Myself and a couple on a trimaran I got to know were anchored off a beach between two uninhabited islands in the Bahamas chain south of Nassau. Later in the afternoon the wind started to come up quite quickly and I moved my boat further off from the beach as the wind put us on a lee shore.

My friends in the trimaran, who were anchored very close to the beach, and seemed to be dragging into the shore. They then had trouble starting the engine and it looked like it would be only minutes before they would be on the beach. I figured I would not have time to get my own anchor up in time to rescue them with my boat, so I jumped in my dinghy and raced over to them. They threw me a rope and I started to tow them off with the 2HP outboard on my dinghy.

Needless to say, with my little outboard it was very slow going but I was managing to move them out inch by inch. The waves were getting quite large and one wave bounced the front of my dinghy up at about 45 degrees. I thought for sure the wind would catch underneath and push the dinghy over backwards which would have been a disaster, more for them than me. I leapt forward and just managed to stop it. I stayed in the middle of the dinghy (luckily I had an extension on the outboard tiller) and got them eventually off far enough they could set their anchor again with a decent scope.

They did get their engine going and all ended well.