and side)
At the end of the day, is it a bit of my finger that is hurting, nothing more and it should all be fine. I still want to go sailing again, so it has not dampened my enthusiasm. While the pain killers make me sleepy and I find it hard to concentrate (it has taken 3 hours to type this), I should be off them soonish. So, back on the horse as soon as possible as they say.
with all of that, I want to say thanks to my skipper and crew mates and see you all soon.
ttfn
David
Posted
Mon, Aug 21 2006 3:53 PM
by
David Overton