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A fun day of sailing turns into a series of unexpected events when the weather changes for John Churchill (Sail Magazine):

When several members of our Florida sailing club, the West Coast Trailer Sailors Squadron, met up one September morning for a day sail, I knew I wanted to be part of it. I had never sailed the Dunedin Causeway before and am always up for a fun sailing trip with Transmogrifier, my repurposed Thistle.

Although a weather radar indicated thunderstorms, they had already passed by the time we met. After the storms, there were blue skies, a few fluffy clouds in the sky, a light breeze and pleasant temperatures.

In a light breeze I left the beach with a full mainsail and jib. I had acquired Transmogrifier as an abandoned hull, but now with a covered cockpit and a full-width cabin roof she is a great beach cruiser that I have named ThistleCruiser. Originally intended for a crew of three she is oversailed for a solo sailor, allowing for fast and exciting sailing in light winds.

But her modified self-bailing cockpit makes her self-rescuing, and with her heavily weighted centerboard she almost rightes herself. I modified her rigging a little with a masthead float, a free-standing furling jib and three reefs in the mainsail. I knew from our club’s recent capsize course that she would be hard to capsize and easy to right.

But today I was to learn something, and it began shortly after I left the beach. Unfamiliar with the shallows, I played with the centerboard pennant as much as the sheets. The pennant had accumulated a few half-hitches, so I turned it into the wind to release them. I thought it would only take a moment… then it tacked, and with the sheets still tied and my weight to leeward, it capsized. While some other club members were a little concerned, I was mostly embarrassed by my foolish carelessness. I was able to right it quickly and sail on.

The wind started to pick up a bit and Transmogrifier was becoming overwhelmed. I tried to furl the jib but the tack attachment to the luff wire failed and prevented it from furling so I just dropped it and stuffed it into the forward anchor locker. A little later I caught the first reef and she became much gentler but remained fast.

The group’s destination was a nearby waste island. As I approached the island, I saw dark clouds approaching from the north and west. A thunderstorm was likely. After watching the sky and weighing up the possibilities for a few minutes, I decided to return to the launch site. On the way back, I called Tom in his Sea Pearl and he said the group’s plan was to seek shelter behind the island in case the weather turned. This seemed an attractive option that would allow me to continue sailing and stay with the others, so I turned around and resumed my original course.

It only took a minute or two to realize that I was once again making the familiar mistake of trusting the judgment of others more than my own. I changed course again, had a nice long stretch back to the beach, and made it safely before the storm arrived. As the dark clouds approached, I quickly got the wet sails off the boat and stowed them in my truck, leaving the boat on the beach.

Before I could get Transmogrifier back, I had to help another club member who was having trouble with his equipment. By the time that was sorted out, the wind had shifted, becoming gusty, and the first heavy drops of rain were falling. I backed my trailer into the water and got out to get the boat. And that’s where things got interesting, because it wasn’t where I had just left it.

The gusts had pushed her away from the beach and she was being driven with the wind along the beach but slightly deflected. I chased after her and initially caught up but as I got into waist deep water my progress slowed. I turned and fought my way back to shore, sprinted along the beach to get ahead of her and splashed towards her, swimming the last bit. At the last moment I was able to grab the mainsheet which was trailing aft.

I mistakenly thought I had everything under control. When I stood up, I realized I was up to my neck in water. Because of the wind on the boat and the soft ground beneath it, I couldn’t pull the boat to shore on foot. I tried swimming to pull it, but that was just as ineffective. After splashing, paddling, sprinting, pulling and swimming, I was exhausted. – Full Story