Mile-High Turtle Story

Potter 15 - Aurora, Colorado

My turtling occurred aboard my Potter 15 Tetra #2153 at Aurora Reservoir in suburban Denver, Colorado on Thursday, April 23, 1998. Spring had been long in the making, in fact we would still be experiencing snow in May. Aurora reservoir (820 acres) is a great place for the Potter sailor because they ban all gasoline powered engines. This allows one to sail in peace with no personal watercraft or water skiers. There are none of the annoying motorboat wakes commonly found on other bodies of water. The only competition for the sailor is the electric motor powered fishing craft. I got off of work early this day and headed out to the reservoir. I took my fifteen year old daughter with me.

Denver is known for its extremely violent weather phenomenon which include dangerous micro bursts (which recently closed the Denver International Airport for several hours), thunderstorms, hail, tornadoes, and strong winds coming off the front ranges of the Rocky Mountains.

The weather at the start of our sail was mostly sunny and in the seventies. We put in about 4 p.m. The wind was light and from the west. My daughter took the helm while I admired the scenery. As we sailed from the marina to the east part of the reservoir clouds began to come off the mountains to the west. These rapidly developed into two dark bands of ominous looking clouds, one to the north and one to the south. Almost immediately the wind shifted drastically to the east and commenced to blow quite strongly*. Six inch waves formed on the surface and the wind continued to build. I took over the helm and headed back to the marina. The wind continued to build* and shifted to the south. The waves rose to a foot. The air temperature plummeted (one has to experience this at altitude to truly appreciate it) and it began to rain (really cold rain) heavily. I had my hands so full steering the boat that I could not let go of the tiller to shorten sail. I tried to get my daughter to loosen the main halyard from its cleat on the mast, but she was unable to do so. As I approached the marina (heading north) I decided to come up into the wind and drop sail. I let out the jib sheets and the main sheet as far as possible and put the tiller over to bring the boat into the wind. As I did so she came around about forty-five degrees and broached. The water was very chilly and I proceeded to swim my daughter to the beach which was a distance of about one hundred feet. The boat meanwhile had turned over (the main hatch was wide open) and presented its hull to the sky. The centerboard fell into the hull.

I would have like to have returned to the boat and tried to recover it myself, but weather conditions made this impossible. The mast evidently stuck in the bottom as the boat stayed in one place rather than drifting into the mooring area. About an hour later the weather had subsided somewhat and the park rangers succeeded in pulling the boat back to the beach (after putting a hole through Tetra's hull by striking her with the hull of their motorboat) where I bailed her and finally got it back on the trailer for the final draining. I had trouble getting the centerboard to fully retract at this time. I wound up putting the boat back in the water until I was able to properly retract the centerboard. Damage consisted of losing the big batten from the main, the damage done by the rescue boat, and having the aft portion of the centerboard housing lose a lot of its gelcoat, evidently from the time the centerboard was out of synch and striking that surface.

Lessons learned: unending adages about reefing early and often come to mind. I actually have a great set of reef points on the main. In this case the weather declined so rapidly I did not have time to shorten. What I should have done in retrospect is sail right up on the sand beach (letting the centerboard retract itself) instead of attempting to come about. I have tried this several times since in practice and it works like a charm. I also should have released the main from my steering station by letting go of the clew from its cleat on the back of the boom. This would have released a lot of sail force. Hope this helps someone!

Chris Heidrich, P15 Tetra #2153, Aurora, CO

*Wanted to quantify actual wind speed, was unable to do so. Totally wild guess would be in excess of 40 MPH at peak.