What odd things have you seen people doing with their boat?

[coreybv]

Re: What odd things have you seen people doing with their boat?

Long time ago, my second or third time out on the first boat that was mine. It was one of those dry years and the lake was down, which I didn't take into account when I went around the point outside the marina. Depth finder still read 20 feet, but all around my boat was ankle deep except for the rear 2 feet.

So, yeah, I'm feeling kinda foolish, but no damage done. Now, I'm about 40 yards from the shoreline, standing ankle deep in the water pushing my boat back out, and some guy comes in up on plane between me and the shoreline, sees me and kills the throttle. Being a bigger and heavier boat, his outdrive was sunk into the mud with the hull resting on the bottom.

Not feeling quite as foolish anymore. A bit foolish, yes, but that sure took the edge off.

Later that same day I was up the river a ways when I see a 30-ish foot Baja screaming around in an area where I would have been nervous taking my little boat. I tried to wave him down and warn him, but on that lake the Baja crowd is a different class of people and they don't have the time of day for the "trash" in little ol' runabouts. After he left I trimmed all the way up and went to check that area out. Hopped out and walked around. Roughly knee deep, maybe waist deep in places. Being fully up on plane is the only thing that saved him. I saw several spots on the bottom where his skegs were slicing through the mud, and quite a few tree stumps hidden just an inch or so under the surface.

How do people that stupid ever accumulate enough money to buy such an expensive boat?

 

[Mel Taylor]

Re: What odd things have you seen people doing with their boat?

I'm not sure whether you would call this odd or just business as usual:

Back in the late 1980s my dad and I were on a fishing trip to Lake Novillo in Sonora, Mexico. We had a house there on the Moctezuma River, probably forty miles up from the dam. We started out to do some night fishing one afternoon just before sundown, heading downstream towards the dam.

A few miles down from the house we passed a panga type boat, like the Mexicans use, going the other direction, up towards San Pedro de La Cueva which is the village farthest up toward the head of the lake. The lake is long and relatively narrow and usually when you pass a boat you wave at the people in it and they wave back. We waved, but the two guys in it kept their heads down and just kept going as if we weren't there. As we passed them we could see that the boat was loaded with small bales of something. We remarked on the fact that those guys sure didn't act very friendly and how unusual that was but didn't think any more about it.

A few days later when we got back to the states there was an article in the paper about a raid on a major pot growing operation at a village not too far below the dam the day after we saw the guys heading the other direction in the panga. My suspicion is that someone had been tipped off and was moving the bulk of their merchandise before the raid came off.

 

[puma4440]

Re: What odd things have you seen people doing with their boat?

I was part of this one...

While fishing the river, my buddy spots a plastic barrel floating that he just has to have. We motor up to it(his boat), and I fished while he rigged it up. He asked me to keep an eye on it while he towed it back, what I didn't know was that he used a 50' rope, and used every inch of it. So here we are towing this blue 55 gallon drum behind us back to the dock, all the while its doing weird stuff you would expect a drum to do 50' behind a boat. We pull up to the dock, and an older guy asked us what the heck we were doing, and the only thing I could think to tell him was "Big muskies like big plugs", and he had no idea what to respond with.

 

[coolbri70]

Re: What odd things have you seen people doing with their boat?

when i was 13 out boating with my family we were flagged down by some people on a boat that had broken down one of the passengers was covered in blood and reaked of alcohol we took him to the marina where an ambulance came and took him we went back to help the remaining boaters (tow their boat) got the rest of the story, they were racing the guy he lost controll crashed they went rescued him then their boat broke down, we went to look at the scene and could see where he drove up the beach into the treetops made a big u turn in the woods and back out to a cliff where he managed to stop with the front 1/3 of his boat over a 30' drop from the lake

 

[SPOONMAN1]

Re: What odd things have you seen people doing with their boat?

One of the most entertaining episodes I saw at the lake was about three years ago on a hot july day we were camped along side the ramp and this guy backed a trailer down with a Dodge deisel truck that had a very severe fuel leak and he completly coated the semi steep ramp with fuel, and once he pulled his pontoon out and the water mixed with it on the asphalt, needless to say the ramp was useless for hours. We would advise people of the hazard to walk on it, not to mention try to pull a boat out, but everyone thought that their truck would be different. A good day to sit in the shade and enjoy the show.

