Boat Ramp Follies

[bruceb58]

It's pretty easy to tell when they look like they would like some help. I do have a non-interference rule I usually abide by because most people do not want any help.

 

[gm280]

Have any of you seen the auto mechanic (?) at the auto parts store changing oil and such right there in the parking lot? I have even seen a couple guys disassembling an engine in the car sitting there. Makes one wonder. :noidea:

 

[jimmbo]

I saw a guy and his buddy paint a car with a roller and brush. I guess he figured oil based paint would work as Tremclad or Rust-oleum

Sorry for going off on tangent

 

[jimmbo]

I guess I have a different take on it. I don't enjoy watching and making fun of other people's misery. I guess that's just me.

I have helped people at the ramp though. To me that is a little more satisfying.

I have helped some, but have also been told F-O by some of the Buffoons too, so...

 

[oldjeep]

1st person on the ramp backed in, forgot to remove the transom straps and wondered why it would not come off the trailer.
.

Yup, I did that on Sunday. Couldn't figure out why the boat wasn't coming off, backed in further and ultimately put some small bends in 3 of the prop blades from them pushing against the prop guard when the bow came up. 2nd time ever that I have done that. Cost me a $140 prop repair

 

[bruceb58]

1st person on the ramp backed in, forgot to remove the transom straps and wondered why it would not come off the trailer.

I have done that as well but my straps just snapped. Shows that transom straps don't last forever and should be changed every few years. My straps are now removed when I bring the boat home and are not stored exposed to the sun

 

[89retta]

While I find ramps very entertaining, seen boats launch themselves long before the transom is over water, trailers backed so deep the winch is below water, heck the tow vehicle is partially submerged. What really bugs me though are parents who think the ramp is a playground for their little monsters

I'm with you on that one. Or the people that think the boat launch is a good place to swim. Get the hell out of the water its a boat launch not a beach

 

[jimmbo]

Another one I like are people who stand on the ramp, holding the boat while a member of the group goes gets the trailer. Meanwhile someone else is backing in and the squatter refuses to get out of the way. They think it is the boat that determines who loads first. Well I have lots of Patience, and can sit with the trailer on the ramp indefinitely while the line backs up. Their trailer is usually 5 or 6 in the line up. You can actually feel the Love building while line waits

 

[bigdee]

Funniest thing I saw was a man and his wife loading their fishing boat. He stayed in boat and she went to get trailer. Evidently it was her first attempt backing down the ramp and she was having trouble lining up with the ramp. Her husband made matters worse by yelling at her and calling her a dumbazz. She finally succeeded in backing down and he moved to front of boat to winch it up. Still standing in front of boat with winch secured he yelled at wife to pull forward. This is when the fun begins...she floored it smoking the tires like a dragster and the man wound up rolled into a ball against the transom! I always wondered if that man ever called his wife a dumbazz again?

 

[Sprig]

I have seem hundreds of boat follies on ramps over my 60 years of boating. I've seen people have their boats slide off the trailer onto the ramp, seen people not raise the outdrive and wreck it coming out of the water, seen people drive their boat onto and off the side of the trailer, seen people launch their vehicle and on and on. One of my most memorable was on a Sunday afternoon in the 70's on the California delta at a super busy ramp. Guy in a high performance low profile jet boat had his girlfriend back the car and trailer down the ramp while he waited in the boat. The car was a customized high performance Camero 60's vintage. Big rumbling v8 and a 4 on the floor. She was having a little trouble backing it down the ramp and he was yelling at her. Also memorable is she was unbelievably gorgeous, drop dead beautiful. As she finally got it all straight she was very very slowly backing the trailer into the water. Now he's screaming at her more, further back, further back you blankety blank blank. All of a sudden I think she decided she wouldn't take it from him any longer she revved the engine, popped the clutch and smoked the tires. When she stopped the water was up to the front headlights. She opened the door to get out and the water covered the interior, the beautiful tuck and roll seats were under water, water up to the steering wheel. The car of course could not be started. She just started walking up the ramp to the parking lot. The boyfriend went berserko, jumped out of his boat and started running after her, I knew it was going to get violent so I intervened. He tried to go through me to get to her. I was in my 20's and a pro boxer but had quit the ring a few months before. A 3 punch combination changed his mind as far a pursuing his girlfriend. The sheriff came and dealt with him. I gave her a ride home(along with my wife at the time). She was so pretty I still have an image of her in my mind today.
That was a typical weekend afternoon at the Orrwood launch ramp on the California delta.

