Had an exciting/heart stopping mishap tonight

[jrs_diesel]

I have 2 boats. Our sailboat, which is on a mooring, and an inflatable dinghy.

Earlier tonight I was on my way back from the sailboat to the dinghy dock. It was dark, and the water was flat calm. I was going about 5-6 knots (it only has a 3.5 HP outboard on it), and I ran over a railroad tie.

Yes, that's right, I ran over a railroad tie It was almost completely submerged, and since it was flat calm and dark, I didn't see it until it was way too late. The only thing I had time to do was reach back and cut the throttle. I hit it broadside (luckily), and I bounced right over it. I think the inflatable keel helped get over it, and the toughest parts of the boat kept the boat from getting damaged. The motor took a hit and kicked up and then over the railroad tie. By this point I shut down the motor.

After a quick inspection of the motor and making sure I wasn't taking on water, I made my way back to the dock. No obvious damage to the boat :redface: .

Y'all be careful at night. Doesn't take much to make a bad situation, or much time for that matter.

 

[Hansolo99]

Re: Had an exciting/heart stopping mishap tonight

Yes, that's right, I ran over a railroad tie

I had to read it twice, I thought you were driving a car for a minute there. WOW! Glad to hear you and the boat are OK. I wonder how that got there.............

 

[Gary H NC]

Re: Had an exciting/heart stopping mishap tonight

Man! Could you imagine what that would of done to a fiberglass hull?
Scary!

Glad you and the boat are ok!

 

[mfgniagara]

Re: Had an exciting/heart stopping mishap tonight

Debris like that seem fairly common after storms in many rivers. The last time I took my 16' aluminum boat out I bounced over a section of telephone pole that was floating just below the surface. You couldn't see it from the back of the boat at all, I heard and felt the hull bang into it, cut the motor and the pole got stuck under the boat, sideways, against the now shut down motor. I had to tilt the motor all the way and let the pole pass. The good thing is that we were only going about 15 mph, and it did no damage, but I could only imagine someone smacking into that thing at high speed with a glass hull. Especially if they hit it end wise. Other than some black creosote marks on the boat's bottom, no damage was done, if I hit it under power, I'd have figured on some motor damage or transom damage. Every time there's a big rain, all sorts of junk comes floating down the river. I've seen whole chunks of dock, poles, lumber, tires, trees, and even bits of old boats. About a year ago I was test driving a boat on a river unfamiliar to me, the guy selling the boat, a fiberglass 17' bass boat, said 'There's plenty of water, no worries anywhere", about a mile downstream I spotted something in the water and veered far to the left of it. It looked like a post sticking up out of the water, moving downstream with the current. I went around it, and after several other obstacles decided to go back and dock the boat not wanted to damage someone else's boat. A few minutes after I docked and tied off the boat, I saw that same post drift by, just to the port side of the boat, it was a huge chunk of an old wood boat about a 1/4 of the bow and starboard side floating just below the surface. It drifted off into the shallow water and came to rest just below where we docked. The thing was over 12' long and about 6' tall, the post we saw was a wood rib that had lost it's planking.
It either broke away from an abandoned wreck or was dislodged from a former resting place in a prior storm. If anyone hit that, it would have stopped them dead in the water. I was surprised that such a huge piece of old wood was still floating after what appeared to be many years in the water.

 

[pduquette]

Re: Had an exciting/heart stopping mishap tonight

Jrs Diesel , I'm glad you and your boat made it out ok and don't want to come across as a == but was there any way to posibly haul it to shore ? I would make every effort to do so . peter

 

[Home Cookin']

Re: Had an exciting/heart stopping mishap tonight

same here after storms--lots of stuff lurking just below the surface. I cut a 10' 2x10 in half--while pulling a tube. My cousin suggested using a skil saw next time.

The riprap at the bridge tunnel islands is littered with big stuff, that had been floating. And when I had an office overlooking the harbor, I'd watch an ArmyCorp boat whose job was to pick up stuff like that--its deck was always covered wtih big pieces of timber. And I remember being in St Louis when the river was up some, watching all those snags going by.

