In the "Sailors confess" series, we confess our stupidest sailing mistakes. But we are also keen to hear your confessions. Send us your text, if possible with pictures, to mail@yacht.dekeyword "sailor's confession".
It was the end of April, the beginning of the 2013 season, and the ship was back in the Hamburg marina in Wedel after winter storage and was due to be transferred through the Kiel Canal to its summer berth on the Baltic Sea. Early in the morning at 05.00 a.m. the water began to leave the Elbe - we wanted to go along. But it was thick fog.
After a good hour of waiting, when the fairway buoys were finally visible again from the jetty, we set off. From one navigation mark to the next, outside the fairway, with the fog lifting, that seemed reasonable.
We set off at 8.00 a.m., travelling slowly under engine power. But the fog continued to accompany us and slowly became thicker again.
A shadow in the fog
Soon after setting sail, a ghostly shadow suddenly emerged from the soup. The outline of a motorboat became recognisable, it came closer and turned out to be a water police vessel. After briefly asking where from and where to and being told that we had no radar, we agreed that it would be best for us to drop anchor in the Dwarsloch and wait until visibility improved again.
We soon reached this narrow entrance to the Haseldorfer Nebenelbe and dropped anchor. The situation eased immediately. Below deck, the stove warmed both the saloon and the water in the kettle on top, and the forced break was gratefully accepted. After all, tomorrow was another day, and there was time in reserve.
Here, at the safe anchor, the landscape now had something truly magical about it. The shore was densely overgrown with trees whose branches reached into the river at high tide, reeds on the other side and numerous feathered and scaled fellow inhabitants around us, the whole picture softly marked by the light grey haze of the billowing mist.
Is there enough water under the keel?
It was my co-sailor who, in this cosy silence, asked the uncomfortable question of whether there would still be any water here at the end of the tide for us to swim on. "Of course!" I replied, shaking my head with feigned indignation. What a question. I would never have thought that our boat, with its 1.40 metre draught, could even touch ground here at low tide.
The Dwarsloch is known among sailors on the Lower Elbe as the anchorage par excellence. I have sailed through here several times on my way to the small harbour of Haseldorf and had to keep clear of numerous anchormen who wanted to spend a night in the middle of nature.
They obviously knew their way around here better. Before I could even look at the map, because I wasn't quite as sure as I had been, we actually had a reason.
Hope dies last
There wasn't much more to do now. A glance at the clock told me that it wouldn't be long now. I still hoped to be able to save face with the crew. Perhaps we would lie a little on our side, the keel would already be digging its bed in the muddy bed of the Elbe riverbank. I thought to myself.
However, the water was constantly draining away and the keel did not dig in, but on the contrary, reached the loamier layers of the ground beneath the mud. And so the ship inevitably began to tilt slowly.
Soon the side of the boat snuggled up to the side of the small Pril, which was now clearly visible in the mud of the riverbed.
It was little consolation that we could now see exactly where the deeper spots would have been. Even the realisation that it was spring time - and therefore particularly low water - didn't make things any better. We were high and dry.
The boat becomes uninhabitable
Staying on board became problematic. The boat had never had this much space when sailing. Opening a locker or drawer on the port side, which had now almost become the ceiling, was out of the question. The cooker could not be used and the oven had long since been switched off.
That was a great start to the season.
But the water came back. And with force. After two hours in the bunk, a gurgling sound on the side of the boat told us that our coaster would soon be afloat again.
It came up with a vengeance, first filling the small Pril, then rising to its edge and washing around our involuntarily stranded ship until it - it felt - floated up with a leap and turned jerkily in the current until it was once again hanging on to its anchor and floating as if nothing had happened. Only a little silt on the outer skin was a reminder of the forced break.
At some point, the fog lifted and with it the image of the dried-up Dwarsloch.
Towards the end of the tide, we weighed anchor, ran back onto the Elbe and continued our journey. And in the increasingly clear spring air, it soon seemed as if this inglorious Elbe sailing episode of a Baltic sailor had just been a bad dream.
Until the call to make a sailor's confession brought this memory back to mind. And the realisation that the proverbial look at the nautical chart is essential before choosing a suitable anchorage. Especially in tidal waters.
More about fog:
And her confession?
Have you also made stupid or avoidable mistakes that resulted in funny, dangerous or expensive situations? Then please write to us at mail@yacht.dekeyword "sailor's confession".
