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On Sunday, my wife and I took Molly out on Pewaukee Lake, a large freshwater lake 5 minutes from our house.  The weather was great with easterly winds about 10-12 KT.  The Weekender sailed beautifully, including briskly to windward.  We were enjoying music in the cockpit while watching out for several Class A scows, sailing after a race held earlier.  The Class A's are 38 ft long and capable of speeds of 25 KT!  We were sailing close-hauled, about 30 degrees off the wind on a port tack, when a noticed a Class A with his spinnaker up and heeled over, running downwind on a collision course with us!. I turned the boat hard to starboard (down wind to try to avoid the scow, but she was moving way too fast.  We started yelling, but the scow plowed right into our bowsprint and nearly capsized our boat.  I heard the loud RRRIIIIIIIPPPPPP as our sprit tore the 1200 sq. ft spinnaker!  My sprit cracked and the jib halyard eyebolt straightened, but "Molly" still sailed!  Incredibly, the scow sailed away and never returned to see if we were OK or had any damage.  Shaken, we sailed to the launch, pulled "Molly from the water and went home.  Now a had to build a new bowsprit!
 We notified the police and lake patroll, but as of yesterday, no one admitted to a boat accident on the Lake.  Today I got a call at work from my wife.  She told me the police had identified the skipper of the scow, who had called himself to report the mishap.  He was very apologetic and offered to pay to have our boat repaired.  As we all know I can't just take it down to the local marine store for repairs!  I have to do the work myself.  Still I'm glad the skipper apologized and offered to pay for the repairs.  Oh, and the punchline?  The skipper of the Class A Scow "Stealth" is none other than Olaf Harken, co-owner of Harken corp., the maker of the blocks on my boat.  Small world!

Dave

  Glad you are both OK, Molly can soon be fixed maybe you can get us all a club discount on Harken hardware./  Keith W   

Confirms the old saying that a collision at sea can ruin your entire day! Good that nothing worse happened!

Now that you Olaf over a barrel, you can get that carbon fiber sprit you always wanted . . .

scary stuff...glad you are okay...was there no damage to his boat?

Matt: Cracked the bowsprit.  Just finishing up a new one.  Also the paint cracked along the joint  line at the top of the stem where laminate parts butt up agqainst each other.  Not structural.  We were lucky.

Dave

so glad you are okay...

Ummm.... you said you were on port tack, and Olaf had to be on starboard tack or you would not have been in a meeting situation.  Olaf had the right of way and was the stand on vessel and you were the give way vessel.

Starboard over port, leeward over windward.  Glad nobody was hurt.

Might be time for a thread on Rules of the Road :-\

Nice that he is not making you replace the spinnaker and is being the nice guy that is he known for being.  Glad no more damage was done to your boat and you are able to fix it easily.

Angie:  Your analysis is wrong (I didn't make both vessels' positions clear).  Both boats were on a port tack.  We were close-hauled and "Stealth" was running free.  The windward boat ("Stealth") is the stand down vessel.  We had the right of way.  I've included a diagram to show the situation.  You are right, a thread on "Rules of the Road" is a good idea!

Dave