As for hauling it home, it's hard to get a line around it sometimes, and it often tows crazy.. A railroad tie would be hard to tow from a dinghy, or get it in without risking capsizing or falling over. But I haul it when I can; got a nice wooden cable spool coffee table for the pier that way. Sometimes foolks tie it off to a channel marker for the Army Corp guy to get.

 

[sasto]

Re: Had an exciting/heart stopping mishap tonight

Good to know you and your dingy are alright. You never know what will be in your way. Once in the Carribean I came across a coconut....no problem, huh?....The tree was still attached to it. cha-ching.

 

[bow wow rider]

Re: Had an exciting/heart stopping mishap tonight

diesel, glad you're ok... clearly couldn't been much worse for yourself and your property.

in the ohio river, one of these days, i'm probably going to run over a body.

 

[jrs_diesel]

Re: Had an exciting/heart stopping mishap tonight

I had to read it twice, I thought you were driving a car for a minute there. WOW! Glad to hear you and the boat are OK. I wonder how that got there.............

I'm on the Thames River in CT, it feeds into Long Island Sound. This week has had a lot of rain, and some higher than normal high tides. I can only guess that it washed into the river from the tide.

Jrs Diesel , I'm glad you and your boat made it out ok and don't want to come across as a <==8 but was there any way to posibly haul it to shore ? I would make every effort to do so . peter

No offense taken Peter . I'm normally pretty good about picking up trash and debris that I find floating. This was a bit much for me to handle though. My dinghy doesn't have any eyes or cleats on the transom to tie a rope, so towing it would have been a real challenge. It was a full sized RR tie (8 ? ft long), that weighs around 150 lbs dry. No way I could have pulled it into the dinghy by myself unfortunately.


Thank you all for the kind words. Later today I will be taking off the motor so I can flip the boat over and inspect it for damage. Like I said before I think I got lucky with this incident. I bet the inflatable keel helped get me up and over while at the same time pushed the RR tie downwards and deeper away from the hull somewhat. The motor hit the hardest but the prop was fine as was the lower unit and the skeg. Probably chipped the paint a little.

 

[stic88]

Re: Had an exciting/heart stopping mishap tonight

jrs diesel- dont you know that you are not to be boating on the railroad tracks, you could get hit by a train.....lol

 

[IllesheimVet]

Re: Had an exciting/heart stopping mishap tonight

Seen many telephone-pole sized logs (and Larger) in the Darien River where I sometimes dock. Damaged a prop and broken an anti-vent plate on 2 separate occasions on a low speed plane. Stopped and never did see what I hit. Still see people in small boats running WOT!!

 

[ziggy]

Re: Had an exciting/heart stopping mishap tonight

glad ya had no repercussions from your contact with debris.

myself. when i'm boating at night, i just go very slow. i don't know how slow since i've got no speedo. but i keep the rpms at 1000 or less. for me, 1000 rpms is just above no wake speed. slow enough that if i do hit something i hopefully won't incur damage, or maybe even be able to take evasive action to avoid a collision. obviously, a dead head log i will hit for never seeing it, but i will have time to come to neutral prior to the drive running over it. hopefully lessening any possible damage.

boating at night sure is dangerous imho. respect the conditions your boating in. and there are many conditions that need to be respected too.

 

[Home Cookin']

Re: Had an exciting/heart stopping mishap tonight

most of the time, when you hit something floating, you ride over it with little or no harm done. The object sinks since it is already waterlogged and barely floating. Small light boats handle it best, ironically. Even the lower unit often get over it OK. It's the fixed objects, or ones with metal protrusions, that get you. Of course you have to checkover the motor, and often the hull, especially to be sure it didn't impact a through-hull or chip a chine.
So it's like music by Wagner--it's not as bad as it sounds.

 

[GatorMike]

Re: Had an exciting/heart stopping mishap tonight

in the ohio river, one of these days, i'm probably going to run over a body.

