Years ago at the annual holiday lake campsite, I was coerced into taking a young lady for a sail on my 'B' Class Quest. I had just dropped the main after a day sailing when she arrived, having driven an hour and a half to visit us. There were some menacing black clouds in the South heralding a storm but I reasoned I had enough time to get a short squirt up the lake and back before it arrived.
I was wrong.
We had only been out for 15 odd minutes from memory when the Southerly hit.

The young lady (18yo) had never been on a sailboat and my wife, who was also along for the ride was only slightly familiar with crewing. The lake was quite shallow in places and not all that wide at the camp end.

The wind built rapidly. The boat responded and in no time we were Port reaching across the lake at good speed. I needed to jibe away from the shallows and had just put the tiller down when the Starboard dagger board caught the sand bottom. This caused the boat to bear away to a full run with the now severe wind right up our tail. Soon both boards were dragging and the transoms started to lift. I tried to raise the boards but predictably they were jammed solid in the boxes and we all needed to be as far aft as possible anyway to prevent the boat from pitch poling. I had no idea what to do at this stage.
I thought of abandoning the boat and letting it destroy itself on the lee shore but before I could organise an orderly retreat she started to skew on the starboard board and eventually she jibed and virtually sailed herself off the bar.
A quick tight work back to the beach had us all sighing with relief as we dropped the sails post haste and secured the boat.

Although we had come close to loosing the boat and possibly sustaining some serious injuries, I believe neither of the women fully understood just how critical the situation had become, and I didn't labor the point.

This was the precursor to my motto; WHEN IN DOUBT, DON’T GO OUT!