 

[Blacksting]

Re: What odd things have you seen people doing with their boat?

A short trip across the bay to Cedar Bch ended as i pulled up to the dock . my g/f ( whatta trooper ) was sitting on the bow waiting to tie off when i lost reverse thereby losing my brakes . worse than that , reverse became foward as i gunned it str8 into the bulkhead and riquoched up over the dock . needless to say she was flipped onto the deck head first . well the booze was good medicine till later that same night she was walking along the dock when yet another boat slammed into the dock only to catch her legs and dump her on her butt . ,.....like i said , ' whatta trooper ',...

 

[RogersJetboat454]

Re: What odd things have you seen people doing with their boat?

Was at a buddy's house helping him and his dad make preparations to launch the float for his pier from the community beach. Well sometime about late morning while taking a break to enjoy a malt based adult beverage, we hear this horrible dragging/banging sound coming down the road toward the beach. We look and see it's one of his idiot neighbors driving an Econoline van, but what's that behind him? He rounds the corner turning down on to the beach heading for the water. The thing that was making the horrible noise was a 8 foot fg dinghy he was DRAGGING behind the van with a piece of clothesline attaching the dinghy to the bumper... :facepalm:

The nitwit launched it, and tied off to a shallow mooring near the beach. We didn't stick around long enough to see if it was taking on water, but I wouldn't have been a bit surprised if it was....

 

[Captain Shikaboo]

Re: What odd things have you seen people doing with their boat?

I got hit up on a dock by some lady in a boat with her kids selling girl scout cookies. I was pretty upset I didn't have any cash on me. Thin mints would've hit the spot at the time.

 

[Mikeyboy]

Re: What odd things have you seen people doing with their boat?

I love stories like these. Always good to remember them when I do something dumb so I can smile and say at least I'm not that dumb (usually lol).

 

[Davem3]

Re: What odd things have you seen people doing with their boat?

Yep, I finally get to post in here, although I am still not sure if this is good or bad............

Well, Friday, I get out of work early, due to running out of hours ( I am a truck driver), and figured what the hell, i will go test out the NEW Tohatsu 6 HP in Flint Pond near my house.

Okay, i get there and there is this guy with the salesman from D*** R****** Marine at the ramp, appartently, the guy was going to buy this 16' Jason Bass boat with a 60HP Johnson on it, nice looking toy too

well, anywho, he actually looks intelligent, taking off the straps , putting the plug and such and setting up....... Then he does the ROOKIE mistake of unhooking the winch line ON land.................anyway, he starts to back in, starts the jackknife,slams on the brakes and YEP you can guess what happened next.............I wonder if he has to pay for it at that point, and WTH was the salesman thinking???? I would NEVER let a customer use his/her vehicle, OR back it in until it was fully paid for first. Still wondering how things went in HIS house that night, it could not have been pretty at all............

 

[Home Cookin']

Re: What odd things have you seen people doing with their boat?

I was launching my boat yesterday and tried it with the boat not floating at all--I don't use this trailer much so I'm still experimenting. Roller trailer, obviously; 21' boat. I learned before to tie off the lines b/c you can't hold them against the boat when it rolls off. Fairly steep ramp but not extreme.
Anyway, I just gave the boat a small push, not expecting much and it took off so fast it was scary. Yanked the lines (cleated to the dock) good and hard. Makes me respect the safety chain until launch time even more, and tying off 2 lines for back-up.

 

[dvtran]

Re: What odd things have you seen people doing with their boat?

