[andrewas]

Once. Sailing club. Heading out to the race start in my topper (13ft single sailed boat) and capsized. Normaly no problem, being dunked into the north sea in march is an excellent way of waking up, but this time I fell to the back. If I'd been more awake I'd have been over the top and onto the daggerboard, right the boat inside of 3 seconds and never get wet. I wasnt, and fell to the back, which is highly unusual. Worse, the rudder came off at that moment (and I did check the damn clips regularly, so I dont know why) and the transom cleat failed. I ended up getting caught up in the lines, and was tied to the boat pretty securely. Luckily my head was above the waterline, or nearly so anyway. I could breathe most of the time.

Of course, with the race about to start all the officials were busy elsewhere, and the other competitors figured I could get the boat up myself. Took me twenty minutes to get untangled and a further 15 to get onshore without a rudder. Single-sailed boats really suck rudderless, at least with a two-sailed you can steer. Bloody cold as well, water at 3 degrees is fine for a dip with a good wetsuit, but 20 minutes is a bit much.

Incidently, the trick to survivng undertows is to swim parrallel to the shore - no one on earth can swim against an undertow for long, so your only chance besides rescue is to get out of it.