New Boat Owner Story

[keninaz]

I was fishing in the Suisun Bay for Sturgeon with a friend on my 23' cuddy cabin years ago.
We were fishing at the heat of the old Mothball fleet at the time which was mainly comprised of old WW II shipped that sat side by side row after row.
When the tides where running you fished so that you placed your grass shrimp very near the boats which were carried by the tides. You also had to make sure you had a good anchor so your boat was not pulled towards that anchored fleet.
So along comes a brand new trailerable yacht as they called them in that area. A cabin cruiser with a fly bridge around 26' or better with not a whole lot of width to it.
We watched as 4 guys that really looked and dressed like car salesmen were trying to anchor next to us.
We watched them tie a new rope to a new anchor but they had no chain on it. Once they tied it the one guy throws it overboard to anchor and the guy running the boat cuts the motor. That anchor rope was not on a cleat.
The tides were running some 6 MPH or more at the time and the boat started heading downstream in a hurry with the outgoing tides.
Yep, you guess it, the craft was heading towards the fleet very fast. About that time the guy that was holding the anchor rope got a big surprise in that the anchor caught and it pulled him into the water. He had no vest on at the time.
The guy that had been at the controls ran back to them and was trying his best to get the boat started but he was having trouble doing that for some reason.
We fished with a gallon jug on the anchor line just in case we got a big one on the line. I reeled in quickly, started our boat, threw the jug overboard and went after the guy in the water. We reached him when he was only some 125' estimated from getting involved with the anchor chains an currents created around and under the mothballed fleet. He was lucky as he most likely would have been sucked under and drowned.
The new boat and it's 3 others aboard hit a chain and then just before they hit one of the big boats the guy got it fired and they managed to get out of trouble.
The people on this boat had almost no experience whatsoever with boats. It was a comedy of errors that could have cost someone their lives.

 

[produceguy]

Re: New Boat Owner Story

Good story. Glad no one died.

 

[keninaz]

Re: New Boat Owner Story

People just don't know how fast the water can take you.
They also don't realize that even in a lake the waves can be very large if conditions are right.
I have fought 12' rollers trying to get back home with my 23' cuddy trying to get back into SF Bay and was not sure if we were going to make it at times.
I always kept a handy talkie in a plastic bag, sealed in my vest just in case I went overboard when I was off the coast of CA.
You never know.

One of my biggest joys used to be going down to the public launching ramp watching the new boat owners try to handle their new boats. I saw a few cars and trucks launched in my time too.
But you have to learn somehow.

 

[xeddog]

Re: New Boat Owner Story

You really have to be careful and watchful down there at the fleet. My wife and I were down there sturgeon fishing a number of years ago. We anchored 100-200 yards away from the fleet (security will run you off now-a-days if you are that close) towards the middle of the river and had been fishing for a couple of hours when we noticed that we were slowly moving down river. Notice that I said "slowly" moving down river. Not nearly as fast as the currents would have taken us, but definitely moving down river. I figured that the anchor just must have come loose and was dragging, so I went to pull it in so we could reset it. Well, I pulled and pulled on that anchor rode with every ounce of strength I had, and I could get it no further than just being able to see the first few links of the chain. Never did get a glimpse of what what it was snagged on. We even tried tying off the rode and powering our way to safer water, but whatever my anchor was snagged on was having no part of it. I used as much power as I thoguht the cleats could take without ripping right out of the boat and we could not move sideways at all. We eventually started to get too close to, and were heading directly toward the Glomar Explorer (that should tell you about how long ago this was), so I had to cut the rode. [expletive deleted]!! With no spare anchor, our day was at an end. [TWO expletives deleted]

Wayne

 

[keninaz]

Re: New Boat Owner Story

I was in the area last Feb. Most of the old Mothball fleet is long gone and cut up for scrape now.
I knew one of the old timers whose job it was to do maintenance and such there. He is now deceased. I know his daughter who now lives in his house in Vallejo where I was born, raised and worked for the US Navy until I went into early retirement when they announced closure of Mare Island.
The area sure has changed over the years since I was born there in the 1940s.
So has fishing. I can remember the smelt and other bait fish in the bays up until I was a young teenager then they just disappeared and most of the good fishing with them.