One of my good friends, his brother and myself headed out on the lake on a fine thursday about 4 years ago. The weather was perfect. A toasty 33 degrees celsius. After about 8 cold ones each. We decided to header back home. And to get home we had to go through a channel from the lake we were on to the lake where he docks his boat. We grew up on this body of water and know every twist and turn in this 25 foot wide 2 km long channel. And throughout the years we would rip through it going anywhere from 30-45 mph. Anyways on the second last turn his steering cable decides to call it a day also. Sending the boat straight into the weeds and flipping upside down going about 35 mph. Everything went in slow motion as I was thrown out of the boat. As I was pondering my life skipping across 6 inches of swamp water, I couldnt help but notice the boat right beside me with the prop straight in the air. As things started to come to a stop, i had no idea where my friend and his brother ended up. Well all of a sudden my friend pops out from underneath the boat. We look at each other and both said "wheres Ryan?" i dive underneath the hardtop and find him sitting in the only pocket of air, still holding onto his budweiser. We finally all get to the surface and see if we are able to flip the boat back on its hull. No chance that was happening. We were still about 2km from any dock. So on we went swimming back with 1 life jacket between the three of us. We get about 30 min into our journey and notice a wakeboard boat and wave them down. they graciously pick us up and take us home where we get another friend to launch his boat and go on a retrieval mission. We towed the old gal back to home base and notice the hardtop is crushed almost flush with the hull. We all were basically lucky to get out of the situation with only a couple of scratches.

All in all we were ok but could have seriously hurt someone if they were coming the other way. I have learned from this incident but my good friend still thinks he is invincible.

 

[Home Cookin']

Re: What odd things have you seen people doing with their boat?

^^^ The Lord looks out for fools and drunkards^^^

 

[korygrandy]

Re: What odd things have you seen people doing with their boat?

Last summer I saw a class act. Typical jock comes flying into a popular kids swimming beach with his jetboat. Most people idle up and throw an anchor out, not this guy, he comes flying in and just embeds his jet boat in the sand, jumps out and proceeds to patrol for the hotties.

After a quick stroll down the beach of evil eyes, he quickly realizes the hotties he saw have now turned to pissed off mommies as he nearly ran their children over. Needless to say there were about 100 people at this beach and not a single one of us found it in our hearts to help this fool get his boat off the sand.

On the plus side, the children continued to have fun splashing and playing while he struggled to make as quickly an exit as he did an entrance...FAIL!

 

[korygrandy]

Re: What odd things have you seen people doing with their boat?

Does this count? Sunday morning, 8:00 am., in a cove in a neighborhood, 1 woman, 2 guys, on the passenger cockpit seat (one of those elevated pedestal types), doing what they shouldn't ought to on a Sunday morning in a cove in a neighborhood.
I was running the water out of my whaler and about broadsided a moored sailboat!

WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER! I was "bird watching" last year as I was parked in a cove and got a free show from a "well lit" apartment on shore. So I guess on this one I was the one doing the strange thing in the boat...hahaha.

EDIT: I am not a tom, I merely had the same thought every other guy would have if he was out in his boat and saw this. Is that...what i...think it is??? CHECK!

 

[tnriver]

Re: What odd things have you seen people doing with their boat?

Was it a Tater gun?

 

[tnriver]

Re: What odd things have you seen people doing with their boat?

Jan 2012. The Delta Mariner a ship on its way to Cape Canabral FL with NASA & jet parts from Alabama hit and knocked out 300+ feet of road and bridge in Aurora, KY. On the Kentucky Lake/ TN River. Shut down river and all boat trafic for days. Got KY state vrs USA Gov & NASA. Hmmm who's gonna win.
"It was dark and foggy night" But still, Where was the capt? Did they not have sophisticated navigational equipment? How fast do you think they were plowing the water? I'm at the moored at the KY State Park Marina less than 1/4 mile as the crow flies.

 

[MH Hawker]

Re: What odd things have you seen people doing with their boat?

Their many many times I have thought about keeping a tater gun on board for jet ski target pratice.

 

[tnriver]

Re: What odd things have you seen people doing with their boat?

I cannot recall where I saw it but someone had turned an old boat wooden boat into a planter full of beautiful flowers in their very large, well landscaped front yard!

When I worked at a Marine parts & service department I had a customer buy the thickest rope we had to trim his homemade bar he made out of 1/2 of a boat. He was ahead of his time on the "Man Cave".

 

[filthy]

Re: What odd things have you seen people doing with their boat?

Sometimes me and a buddy would get to the boat ramp in the middle of the night to avoid the paystation fella, back the boat right up to the waters edge, sit in the boat and throw a couple o lines out, more than once we found ourselves having far too many bevarages to even think about fishing the next day so we would just stay in the boat ( still on trailer) with the rods out the back, Got some pretty wierd looks when others start gettin to the ramp and and us sleep fishin in a boat that's not even in the water! Ahhh good times!