Bigprairie1
Commander
- Joined
- Jun 13, 2007
- Messages
- 2,568
Now this is in keeping with some of the crazy boating stories that seem to occur to all of us at one time or another. Ok, what happens when you mix a 400hp West Coast welded aluminum Jet boat with a beach and a distracted driver? You get a re-launch problem.
It is funny in retrospect only but it could have gone very wrong. It is an amusing story that we had on Pitt Lake.
We (3 families) headed up the lake and we found a great semi-remote beach picnic area and set up the families. The three of us guys (generally responsible boaters) went out and took my buddies Dad's jet boat out to check out what it can do..albeit somewhat responsibly.
Now...here is the hitch. My buddy has a hard time focusing on anything but one thing at a time. I should have know this. He can do differential Calculus in his head...so long as he doesn't have to chew gum at the same time.
Anyhow, we are heading back to the beach at about 40 knots...straight in, about 150ft down from the family set-up...and I notice he is glazing over. Hmmm. Now, we are getting close and heading straight in to the beach..ok a few yellow lights off. A few seconds more and red lights and buzzer go off in my head...so I yell at him and he snaps out of it. Oh Shxxt!!! he says.
Too late....we're out of water and heading up the sandy beach at 40+knots in this Jet boat...over a few logs and into the woods. Well when the boat finally stopped there we were unbelievably unscathed. I quietly reached over and turned the motor off.....ahhh, a moment of silence while we thought about where we were now at. Luckily a passing boat with about 10 people pulls up on shore and ask us if our boat is supposed to be 'in the woods'. We respond "no" and they help us haul it back down to the water.
Our saving grace was a lack of obstacles on our high speed trip up the beach and of course doing it in a welded aluminum boat. Any Fibreglas boat made....would still be there.
Surprisingly the wives didn't get too worked up about it for some reason.
I don't they realized the mistake as much as we did...and of course we didn't let on. Glad I wasn't driving.
It is funny in retrospect only but it could have gone very wrong. It is an amusing story that we had on Pitt Lake.
We (3 families) headed up the lake and we found a great semi-remote beach picnic area and set up the families. The three of us guys (generally responsible boaters) went out and took my buddies Dad's jet boat out to check out what it can do..albeit somewhat responsibly.
Now...here is the hitch. My buddy has a hard time focusing on anything but one thing at a time. I should have know this. He can do differential Calculus in his head...so long as he doesn't have to chew gum at the same time.
Anyhow, we are heading back to the beach at about 40 knots...straight in, about 150ft down from the family set-up...and I notice he is glazing over. Hmmm. Now, we are getting close and heading straight in to the beach..ok a few yellow lights off. A few seconds more and red lights and buzzer go off in my head...so I yell at him and he snaps out of it. Oh Shxxt!!! he says.
Too late....we're out of water and heading up the sandy beach at 40+knots in this Jet boat...over a few logs and into the woods. Well when the boat finally stopped there we were unbelievably unscathed. I quietly reached over and turned the motor off.....ahhh, a moment of silence while we thought about where we were now at. Luckily a passing boat with about 10 people pulls up on shore and ask us if our boat is supposed to be 'in the woods'. We respond "no" and they help us haul it back down to the water.
Our saving grace was a lack of obstacles on our high speed trip up the beach and of course doing it in a welded aluminum boat. Any Fibreglas boat made....would still be there.
Surprisingly the wives didn't get too worked up about it for some reason.
I don't they realized the mistake as much as we did...and of course we didn't let on. Glad I wasn't driving.
