What boating mistakes have you made?

[sphelps]

Re: What boating mistakes have you made?

OK this happened a couple weeks ago . Took the boat out to test my new guide post I made . We ran around for a bit then returned to the ramp . Son in law backed the trailer down . There was a guy on the dock and one boat waiting on us . So I ease up to the trailer and as I get closer the boat is not responding to me turning the wheel . By then I was not lined up well at all so I put it in reverse and thats when I heard the exhaust . Big dummy me had my finger on the trim button and had lifted the foot out of the water ! :facepalm:
Finally got the boat on the trailer . I looked over at the guy on the dock and said "welp that sure could have gone better " . He just kinda chuckled and said " Yep " :laugh:

 

[ziggy]

Re: What boating mistakes have you made?

I looked over at the guy on the dock and said "welp that sure could have gone better " . He just kinda chuckled and said " Yep " :laugh:

ya took it with a grain of salt man. ya did ok. just a minor error, no harm done i don't reckon.

my list of errors is pretty long. and some were some pretty bad mistakes.

over the years. i've,

not listened to the weather man and ended up blown onto the beach so bad i had to have help to get off the beach. got my boat beat sideways to death by waves for ten hours prior to help. ya could see where i'd been beached in the sand for a month after that indecent.

floated down the missouri river watching a green can from a long ways away till the point when i just missed snagging the can chain w/my drive.

beached over night on the river only to find the river had gone down a lot when i got up. almost didn't get the boat off the beach that day, got snagged by the sand bar that was now to shallow to go over as i was behind a wing dyke. came within inches of hitting that wing dyke that day with my drive.

not paying attention at night and almost got run over by a sailboat.

not paying attention at night and ran into the brush by the edge of the lake.

at night, mistook a white all around light of a boat for a vapor light on land. almost ran into that boat. good thing i was going slow and changed coarse at the last minute.

my first job was at a resort in MN. commuted by fishing boat. came home after dark w/o running lights. found someone else doing the same at wot. we both turn starboard at the second before impact. scared the you know what out of me. that boat had lights installed the next day.

didn't tighten the dist. cap properly after a tune up. ended up bending the rotor to the point of no run. it was windy out that day and not many folks on the lake. got lucky and a lady in a pontoon boat save my sorry xxx prior to blowing up on the rocks.

didn't take suntan lotion on a 105 mile river run in dead of summer. came back with severe sun burn. and i don't burn usually.

didn't wear a lanyard while loading a pwc. the lanyard got behind the throttle and left me at half throttle and no way to shut down. just missed the trailer, my boy, and the beach. did hit the dock and put a hand sized hole in my ski that day though.

i likely got more. those are just a few i remember...

hopefully i've learned from these mistakes and i have been real lucky in not having any thing really bad happening in all these instances... several of which could have ended tragically.

 

[theoldwizard1]

Re: What boating mistakes have you made?

I made the typical rookie mistakes (forgot drain plug, forgot transom hold down straps) the first couple of years, but I have one of the oddest ones.

My boat was anchored just off shore in front of the cottage I was renting. It rained that night and it was uncovered so it was sitting pretty low in the water. Hop in, flip the bilge pump switch, hear the motor and ... NOTHING ! Being an outboard aluminum boat the splash well seals up the bilge except for a small access hatch. With the hatch open I don't see anything interesting. I finally decide that the outlet hose was clogged. With no effective way to manually bail I ran to town and got a length of hose so I could run the outlet of the bilge pump out the access hatch.

Spider/wasp nest had clogged the bilge outlet hose ! Now I always back flush the bilge outlet hose and confirm that the pump works at least once a year. I probably should carry a 2-4' heavy gauge stainless steel wire in the boat, "just in case" !

 

[bajaunderground]

Re: What boating mistakes have you made?

Left the Baja anchored in one of the little lakes here in Colorado overnight...not uncommon for the lake, nor for me. I used a regular Danforth/Fluke type anchor sized for my boat...had 6' of chode and maybe 30' of line about 30yds of shore in a sandy bottom. The wind was almost non-existent that night, so no big deal...went to bed around midnight. We placed our camper about 20yds from the waters edge....woke up around 6:30am look out, no boat. So I get up a little freaked out, walk down the beach about 100yds where some younger 20 somethings were still partying. Asked if they saw my boat (smaller lake and groups of regular go there, mostly...we all are somewhat friendly) Chat with the dad of one, he's putting a jet ski in the water he says, "I'll have my son run you around to find it"

We hop in his son's 3.0L Bayliner and it takes forever to start, once it does it's running very rough...so I open the doghouse and low and behold 2 sparkplug wires are off the sparkplugs...we put 'em back on and all the sudden thee boat runs as it should. (apparently, he change sparkplugs the evening before and forgot to replace the 2 wires...I'm merely speculating here, but I'd bet he had been drinking?)