 

[boatman37]

Went on vacation this past week and was in Virginia in a little town and ended up sitting beside a launch. Two older guys a center console onto a trailer pulled by a mid 90's or so F150 manual trans. The first thing we saw was the driver yelling at the guy in the boat to remove the dock line from the center cleat that was attached to the dock. The guy in the boat couldn't hear him until after the 3rd or 4th yell. So he can't get it off the dock so unhooks it from the boat instead. They pull the truck forward and apparently didn't have the boat far enough forward so back back down the ramp to float it. Driver can't back it straight and has the truck angled one way and the boat another. The stern was pretty close to the right side wall but he didn't have to worry about hitting it cause the rear bumper of the truck was up against (actually touching) the wall on the left side. Guy #2 starts cranking the boat up the trailer and asks the driver how to lock the pawl on the winch. Driver says he can't remember cause he hasn't used the trailer in so long. So they hook a chain to the eye and pull out again, this time spinning the tires. At this time both guys are trying to attach a rachet strap around the hull near the back of the boat. They were looking for WD-40 so I assume it was frozen so they gave up on that and decided to pull away. The bimini was still up but looked pretty flimsy. I would be surprised if it made it the whole way to their destination.

Oh, and the dock line that was still attached to the dock, Guy #2 pulled out a knife and cut it off.

 

[mickyryan]

I was working on my boat at ramp on a Sunday once Sunday evening , there was 3 other lanes I got yelled at because some one felt they had a right to that 4th lane after we got into it he came and apologized , i had fired it up at home worked fine got to water and nothing so i was trying to figure out what was up before pulling it completely off trailer but after our verbal altercation i said screw it and went back home.
I find pro's who act like asses are just as bad as the newbies , how quickly one forgets what it was like there first few times....
I can offload monishka by myself and load it on in under 5 minutes, but i usually just sit and chill till i see the ramp clear out a bit to avoid anyone else causing problems .

 

[southkogs]

LOL - I was part of the follies yesterday. Ran into some friends I hadn't seen in a while on the courtesy dock. Chatting with them for a few minutes only to suddenly realize my truck and trailer were sitting on the ramp, and a few others had pulled up to put in or pull out. :facepalm: Ooops

 

[jimmbo]

One time at the ramp, I watched a boat come in, the guy jumps out and tells his wife to paddle the boat(a 16 ft glass runabout) to the trailer once he gets it in the water. He gets the trailer backed in, a bit too far as it was a roller trailer. He then yells for the wife to head over. With the engine still fully down she is in the bow paddling like mad to cover the 150 ft to the ramp. While the ramp is deep, it does get shallow enough for the engines to halt a boat if down. Of course she is taking too long for our hero and he starts a tirade against the poor woman. As she nears trailer he turns to me and tells me how dumb and incompetent she is. I looked at him and said that she wasn't the dumb/incompetent one at the ramp, except for staying with him

 

[Skipper Sean]

My wife passed her boaters safety course and was finally able to drive the boat. Now she has driven it a couple of times on a nearly empty lake. Now my thing to do with her was really to teach her to pull into the docks and how to do low throttle maneuvers and using reverse to slow down etc. Her problem was getting into the boat while it was on the trailer. Anyways I Welded brackets on the trailer and had an old curved pool ladder that I carpeted so it don’t scratch nothing. So it was time for our first team launch her in the boat,me in the truck so I pull out the ladder put it on the trailer for the “?Admiral”?to climb aboard and I can hear a group of people laughing at her. They are staged in front of us. So the ramp is a double lanes. We get to launch beside them. They almost hit the guard rail 4 times backing down and it took them I swear like five minutes to get there. I back down get about 6 feet from the ramp jump out take off the safety chain get in the truck back in and hit the brakes. Boat slides right off she lowers the outdrive and docks the boat perfectly. I had the truck parked and am headed towards the dock that goof troop still didn’t have their boat off the trailer. They told me it was too shallow and they couldn’t get the boat to float off the trailer. As I’m walking to the dock I hear my wife saying to them ... hey do you think those two straps connected to the trailer are causing the problem and as they pulled forward you could see water coming out of the bilge they forgot to put the plug in. We hung around to watch everyone else get ticked off at them for holding everybody up. Since we rented a slip for the weekend we had all the time in the world.

