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Launch ramp story


WakeGirl

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This past weekend we traveled to a new lake for us along with CarveItUp & family. We had a great time & were so sore by Sunday that all we could really do was surf. That's a good weekend in my book. Thumbup.gif Anyway, probably the most interesting part of the weekend (& there were a few) was on Sunday morning. We were using 1 truck to launch the boats in the morning & retrieve them at night, & because on Sunday we wanted to get Carve's camper on the truck & ready to go before we set out on the lake, it took a little time that morning. No big deal, we sat on the lake while we waited for the guys to swap everything around. So I was sitting in our boat near the ramp so that I could see when they came down to pick them up, & I saw something that I won't soon forget.

An old man with a really big camper on his truck drove straight down the ramp to retrieve his boat, thinking that he could turn around at the bottom. You have to realize that you can't, you have to make the turn at the top & back down. I can understand why he didn't want to though, it's a tricky ramp that isn't a straight shot to the water. He proceeded to jack-knife the trailer. So then after many, many attempts to get himself out of the situation (none of which worked), he finally realized that he was going to have to unhook & get turned around without the trailer. As him & his wife were trying to do this, a guy with a Mastercraft X10 that was ready to launch came down & asked if he could help, which the old man accepted. This guy helped them:

~ get the trailer unhooked

~ get the trailer turned around

~ get the trailer pushed up the hill to hook up to the truck that the old man turned around

~ get the trailer positioned correctly when he saw that the old couple were having trouble getting the depth right

~ get the boat off of the dock (apparently there was a problem there as well)

~ get the boat on the trailer, winched & hooked up

There are a lot of people out there that would have completely lost it, & while I'm sure that he was frustrated (I spoke with him after the fact & there's no doubt in my mind of that), he made the best of a bad situation to get those folks on their way. He could have made an already bad situation so much worse. I also have no doubt that this will come back on him ten-fold - when he's really in need, some other person will be there to give him a hand. Anyway, we see so much stuff go on at ramps that it's easy to take a calloused attitude about stuff like this, & this was a refreshing site to see.

So the next time that you go to make a slam on a MC owner, remember this story. ;) He was pretty cool about the whole thing, all the way around.

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Very nice of him. Yeah I pulled the ole parallel parking bit with my boat when docking on Saturday again. These freakin inboards are exciting to park next to the dock some time. People just eased my boat away from theirs and said no problem. Biggest thing to remember when pulling this stunt is to not get frustrated and slam it forward and back. Best thing to do is turn the boat off and just float a bit to get it straightened out.

Anyways, I'm glad people are so far very friendly and helpful. Especially when someone like me tries to load a boat on the upwind side of the dock. (This doesn't work so well without rope!)

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I was thinking what a nice guy to offer up some help, then I remembered this... ;)

Serious glad to see there are some decent people out there still.

gallery_64_37_73715.jpg

He said that we could never mind the sign. :lol: Seriously, that guy was alright too.

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True "boaters" are a good breed no matter what brand they run. It's just been since boating has become a status symbol that more A-holes have shown up on the water. I could correlate it to the beginning of the wakeboard craze but that would just start a huge war so I'll just let it go. Whistling.gif

:lol:

Just yesterday out on Bullard's Bar, Woody towed a new Centurion Avalanche 45 minutes to Dark Day launch ramp and the boat owner was so appreciative that he didn't even bother burdening Woody with gas money or anything. Bash.gif Some people. Unfortunately the pinheads seem to outnumber the good so when someone does the right thing it seems out of place. :(

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Thanks Tracie, good story.. I feel all warm and fuzzy now - Yes.gif

Well, if you want me to take it away then I can do that too. :lol: When I was talking with him afterward, I gave him basically a "good on you" kind of thing because that kind of act shouldn't go unnoticed IMO. He really looked like he wanted someone or something to take his frustration out on.

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Thanks Tracie, good story.. I feel all warm and fuzzy now - Yes.gif

Well, if you want me to take it away then I can do that too. :lol: When I was talking with him afterward, I gave him basically a "good on you" kind of thing because that kind of act shouldn't go unnoticed IMO. He really looked like he wanted someone or something to take his frustration out on.

Yup and good-on-you for giving him the atta boy. I think that goes a long way to reinforce his good actions.. That way he leaves the situation knowing he did the right thing, vs cursing how much time he wasted helping those folks

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So the next time that you go to make a slam on a MC owner, remember this story. ;) He was pretty cool about the whole thing, all the way around.

