A disaster waiting to happen

[poconojoe]

Saw these two guys retrieve a boat and it was a disaster waiting to happen.

It was one of those Sea Doo boats. I'm guessing maybe 18 foot or so.

The one guy backed the trailer in on an angle. The tow vehicle was jackknifed.
The boat almost floated away from the other guy while he was waiting. I don't think they had any dock lines.

The boat ended up crooked on the trailer.
The port side was literally sitting on the trailer fender. The fender was plastic and I could see that it was stressed from the weight. The starboard side was sitting on the frame. They looked at the back, yet they still pulled away.

I saw them looking around the boat in the parking lot. I was shocked when they got in the vehicle and drove away and there weren't any stern straps installed!
That's when I wondered what the trailer hitch, winch, winch strap, safety chains, etc. looked like. I wish I would have looked, I could only imagine.

 

[Scott Danforth]

More common than you want to believe

 

[airshot]

Todays mentality...( I only have a short drive home) or...I will be carefull......more and more of this everyday....the really scary part is these same people are voting to decide on our futures !!!

 

[poconojoe]

Even without thinking about them driving away with the lack of stern straps, I couldn't believe they just left the boat sitting like that on the trailer.
The port side was crushing the trailer fender and the starboard side was resting on the trailer frame.
Even if you were stone drunk, you would notice something was just not right.
You'd think they would at least care about damaging the boat.

 

[briangcc]

I'm not surprised anymore by the things people will do with their boats.

The number of them I saw mis-loaded cruising at 70-75mph on the highway is easily in the high teens. I saw a few that were uncovered with totes/loose gear that were one panic stop away from redecorating the highway with their belongings. And that doesn't even cover those who clearly need to upgrade their tow vehicles as their boat was drastically dwarfing it and had the axle riding on the spring stops.

 

[dingbat]

Maybe the ramp was just a mile or two from home....lol

 

[tpenfield]

What ? No video ?

 

[poconojoe]

What ? No video ?

I was so shocked I didn't even think of taking a video.
I'll be ready next time.
And I'm sure there will be a next time!

 

[dwco5051]

It's too heavy to fall off, who needs tiedowns.

 

[poconojoe]

I feel bad for what looks like a nice tractor.
Too bad the person transporting it is a numbskull.

 

[flashback]

Nice antique tractor! It's not going to the show this weekend...

 

[jhande]

The real scary thing is... all these idiots are sharing the road with us.

 

[DeepCMark58A]

Expensive ignorance.

 

[DeepCMark58A]

I will admit when I pull my boat there are no straps on the back, the bow eye is hooked to a chain and a strap. Top speed on the trip to the house is right around 20 mph and about 3/4 of a mile. I do not put my boats in other lakes.

 

[Ed Yez]

How about this guy?

 

[bassman284]

Don't need no stinkin' transom straps.

Just thinking - about 15 years ago or so I was at the lake and when I headed up the parking lot to get my trailer I saw the ball hitch latch standing straight up. There were 2 other trucks parked there and theirs were flipped as well. I called the park ranger and told him while there probably wasn't much he could do I thought he should know. He said, "I'll be right over." He said about the only thing he could do was check the other parking lots to see if the same thing happened.

I immediately went out and bought a hitch lock.

 

[jimmbo]

Quite a few Stuart Pidds, Stu for short, towing. Sometimes they kill themselves, which is Good, but more often they take others with them, which could be good or bad, depending on whether or not the others are from the same Gene Pool as Stuart...

 

[dingbat]

Something to think about.......

A #3,500 boat traveling at 60 MPH has the momentum of 1,139,884.5 lb·ft/s.

Ignoring the deceleration time of the accident, your looking at a potential load of #35,433

Two.....#2,000 straps going to cut it?

 

[Scott Danforth]

Transom straps should have a 3:1 safety factor. They should be tight, and the bow should be secured with the safety chain and winch

However they have to be used

 

[jimmbo]

The straps themselves are quite strong, but some the other Hardware used on the Straps, mainly the Pivot/Rotation points, used for tightening, are very weak shearable metal