What boating mistakes have you made?

[CharlieB]

Re: What boating mistakes have you made?

My biggest boating mistake was buying a boat.

Well said!

 

[Djfire07]

Re: What boating mistakes have you made?

Hello all!

I'm just getting back into boating after a long hiatus and I find iboats.com and this great thread, so picture this:

It's the late 80's. A 20 year old with a new job, new truck and a new 17' Bass Tracker with a 70hp outboard is motoring up the Potomac River with his roommate and another friend showing off his new toy. He had learned in his vast amounts of experience that trimming up the motor reduced the torque effect of the prop and so, trying to be funny, he lets go of the wheel, crosses his arms and says, "No brakes, might as well not steer!", just like Doug McKenzie in the Strange Brew movie. They all get a good laugh and continue on to fish, tube and ski throughout the day with no major issues.

Fast forward to the next outing... The smart and incredibly funny 20 year old decides to let his roommate pilot the ship up the river in preparation for another great day. (You see it coming, right?) The 20 year old is sitting on the rear platform seat (no PFD) while his roommate and friend ride side-by-side. The 20 year old is relaxing, enjoying the ride, the scenery, the weather, and his unfounded confidence in his boating instruction. All of a sudden, he sees the roommate take both hands off the wheel and in an instant, finds himself surrounded by green water, blowing bubbles so he'd know which way to swim. Minus the bruising and skin missing from his hip from hitting the cleat during the rapid disembarking, it was still a great day and an even better learning experience.

Funny, I can't seem to remember who that 20 year old was...

 

[STUDaddy58]

Re: What boating mistakes have you made?

Many years ago, Dad used to work out of town.... a lot. So, one day, he was home so, Dad and I went fishing (if memory serves, it was a school day, but I think I had fish fever). He backed the boat/trailer into the water and handed the rope off to his first born (me!). I was probably 12 or 13, and had no intention of letting the boat get away (or a clue as to what I was doing it would seem). So, I wrapped the rope around my arm, and around my waist (that part was unintentional). As Dad is pulling away from the ramp, my eyes start to follow the other end of the rope...that was tangled around the wheel of the trailer....that was quickly going taut.... About the time I was able to yell "STOP!", I also was discovering a new way to temporarily suspend the law of gravity, as I left my feet and got drug for what seemed a mile, but in reality was only a foot or so, before Dad realized what happened and stopped. Road rash sucks, but I stuck it out and we had a great day fishing...he did catch heck from my Grandmother when we got back home though.....

 

[Bart68]

Re: What boating mistakes have you made?

The dumbest thing I have done was to my old boat 15 years ago, I had a 14 1/2 foot runabout with a 55 Chrysler on it and I figured I should put new Spark Plugs in it. Went to a local Marine repair shop and the guy sold me 2 Spark Plugs, took them home and installed them. Tried to fire up the boat and all I heard was some thumping noise a little popping noise and the motor just spun over.
The guy sold me the wrong plugs, they were over 1/2 inch to long and cracked both heads from the pistons hitting the heads and when I pulled the plugs and checked them against my original plugs is when I seen the difference, now I side by side check all my plugs no matter what I'm changing plugs on and never trust any parts person. Oh and the Marine shop that sold me the wrong plugs told me to Sue him, never did but he went out of business that fall so I wouldn't have gotten far anyways.:faint2:

 

[Ripfence]

Re: What boating mistakes have you made?

The dumbest thing I have done was to my old boat 15 years ago, I had a 14 1/2 foot runabout with a 55 Chrysler on it and I figured I should put new Spark Plugs in it. Went to a local Marine repair shop and the guy sold me 2 Spark Plugs, took them home and installed them. Tried to fire up the boat and all I heard was some thumping noise a little popping noise and the motor just spun over.
The guy sold me the wrong plugs, they were over 1/2 inch to long and cracked both heads from the pistons hitting the heads and when I pulled the plugs and checked them against my original plugs is when I seen the difference, now I side by side check all my plugs no matter what I'm changing plugs on and never trust any parts person. Oh and the Marine shop that sold me the wrong plugs told me to Sue him, never did but he went out of business that fall so I wouldn't have gotten far anyways.:faint2:

That shop owner was a jerk. I wish he'd have helped you out.

 

[Trihull&error]

Re: What boating mistakes have you made?

Out fishing with the kids and the weather started to turn, quickly got them all reeled in fired up the boat and headed for shore, What's missing in that? Yep you guessed it forgot to pull the anchor, front of the boat sucked it up into the prop. Prop a little dinged up and it dented the cavitation plate. I was fortunate though nothing a little bit of pounding back flat and clamping was not able to return to undetectable on the cavitation plate and a little pounding and a small grind and the prop is still usable. Always bring in the anchor.

 

[Artwerke]

Re: What boating mistakes have you made?

