mike64
Lieutenant Junior Grade
- Joined
- Apr 10, 2008
- Messages
- 1,042
As I'm coming back to the dock after spending the day on the water with the family last Friday, a woman and a younger guy late teens- early 20s were launching a 16' trihull at the next dock over. As I'm tying up to the dock she's debating with him about whether he's launching too close to the dock (turns out to be a mom and her son). She asks me what I think and I say he's fine as long as he straightens out.
Then she's having trouble getting the boat off the ramp and asks me for help again. I check to make sure the tie lines in back were off, they were. Just then she finally gets the boat to slide off the trailer. Now she's struggling to hang on to the boat, and I ask her if she needs to borrow a tie line. She says, we have one, it's just tied on the other side-- and I see sure enough there's a line on the far side bow cleat. Jeez, ya figure 50% are pretty good odds, but sometimes you just don't get lucky.
I ask her if she wants me to stick around and help because by then I have my boat trailered. She says no, they're ok now. She seems to have a good grip on the boat now and I figure her son will be there to help her in a couple seconds so I drive off away from the dock to tie down. A couple minutes later I glance over, and the boat has started to drift away from the dock and she's literally hanging onto the dock for dear life, with a foot hooked on the bow rail, as stretched out as she can get, like a cartoon character. Her son was still sitting in the tow vehicle, oblivious. So I grab a tie line and run over there. By the time I got there she had managed to pull the boat up to the dock again, but that was a scary sight.
Next time if I see someone is clearly inexperienced I won't take no for an answer right away, I'll say, "no problem at all" and try to politely insist.
Then she's having trouble getting the boat off the ramp and asks me for help again. I check to make sure the tie lines in back were off, they were. Just then she finally gets the boat to slide off the trailer. Now she's struggling to hang on to the boat, and I ask her if she needs to borrow a tie line. She says, we have one, it's just tied on the other side-- and I see sure enough there's a line on the far side bow cleat. Jeez, ya figure 50% are pretty good odds, but sometimes you just don't get lucky.
I ask her if she wants me to stick around and help because by then I have my boat trailered. She says no, they're ok now. She seems to have a good grip on the boat now and I figure her son will be there to help her in a couple seconds so I drive off away from the dock to tie down. A couple minutes later I glance over, and the boat has started to drift away from the dock and she's literally hanging onto the dock for dear life, with a foot hooked on the bow rail, as stretched out as she can get, like a cartoon character. Her son was still sitting in the tow vehicle, oblivious. So I grab a tie line and run over there. By the time I got there she had managed to pull the boat up to the dock again, but that was a scary sight.
Next time if I see someone is clearly inexperienced I won't take no for an answer right away, I'll say, "no problem at all" and try to politely insist.