There was an interesting account in the latest issue of The Log about the grounding of Blue Law, a Hunter 54 that got stuck on a sandbar near the entrance to Newport Harbor on November 5: Sailboat runs aground in Newport Harbor entrance.

“I had his crewmembers go from the bow to the stern and back and forth to try to rock the boat to get it off the sand. I was pulling so hard I was afraid I would break the hawser,” Gardner said. “This is the most exciting tow I’ve had in a while. I felt that if I didn’t get the boat off the sand in about five minutes, it would be stuck there for quite a long time.”

Southern California tends not to have the extensive shoals that East Coast and Gulf sailors learn to deal with; groundings around here are relatively uncommon. But we do have little patches of sand here and there that claim the occasional victim, and acquire a bit of local notoriety. I’ve run aground in San Diego Bay off the southern tip of Shelter Island, in the Oceanside Harbor entrance, and in King Harbor in that little corner between the yacht club and the breakwater. I never ran aground (so far) in Newport Harbor, but I haven’t spent much time there, aside from coming in the night before the Ensenada Race a few times.

This entry was posted by John Callender on Monday, November 14th, 2005 at 9:28 am and is filed under Newport Bay, Safety. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.