Motoring my 38' sloop to my slip in the harbour, engine temp starts to climb, steam coming out of vents, 100 ft to slip. Wind is coming over stern, have to come in hot to keep steerage. shift into reverse to back her down 10 ' from dock, engine dies, only chewed up 12" of dock & 2 " of bow fiberglass.I found piece of plastic bag in raw water intake.

 

[Tripp Halbert]

Re: What boating mistakes have you made?

left motor down while pulled up to sandy bottom. As waves packed mud in prop, it got stuck. Tide went out before i could dig prop out and was dry beached with just me and my buddy. Had to dig prop out in mud and turn boat around, waited 2 hours until a guy drove by and hooked up to the bow eye and drug me out. Worst day ever:facepalm:, but i will never ever forget to trim up again.

 

[bspeth]

Re: What boating mistakes have you made?

Half sank my2000 Rxdi sea doo the second time out.hadnt even made a payment yet.was calling up some trim at the payphone on the launch with it tied up to the dock thinking "that's a sweet machine". Don't recall it sitting so low when I realized. dropped the phone and sprinted across the ramp to get my jeep with my flip flops flying off.Noplugs of course. My buddy who lived at the lake said I looked like a lost puppy when I recruited him to help me get the water out,right up the exaust and into the cylinders. Quite a water cannon coming out the plug holes! Ran fine for years after that. If it hadn't been tied to the dock I probably would have died trying to save it it id set out.

 

[Brian 26]

Re: What boating mistakes have you made?

Love the thread. Back straps, check. Forgot plug, check. Draged skeg on my slopped driveway, check. I personally don't have a good story that happened to me but I do have one about my brother in law that I got called into after it was all over to clean up the mess.

The guy has almost no boating experience but decides he needs to go out and buy the biggest rig his credit will afford. A 2005 Searay Sundeck 200. I offered to teach him how to load and launch it (as a public service so we all don’t get stuck behind him some day) but he declines my offer. Had he taken my offer one of the things I would have told him is – unless you’re certain the boat will start do not take it off the trailer until its running.

So off to the lake his goes for the maiden voyage with out me of course, puts his wife (my sister) in the boat, backs the new 20’ deck boat in and not only does he not even try to start it while it’s on the trailer he doesn't even wait to see if it starts before he jumps in the truck and high tails it out of there to park the truck 2 blocks down the road. So there’s my sister in the boat in the lake with the wind blowing her towards a concrete bridge, as she’s turning the key nothing is happening, so what does she do, turns the key harder and harder until it the whole key assembly rips apart. Luckily a passerby tows her back to the dock. Turns out that when they picked the boat up the night before they were sitting in it in the driveway listening to the radio, left it on all night and the battery was stone cold dead. I got there just in time to hear them argue about whose fault that was.

They ended up finding a replacement ignition which I installed right there at the dock (out of the way of the boat ramp of course) and we made it out in the water. Funny thing was - their dead 20’ boat was tied up at the dock right next to another boat full of a wife and daughters that couldn’t get theirs started either. I was helping them also and when the husband showed up, I tried to brief him on the situation and he told me no that wasn’t the problem and basically yelled at me to get off his boat. An hour later when he had his boat running (I was right and he was wrong about what the problem was BTW) I asked him for a jump start and he said no.

All in all that was a pretty interesting day, and looking back pretty funny.

 

[BigDog98]

Re: What boating mistakes have you made?

I once got my anchor hooked on a piece of cabal that was down there and then decided to drag it back to the dock when the cable snapped and my boat went flying right into the dock! All because i was to cheap to cut the anchor off !

 

[rivermouse]

Re: What boating mistakes have you made?

I almost sank the boat when I forgot to put the drain plug back in. I left a nice new anchor on the bottom when I forgot to bring it up .I got into shallow water and bent my prop on a 55 gallon steel drum some asshat had put there. Got caught in a sudden thunderburst with lightning and had to beach on the nearest shore and be beat with 1/2 hail and 60mph winds while the lightning was striking near by.Im sure there are more

 

[Lino]

Re: What boating mistakes have you made?

Baja Mexico, hit a rock with the inflatable rib, broke the rib support board, kicked the outboard into the up position, and we were all, what the hell was that, then the boat is folding in half as we hit waves.
On the way back the transom broke, the other inflatable the transom broke while out in the water.
13 hours on the road, inflatables cannot handle the weight of an outboard on rough roads for too long.

 

[cpenrose]

Re: What boating mistakes have you made?

