How to avoid Getting aground

“I’ve run aground” are words that justifiably send a shiver down every sailor’s spine. However, the damage you may do to your boat when running aground is all relative—the most important risk factors are the type of the bottom you’ve hit, your speed when running aground and the sea conditions.

Avoiding the Bottom

When you’re running in thin water, there are few things that can be done to avoid running aground the traditional ways I recommend to avoid running aground—using your depthsounder and alarm to keep an eye on how shallow the water is, and plotting your course on paper charts. I am constantly stressing the need to check the depth every 10 seconds or so in shallow water, but the alarm is a great backup.

The nontraditional way installing a forward looking sonar with a repeater at the helm (expensive but very effective) the cheap way sending someone to the pulpit area with a plumb-bob or a plummet or a long boathook at a very low speed to shout you the depth.

When it comes to paper charts, I recommend them because you can quickly scan a wide area for hazards and adjust your course accordingly. It’s just not as easy to do on a chartplotter. Plotters work well for telling you where you are and what’s immediately around you, but they’re not as good as a big paper chart when you want to study a large area. When sailing we often don’t run direct courses, but tack or gybe our way to our destination. To me, 90 percent of the reason to plot a course—or at least survey the area you will be sailing in—is to figure out the minimum depths you will encounter and identify hazards. I find it much faster and more accurate to do so on paper charts.

First Steps to Freedom

First we need to understand what is the shoal bed can be done by looking at the chart (paper or electric) and determine where is the wind coming from and what does the tide doing.

Id the shoal is soft(send or mud) try to use your engine to bail out this will work sometimes if the wind is calm and working against you pushing you away from the reef in other time when the wind is a following wind (and according to Murphy's law this is going to be the usual situation)

The natural reaction when you run aground is to freeze—turning is not necessarily instinctive, but it can make a huge difference. Once you’re sure you have stopped moving, note if the tide is ebbing or flooding. If it’s going out—work fast, for you’ll soon be going nowhere. Get out the boathook or plumb-bob and figure out where the deeper water is. You will also quickly get a sense for what the bottom composition is. If the tide is coming in, sit tight; with any luck you’ll be free soon.

As soon as you feel your boat running aground, having successfully ignored or turned off that annoying depth alarm, you should immediately turn to deeper water if you are still moving .

Once you’re aground and can’t free your boat by turning, the next thing to do is try to increase your heeling angle. Move everyone onboard to the leeward side and adjust or raise the sails. The sails should be sheeted 90 degrees to the wind to maximize heeling, but eased out no more than 45 degrees. Then use the motor and/or sails to turn the boat. Normally, the motor will allow you to get the boat free, as long as you were not heeled over too far when you ran aground. Sometimes it helps to backwind the jib. Turning the rudder back and forth is often a big help, as you can often “wiggle” the keel out of hard sand or soft muck. You’ll have no such luck, however, with clay bottoms of medium density.

Proven Practice

If you ran aground when sailing upwind or on a beam reach in at least a few knots of breeze (Fig. 1), or if you were motoring and the motor alone is not enough to get you free, a technique that I’ve found works wonders is to turn the boat downwind. (If I could patent it, I would.) We practice running-aground drills in our class, and this works about 95 percent of the time, though obviously it will not work if the wind and/or the current are pushing you onto the shoal.

First, if you have a traveller, bring the car all way up to windward (Fig. 2). (This is helpful, but not essential.) Next, sheet the main in as hard as you can and backwind the jib. Get everyone’s weight on the leeward side—hang off the shrouds if needed. The boat will slowly, almost magically, turn downwind, typically at about 160 degrees to the wind (Fig. 3). Bring everyone back to the cockpit and gybe the boom over. You will need one person to ease the mainsheet while someone else pushes the boom to windward (Fig 4). In a blow, this will be difficult—be careful and do not attempt if you can’t easily push the boom out. If muscle power alone doesn’t do it, you can try running a preventer from the end of the boom forward to an amidships cleat or outboard block and pull the boom around with a winch. (Again, be careful!) Once the boom is all the way out on the other side, it should gybe over. Now get some weight out on the boom, heeling the boat over as far as possible the other way. The boat should sail free with a little windspeed.

If you ran aground when heading downwind, you usually can sheet in a little, ease the jib, get some weight on the boom and turn upwind. Of course, depending on where the deep water is, it may make sense to gybe the boom over.

Lessons Learned

Prepare your trip know what you are doing while enjoying it at crowded areas or areas with hazards slow down and keep an extra proper watch out avoiding being aground as much as possible but if aground you can tray to use the methods suggested keep in mind that there are many more techniques and procedures out there that will be happy to discuss in the future tips and tricks