The background is that 12 months ago my first-born then 13 y.o son ignored my instructions and succeeded in ramming the motor I'd just rebuilt into gear at about 3,000+ rpm. Destroyed the prop, but not the shear pin which is an engineering marvel. When I find the engineer responsible for it I intend to insert it in him in such a way that he, too, will marvel at its indestructability. For the rest of his painful life.<br /><br />My son knows everything. I'm surprised he hasn't been headhunted by NASA. His mother and I would be just as happy if he was headhunted by a tribe of Amazonian headshrinkers, but they probably don't have a pot big enough to fit his head in.<br /><br />Aanyway, we start the outing in the ramp queue with him telling me where the change point is for gear selection by lever position on the two lever set up and refusing to accept me telling him that it's by ear not lever position and that if he does it wrong he'll destroy another prop. I try to get the message through that it's important to follow my instructions.<br /><br />Then we have the comical exercise at the dock where I'm adjusting the gear selector after everything was disconnected to repaint the powerhead. I've told him to hold the rope while I fiddle around to get it right as I go forward and back catching the gears. Suddenly he jumps aboard as I'm drifting away from the dock with no power having found reverse and stalled it, with me at the back of the boat.<br /><br />"Why did you do that?<br /><br />"I didn't want to get left behind."<br /><br />"If you'd stayed on the dock and held onto the bloody rope like I told you, you wouldn't have been. And we wouldn't be about to bang the boat behind us."<br /><br />I avoid hitting the other boat.<br /><br />I sort out the gears.<br /><br />I impress on him again the importance of following my instructions. He gets upset and says I don't need to keep going on about it.<br /><br />I let him take her out through the channel so he can learn. I want this to be a positive experience for him. <br /><br />We have a few more blues about trivia like where the right of the channel is and why it doesn't matter what the rules are when some moron is flying down the middle of the channel at speed and we're in the middle too (despite me telling him to keep right but he knows better although he's steering for the wrong mark) and we have as much right to be there as the other boat as the other boat should be on the left. Finally I get my pig-headed child to accept to just keep out of their way and go to the right. <br /><br />His selective and one-sided interpretation of the rules makes me really look forward to when he starts learning to drive a car and forces a give way to the right situation on rules rather than sense. I'm beginning to think that he can learn in his mother's car, which wasn't my original intention.<br /><br />Now it's time to come back after a short trip and a bit of tension over a few issues which make me think that if we were a couple of hundred yards closer to shore I'd dive overboard and swim ashore and let Mr. Smartar*e bring it in by himself seeing how he knows everything. Except he'd probably try to save me and cut me with the prop. <br /><br />I think that instead of dwelling on negatives I should build his confidence by letting him dock it, which he hasn't done before.<br /><br />I impress again on him the importance of following my instructions. I don't want the boat run into the dock at speed or another boat damaged.<br /><br />He does a very good job for a first attempt, or any attempt, of bringing it in to the dock against the tide. I tell him to put it in reverse as we approach on the last few feet. Then I jump onto the dock. Now I'm on the dock and he's motoring along beside it still in forward gear.<br /><br />"Put it in reverse!"<br /><br />Now I'm moving along the dock yelling at him to put it in reverse, but he's just steering it parallel to the dock. <br /><br />As we reach the end of the short dock, I have a 15' boat heading away under control of a disobedient idiot son while I'm holding 20' of rope. The rope is longer than the boat because the dock and tide fall require it that length to lead the boat onto the trailer. If I let go of the rope (a) my idiot son will head out by himself which mighn't be that good in light of recent events and (b) the rope will tangle in the prop. <br /><br />I yell at him to turn it off. At least he does that.<br /><br />So without thinking I hang onto the rope to save my son as now he has no power and is heading away from the dock. <br /><br />I learn suddenly that a boat moving at a slow speed without power can still produce a nasty rope burn, but it's that or lose the kid. Then again, maybe I should have lost the kid.<br /><br />When I get him on the dock I ask him, in not very gentle terms, why he didn't put it in reverse when I told him to do it. Several times.<br /><br />"Because I knew I'd break the prop again and you'd be mad at me."<br /><br />"Do you think I'd be telling you to put it in reverse if I thought it would do any damage?"<br /><br />Ultimately: "No."<br /><br />I show him my rope burnt hands. <br /><br />"Do you think this might make me mad?"<br /><br />"Yes."<br /><br />After some more discussion I begin to think that he might actually be beginning to get the message on following instructions.<br /><br />But not to the extent that I want him learning to drive in my car.
