Bump starting an outboard

The wife and I had noticed a young fellow about 100 yards from us in a 12' aluminum yanking away on the starter rope. While we were reminiscing about being in the same situation about 20 years ago, his rope broke, so we decided to go over and offer him a tow to the dock.

Instead of a tow to the dock, he just wanted us to just tow him fast enough that he could "bump start" his outboard. He went on to explain that if he was going fast enough, the prop spinning in the water would have enough momentum to start the engine once he slammed it into gear. My first thought was to ask him if he was stupid, instead, I politely explained that I had no intentions of towing him that fast because I didn't want that much stress on the ski hook.

After he grumbled a bit, I asked him to put his life jacket on and toss me a line, he confessed to not having either a life jacket or any kind of rope with him. Finally, we tied our anchor line to a life jacket and tossed it to him and he explained what an excellent swimmer he was and didn't need the life jacket.

This is where I kinda lost my temper and told him that the water temp was 49 degrees and that I wasn't about to get wet and cold saving his sorry *** if something went wrong so just keep the life jacket and give back the anchor line because he was now on his own. "Sorry Dude!" was about all he said while he tied off the line and put the jacket on.

When we got to the dock, I tied off and got out to pull him in by hand and a park ranger that was in the parking lot watching us walked down to help out. After he was docked and I had my line back, my wife says in a loud voice "Since you don't have your own life jacket, go ahead and keep our spare".

Did I mention that I really love my wife...

As we were pulling away from the dock, we could hear that ranger really giving him the what for

Re: Bump starting an outboard

I realy hope you are bored out of you mind and made this up. Not that I dont belive you just dont like to belive there a people that dumb in the world.

Not so much for wanting to pull start the boat(can be just lack of info)its the no life jacket that gets this guy the dumb ars of the day award.

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Alan, Good of you to help someone out. Hopefully your words (and the ranger's butt chewing) educated that guy a little bit. You probably prevented natural selection from removing that guy from the gene pool.

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you cant fix stupid, but you can numb it with a 2 x 4.

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Some peoples children.

Re: Bump starting an outboard

:facepalm::facepalm::facepalm:

Re: Bump starting an outboard

duke33 said:

Some peoples children.

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funny thing is - we all know someone just like that - priceless

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1xohI3B4Uc

Yes, my children and I have been through this training in Boston, and i must say, we all have a very healthy respect for PFD's

we re run this video EVERY year!!!!!!!!!!!

P.S. boo for saving someone as dumb as him, we all know the Gene pool needs cleaning anyway............
nah, just kidding

Bump start a outboard motor:facepalm::facepalm:

Re: Bump starting an outboard

86 century said:

I realy hope you are bored out of you mind and made this up. Not that I dont belive you just dont like to belive there a people that dumb in the world.

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Unfortunately, it's a true story. I live about a 1/4 mile from the Colorado River and we see quite a few people tubing without life jackets, below is a link to a tragedy from last summer. A double whammy is that people don't realize that although it might be 90 degrees in the valley, the water is still cold from the spring run-off.

http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/articles/man_drowns_in_colorado_river

Re: Bump starting an outboard

Ha! Should have told him a variation of the old car 'bump start' joke. Guy told his buddies his car could be started if they could get going 20 mph. So, they backed up, took a running start, and hit the disabled car at 20 mph, just like he said.

I'm sure, though, that if you told your intrepid sailor that you'd need to be going 35 or so by the time you got to him, he'd say "Ok, let's try it."

I would have said that I don't have the right equipment or experience to help him, but I did have the Patrol's number on my cell phone, and would be happy to call them for assistance...

Chip