The day was too windy to fly, so some of us went out to Lake Helen to sail in the afternoon. Ron, Paul, Clem, Don, and Larry got there at various times, but by 2 pm we were all there comfy in our chairs. Wind was nice about 8-10 mph. The sun was shining and it wasn’t even chilly. We noted that it might be really hot in summer out there, so we will enjoy the covered pier at the VA Center.

We sailed up and down, round and round, and into each other a few times, mostly when we got distracted which is easy to do with sailboats. We tweaked our boat tuning, explored more areas of sail aerodynamics, and pondered hull hydrodynamics. We spoke in tongues with words like weather helm, jib boom, backstay, shroud tension, boom vang, sheet routing, sail twist, and other stuff that seemed to obscure that we know some stuff about airplanes, too.

The big excitement of the day was when Don Haines’ receiver batteries went dead while his boat was in the middle of the lake. Dead in the water, his boat drifted backwards toward the far shore. It was apparent that Don’s only option was a long hike to the other side of the lake where his boat was just about run aground. So off he went slowly trudging, despite his aching hip. Of course, as soon as he got to the other side, the wind shifted and his boat began sailing forward out into the lake again. It stopped in the middle, much too far away to be reached with his long pole or even a fishing pole and string. With quick thinking, Ron sailed out to Don’s boat hoping to bump it and turn the bow back to shore so it might sail towards Don. But that didn’t happen. Instead, Ron was able to sort of push Don’s boat along towards the near side of the lake where the dock is located. But since Ron’s boat was not attached to Don’s boat it kept moving away. By this time, Clem was heading out to the scene with all the speed his sails could muster. Coming in from behind the two boats, Clem swung around to the side opposite from Ron and pinned Don’s boat in the middle. This made kind of a “sailboat sandwich” and together all 3 boats headed back to the dock. (See photo) Clem and Ron kept rudder pressure to stay pressed against Don’s boat and carried it along back to the dock. This worked great and soon Don’s boat was safely back to shore.

Of course, Don now had to make another long walk back around the Lake. Now, we could claim we had done this unprecedented rescue with superior seamanship and skill, but in reality we were probably just lucky. But, we’ll keep the “Sandwich Rescue Technique (SRT)” in mind in case we are called upon again for our services. All this amazing feat was captured on video by a camera mounted on Clem’s boat, see the action by clicking on the YouTube video below.

We considered that adventure our grand finale, and a point that we should quit on kinda like a nice landing. We packed up and went home about 3:45.

— Clem