We cruise out about 50yds and head East along the Southern shore...about .5 mile away, there's my boat, anchored, in a cove with my tube still attached and...doesn't look like it every touched shore, just drug the anchor until it found a new purchase...

Needless to say, we no longer left it anchored unless we used the screw-in type anchors!

EDIT: I should mention that along the path it traveled there were approximately 20-30 boats anchored about the same distance off shore...it was sheer luck it didn't hit one or all of those boats!

 

[ziggy]

Re: What boating mistakes have you made?

The wind was almost non-existent that night, so no big deal...went to bed around midnight

that's almost exactly how i got blowed up on the beach. red sky at night sailor delight. not a breath of breeze. i parked on the beach for my over night. middle of the night the wind came up and blew me on the beach.... lesson learned. the weather man had forecast just what came about. i just didn't believe him since it was so nice and calm out the night before the storm...

 

[theoldwizard1]

Re: What boating mistakes have you made?

...about .5 mile away, there's my boat, anchored, in a cove with my tube still attached and...doesn't look like it every touched shore, just drug the anchor until it found a new purchase...

The place I rent has a deadman (old tire filled with concrete) about 25' off the dock. The owner says, hook up there. Sandy bottom, some what sheltered bay, about 3-4' of water, why not.

Well, the first night I swore it moved 5'. By the second or third night it was more like 10-20' and it was head toward his pontoon on a lift. I dragged the deadman back and get out my Danforth with 12' of chain (no line). I use both now. Last time there I pulled the deadman more than 5' overnight before the Danforth hooked.

 

[gm280]

Re: What boating mistakes have you made?

WOW, where do I even start?

Okay, I did the usual leaving the plug out ONE time and couldn't figure out why the boat wouldn't plane out. After water filled up to the subfloor around my feet did I realize I forgot to put the plug in. Luckily we made it to the shore and pumped water for about half an hour before we could go again (after installing the plug of course). :facepalm:

Then there was the time the family and I were our cruising and didn't see everybody screaming at us to not go any further. Not knowing the lake we were on we didn't know we were in about 1' to 2' of water. Once I throttled down the boat set on the mud. That was interesting getting it back into good water. Luckily I had tilt and trim and managed to use that and some finesse on the throttle to get us out of that situation. :stupid:

Then there was the time a friend of mine asked me if he could drive the boat. I figured okay and gave him the keys and allowed him to take it out. He didn't back the boat out of the ramp area, he just turned it and throttled up across the concrete with the motor running and I'm sure made a new channel cut into the launch ramp as I was screaming to stop. Obviously he didn't hear me and kept going. A lot of new scratches and I think it was a much smaller diameter stainless steel prop too... :sorrow:

Before I installed a Jack-Plate on it, it would run about 52MPH but not wide open. You couldn't run it wide open because it would start chin-walking and nearly throw you out of the boat. However, another friend of mine told me he could drive through that chin-walk because HE knew all about power boats and how to drive them... I should have said NO, but I didn't and I was a passenger with him. I think my fingers dug holes into the fiberglass that day as he tried over and over to drive through that chin-walk without success but darn near killing us. uke: Once I installed a Jack-Plate and raised the engine a few inches, it drove like it was on a rail to 63MPH most any time...

There more but I'll leave you all with that for now...

 

[aldan93]

Re: What boating mistakes have you made?

#1 Wow, crossed my plug wires on my engine block during 1st spring run after winterization, idled fine even trolled out a little, led to stalling and drifting towards breakwall then had a hand from god reach out and touch me, of course I was alone adrift. 5 second fix too stuborn to think this was possible, I labeled them after this!

#2 snapped trolling plate off thinking it was up.

#3 lost 4 dipsey divers and snapped 1 pole lost another pole, we think we snagged a commerical fishing net on Lake Erie submerged in 70 FOW in Canada near the boarder. small blip on sonar.

#4 dead battery listening to tunes, sonar, and VHF on drifting.

#5 buying a boat that needed work!

 

[AGrayEngineering]

Re: What boating mistakes have you made?

Silly mistake, but I felt like an idiot. I cruised out to the middle of the lake in my 15' MFG Gipsy to meet up with some friends swimming of their boats. I pulled up, shut the motor off, put out the ladder and dove off the back of the boat. When I surfaced everybody was chuckling and someone commented "Hey next time you dive off the boat, you should drop anchor first" (as they pointed behind me). I turned around to see the boat 30 ft away and still drifting. Thankfully it was a calm day and I was able to catch up to it.

 

[Volphin]

Re: What boating mistakes have you made?

Letting my Dad back my boat in. He put it in Reverse and the truck didn't move. He promptly got out and looked under the dash and found it... and pulled it. Almost lost the old man, a truck and a boat that day.