Yeah down here in Florida it's the manatees that make a loud thud when you hit them in the dark. Scares the heck out of you.

 

[shrew]

Re: Had an exciting/heart stopping mishap tonight

I'm on the Thames River in CT, it feeds into Long Island Sound. This week has had a lot of rain, and some higher than normal high tides. I can only guess that it washed into the river from the tide.

Hey!!! small world!!!! I'm on the Thames River in Ct. too, over on the New London side. I didn't realize there were any mooring fields over on the Groton side, with the excpetion of the Marinas over by Shenecossett. Though Technically, that isn't the Thames it's the Pequonock River.

there are deadheads and debrie in the river, the mouth and Fisher's Island sound all the time. I saw a deadhead on the outside of Fisher's island 2 years ago that would bob up about two feet above the water, then disappear for 3-4 min. then pop up again 50 yards away. I headed in the other direction.
Coming back from Greenport just north of Plum Island I came across an entire wooden dual pedastal desk. It was gigantic and looked like something you'd see in the Oval Office. It was floating upside down with the legs and bottom drawers about 1 ft. above the water. Though that looked like a trashalanche from a garbage boat. there was a field a mile wide of plastic detergent bottles and mylar ballons and all sorts of weird stuff. Kinda like a mini Pacific Garbage patch right in Long Island sound.
Last fall we had a 15 ft. section of someone's dock wash up on the beach across from Stash's cafe. There's never a dull moment in that area.

 

[jrs_diesel]

Re: Had an exciting/heart stopping mishap tonight

Hey!!! small world!!!! I'm on the Thames River in Ct. too, over on the New London side. I didn't realize there were any mooring fields over on the Groton side, with the excpetion of the Marinas over by Shenecossett. Though Technically, that isn't the Thames it's the Pequonock River.

My boat is on the New London side, I live in Groton.

Are you north or south of the bridge?

 

[shrew]

Re: Had an exciting/heart stopping mishap tonight

South of the bridge. Directly south of the Phizer building (now EB). We should arrange (offline) to meet up for a drink.

 

[freeisforme]

Re: Had an exciting/heart stopping mishap tonight

Yeah down here in Florida it's the manatees that make a loud thud when you hit them in the dark. Scares the heck out of you.

I was just thinking the same thing, I was boating about this time last year on the St Lucie River and we were dodging Manatees all over the place. They were surfacing all over, it was driving through an obstacle course with the obstacles moving about.
We didn't hit any, but came close a few times. I did have one brush against the boat while we were fishing, but I sort of figured he was scratching his back or something. It kept rubbing up and down the one side of the boat, back and forth, after a few rubs his back was blue from all the bottom paint he rubbed off.

Either he was scratching his back or trying to push us away from there. We left since we couldn't very well fish with a manatee right there in front of us. I was afraid to hit him with the lure.

Between the manatees and the down palm trees all over once it got dark it got interesting. The gators hanging around the dock were cool too, but they didn't come in too close. Someone was there tossing chicken to them from a balcony nearby. Most of those were pretty small.

 

[jrs_diesel]

UPDATE : Had an exciting/heart stopping mishap tonight

UPDATE : Had an exciting/heart stopping mishap tonight

shrew - I'll send you a PM

I was able to inspect the boat yesterday afternoon. I took the motor off and gave that a close look. Everything appeared fine there. After I had the motor off, we flipped the boat over. Great news there. No punctures, holes, or tears. The only damage I could see was the where the keel first hit. There was a very minor scuff on the centerline of the keel.

I got lucky with this and came away with a lesson in using a little more caution at night. Especially knowing things could have been much worse.

 

[ziggy]

Re: Had an exciting/heart stopping mishap tonight

I got lucky with this and came away with a lesson in using a little more caution at night.

as long as ya learned, yer cool. imho. at night, slow is the word... ya just can't see that well and what ya do see may be deceiving....

bad things can happen on boats. that's bad enough, but when they happen at night, they can be much worse since it's hard to see.

glad ya got away unscathed...