Quick question from my other half: After a great day of sailing and flying hulls, my dear Nancy asked me how many other wives/partners have had to come out and rescue their soul mates from impending disaster out on the water? I've had a couple of "tows of shame," one of which saw Nancy bobbing through 6 foot swells in our 14 ft starcraft with the family dog navigating from the bow. She wants to know if there are any similar stories?

I've had to deal with the tow of shame twice, but my wife wasn't around at the time. I've also had to be "helped" twice, but ONE of those times my wife was also on the boat and the other she was with the wife of the guy on whose boat I was at the time.

Why does your wife want to know this information?

Is she hinting that clueless husbands always need to be rescued by their wives? ...that without their "help" we'd be starving and homeless?

OK guys, don't admit nothin' here! Them wimmen is lookin' for ammunition.

This was many years ago... my wife (actually my girlfriend at that point) and I traveled the west coast of Ireland and found a sailing school that was willing to rent us a Hobie 16 for a few hours. At that point we had owned a small dinghy for years and rented Hobies on a few occasions. It was blowing strong - too strong for us. We had trouble tacking and instead had to jibe sometimes. On a broad reach leading to one of those jibes we dipped the leeward hull in good and pitch poled. The hobie was new and the righting line oddly short (it was not one of the Hawaiian or bungee style righting lines). We were not able to get the boat back up without the assistance of a motor boater who lifted the mast tip out of the water. We continued to sail back to the beach but the event scared the crap out of the both of us. But the learning curve went up in the past years. Today a windy day as in that situation would be highly appreciated. In the same circumstances I would now be able to righten the cat by myself. It is about the learning curve...

Patrick