 

[Gator5713]

Kinda surprised nobody has added any follies this season yet so I guess I'll rattle on myself...
I grew up boat on a 1972 IMP Pawnee, 22ft? Tri hill with a big 350 v-8. Mom didn't like backing up the trailer or loading the boat so as soon as I was big enough I got the job of loading the boat! I learned real quick it had to be dang near perfect or you weren't getting it on. Fast forward several years (a few decades) and several boats later and I now have a 19' v-hull that is so easy to load its almost impossible to screw up! And my wife also isn't keen on backing the trailer and wont hardly drive the boat on open water so typical protocol for us is stage COMPLETELY in staging, then I ba k 90% into the water, jump in the boat and all she has to do is ba k up a few feet and drive out to pull in parking.
loading the boat I tie off to dock, go get the trailer into the water and get back in the boat to trailer it and all she has to do is minor adjustment in or out and pull out once I'm on. Typically fairly quick and have had several 'impressed' nods and even a few comments from others. I'm also the guy that has helped many others who are having troubles.
earlier this season we realized the time and needed to get moving off the lake. Actually had a friend with me who has no problem with trailers so dropped him of to get the truck and set up to power load. All was great until almost on the trailer and got hit on the stern by a wake. Bow dipped and went under the front roller! Needless to say I was (less than happy) and I'm sure we all know how well things went from there. Running late, been loading boats since I was a kid without major folly and now have a giant scar in the top of the bow, and choppy water from someone running speed too close to the ramp!
3rd miss later some guy walks down the ramp and asks if I need help but didn't wait for my reply, catches the bow puts it on the roller and secures the strap then offers me a beer! I was too embarrassed and pissed to show proper gratitude that day but I did at least acknowledge his helpfulness and if I ever see him again I will definitely be the one offering the beer!
I still need to patch the fiberglass and thinking of painting the patch as a bandaid to serve as a reminder to just chill out.

 

[Redfred1]

Saw this once! 2 bay ramp; one was blocked by a SUV; locked; trailer in water. Several boats waiting to launch including Me). GW pulls up; looks; tajks to some people; makes a phone call. 5 minutes or less pass; Rolloff shows up; drags the SUV out of the water;loads it; hooks up trailer to his ball and leaves. As we were getting ready to leave; a boat shows up.
Don't know how it turned out; but I'm guessing I know who won!

 

[poconojoe]

Redfred1, that's a great story! Poetic justice!

My answer to these follies was to just give in and pay for a season slip. It's not worth the stress of dealing with all those rude, incompetent jerks.

This is my first season in retirement mode and I won't go near any ramp on weekends or holidays. It's such a pleasure. Plus the boat traffic on the lake is reduced drastically! It's an all around pleasure!

 

[Scott Danforth]

for years rented a cottage 2 doors down from the boat ramp on Clark Lake in Door Count. got it for two 1-week stints a year. we usually rented in late may/early june for walleye fishing and once in the mid summer. Met my best friend there, he owns the house 4 down from the ramp and his grandfather build 90% of the cottages on teh west side of the lake

every morning in the, I would sit on the dock and watch the boat ramp. about 9 out of 10 boats would be plucked from their winter slumber and head straight to the lake..... 3 out of the 10 would be a click....click...click.... followed by me walking over with a battery and jumper cables. some would tell me to pound sand, most would graciously accept help.

a few would be missing their plugs and the mad scramble to stop their boat from sinking was funny. I think I was permanently in wet clothes most of the week.

then there are the guys that didnt winterized and you get the wave to tow them in as their motor ran for maybe 3 minutes prior to the motor coughing to an end.... open the hatch and see tan foam coming out the breathers.

a few times you see the guy loads his whole family up, then pushes off the dock prior to firing up the motor...... and you hear whir....whir.....click....

the funniest was a guy from Illinois and a few of his drunk buddies. this guy was a total arse. he attempted to back in a 26' boat (lake is average 5' deep and none of the ramps are deep enough for anything over 21' bow rider. My buddy, me and the president of the lake association tried telling him the boat is too big for the lake and he wont get it off the trailer, much less back on. He proceeded to shout profanities at us saying he was from Chicago and knows how to get his boat off. he managed to get the boat off the trailer, however it wasnt floating. short of a back-hoe on a barge, there was no way to get it to float. then they couldnt get it back on the trailer

the boat was there for hours prior to a back-hoe coming to lift the front of the boat high enough to get the trailer under it.

I always wanted to put a web-cam up

 

[DeepCMark58A]

I feel fortunate that I live in Minnesota and we have many lakes if I drive up and the ramp is crowded I simply head to another lake.