Ah boy... So this is our first boat pretty much, and it's been about 2 years. We've only driven it maybe 15 times overall as it lived in NC for the first part of our ownership. Well it all began one day when our mechanic found bananas in the cabin. We were new and didn't know. We had the usual breakdown of one engine but always made it back in. The first issue I can remember up here all happened when striper fishing last spring. I was tired of pulling the anchor an for some reason told my brother to bump it to rip it out. Suddenly the line shot forward and almost pulled me in and instantly I knew the prop hit the line. So now we were floating around the Delaware Bay with no anchor and no starboard engine. In the end my brother jumped in the 65 deg water and cut the actual anchor off and we made it back in on one. Then once we had a full group of friends to take a cruise, and a guy got stuck in the sand bar directly behind our slip. We backed out to try and rip him off, and ran over our stern line... We've had so many more things happen that would take too long to explain, like some that involve taking on water, tapping a marker with the bow rail, ya know stuff that we could have almost died from.

 

[Fleetwin]

Re: What boating mistakes have you made?

I've got a REAL DOH! moment.

I bought a hitch extension (8") to go into my Class IV receiver. I was having to back my vehicle down further into the water than I liked. 8" made all the difference.

Anyway, that hitch extension now requires ONE extra pin.

Well, I hooked her up one day and took off, out of the driveway, only to have her completely "unhitch herself" in the middle of the street!!

At least I know the surge brake safety cables and brakes work.

So, here I am, in the middle of the street, with the nose of a very heavy trailer on the pavement.

I walk the "50 yards of shame" to my garage, get the floor jack and get everything right.

Thank GOD it was a weekday with nobody around.

Oh, the shame.

DUMB!!!!!!

 

[Brian 26]

Re: What boating mistakes have you made?

I had a similar moment. Moving a boat from the street to garage I quickly hitch up for the short jaunt, I hear an odd clunk when I start backing over the curb to my driveway. I get out and look to see the hitch has risen up higher than normal on the ball and appears to be barley hanging onto the ball (looking back I'm not sure if that was a problem or not but I thought it looked loose and needed to be re-attached). No problem I thought, just undo the clamp and put it back down. Well I forgot the trailer tires were up against the curb, when I pulled the trailer off the ball the 3000 boat and trailer came rocketing forward and crashing to the ground, barely missing my foot and truck bumper. I sat there blocking the street until my neighbor came out to help me lift the tongue back up.

I still get the creeps thinking about how I almost lost some toes on that deal.

 

[phillyg]

Re: What boating mistakes have you made?

Just yesterday (and I've been boating over 40 years) I hit bottom with the prop/skeg for the first time ever. Water level was very low and I got too close to the shallows in an area I'm familiar with. I'm so careful and it really grates me that I made this rookie mistake. Fortunately no damage except to my pride.

 

[Hashi]

Re: What boating mistakes have you made?

Just yesterday (and I've been boating over 40 years) I hit bottom with the prop/skeg for the first time ever. Water level was very low and I got too close to the shallows in an area I'm familiar with. I'm so careful and it really grates me that I made this rookie mistake. Fortunately no damage except to my pride.

Don't be too hard on yourself, phillyg. We've all made this mistake, especially when the water level is low...I know I have.

 

[Andysdad]

Re: What boating mistakes have you made?

Just spent a LOT of time reading this thread. I no longer feel like I am the only idiot here

My first year with a motor boat....still alive, so far.....

18 foot half-cabin, we're running down a local river, I figured the fuel level would be getting low, but we're nearly there so just asked a passenger to rotate the 25L tank 90 degrees to make sure the pickup is at the lowest point.

Minutes later the splutter of death; no fuel. I can't understand it as I thought turning the tank would have been enough.

It would been OK if they had rotated the tank 90 degrees like I asked; but no, he'd not turned it horizontally but vertically and lifted it 90 degrees up onto it's side! Of course the pickup was now the highest point......:facepalm:

We're 30 feet from rocks and drifting towards them fast; I send the "f***ing idiot" forward to get the anchor, the Admiral is pumping the fuel bulb like mad, I'm cranking the motor and finally, finally, finally it fires.

The Admiral made me apologise for the language.....it's the tank with a handle at one end that looks like an airline carry-on - putting it on edge is just wrong!


Not done the plug thing yet (nearly though), have launched with the transporrt arm locking the tilt (x2), towed the boat 5 miles with the trailer ball not locked (nose weight was just enough! Phew!), went swimming for the first time and we nearly couldn't get back in (what was that movie called? - had to stand on the cav plate), been too busy looking at gauges @20kts to see 4' wave abeam (wide open sea but a shallow area with the only waves for miles. Bruised the Admiral a bit there, but she still loves me :sorry. Ran it on the muffs for 10 minutes the other day to charge the battery, all OK, turned engine off. Then remembered there was no fuel tank connected :facepalm: - luckily ETECs are fuel misers!

 

[278 Vista]

Re: What boating mistakes have you made?

When I was splashing for the season last year, I was at the ramp taking the mooring cover off. A few snaps near the stern are pooched. I use a bunjee cord to prevent the cover from flapping in the wind. The bunjee cord was stretched pretty good. When I was taking it off the trailer, it got away from me. I had to have 3 front teeth rebuilt. It didn't hurt till I got the bill from my dentist.