Well, next time you see a MasterCraft owner, just remember that likely the only reason he bought the MC instead of a 'Bu is that the MC dealer was closer to him than the Malibu dealer.

And once he dropped $50,000 on his boat, he became as emotionally invested in it as any other high quality inboard tow boat owner, like Malibu or CC.

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Thanks Tracie, good story.. I feel all warm and fuzzy now - Yes.gif

Well, if you want me to take it away then I can do that too. :lol: When I was talking with him afterward, I gave him basically a "good on you" kind of thing because that kind of act shouldn't go unnoticed IMO. He really looked like he wanted someone or something to take his frustration out on.

Yup and good-on-you for giving him the atta boy. I think that goes a long way to reinforce his good actions.. That way he leaves the situation knowing he did the right thing, vs cursing how much time he wasted helping those folks

Yeah, I didn't really think of it in those terms when I was talking with him, but that's so true. It really did need to be acknowledged. The thing was, it took for-freakin'-ever. I mean, I can't put into words the patience that this guy showed. And the fact that the old guy accepted the help as graciously as he did, that all by itself was rare enough. I've seen way too many old codgers out there that fit that particular description to a tee - you wouldn't dare offer help to someone like that. But all around it was a pretty cool thing to see.

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always good to see other good people out there regardless of brand...

end of last year a couple was in their new to them (05') MC and had just launched when something went wrong. we offered to tow them back to the ramp and helped them get it on.

not two weeks later, we were out and our impeller went out. we had seen the MC couple about 1/2 mi back and asked these young dudes wakeskating on a jetski to head back and see if they could give us a tow... sure enough, they came right away and pulled us about a mile or so back to the ramp.

Edited by smedman
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Good for him! (MC owner...)

I'm working on racking up imaginary help credits too... towed a day cruiser back to a ramp on Father's day. Absolutely made that Dad's day. My 5 year old said (unprompted...) "Daddy, that's the nicest thing ever..." Which made MY day. :blush:

Patrick

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I'm almost sure they make those for Malibu's too Whistling.gif

i want one, where do you buy them at

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The one time we really needed help at the ramp (car keys got dropped in the lake), a family with two jet skis helped us out big time. Normally, we would rather not have the jet skiers on the lake, but this time we were sure glad these people were there.

I guess you never know when you'll need help someday and from whom the help will come.

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Lake Owyhee out on the very eastern edge of the state. We drove so far that we literally drove into the next time zone. Beautiful place, I'll see if I can scrounge up some pictures.

If you were in Indiana, you just drive a few counties over for a different time zone! Mad.gif

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i want one, where do you buy them at
Cry.gif Grammar Police!! Help!! Cry.gif

I was just discussing this exact mis-use of the language at work the other day. There is no need for the word "at" in this sentence. A guy at work took a phone call and responds to the caller "Where you at?" I was appalled. :(

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i want one, where do you buy them at
Cry.gif Grammar Police!! Help!! Cry.gif

I was just discussing this exact mis-use of the language at work the other day. There is no need for the word "at" in this sentence. A guy at work took a phone call and responds to the caller "Where you at?" I was appalled. :(

Boy, you would hate it in the Chicago area. We've perfected the use of prepositions as sentence enders. You know where I'm coming from?

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Thanks Tracie, good story.. I feel all warm and fuzzy now - Yes.gif

Well, if you want me to take it away then I can do that too. :lol: When I was talking with him afterward, I gave him basically a "good on you" kind of thing because that kind of act shouldn't go unnoticed IMO. He really looked like he wanted someone or something to take his frustration out on.

Yup and good-on-you for giving him the atta boy. I think that goes a long way to reinforce his good actions.. That way he leaves the situation knowing he did the right thing, vs cursing how much time he wasted helping those folks

Yeah, I didn't really think of it in those terms when I was talking with him, but that's so true. It really did need to be acknowledged. The thing was, it took for-freakin'-ever. I mean, I can't put into words the patience that this guy showed. And the fact that the old guy accepted the help as graciously as he did, that all by itself was rare enough. I've seen way too many old codgers out there that fit that particular description to a tee - you wouldn't dare offer help to someone like that. But all around it was a pretty cool thing to see.

So Tracie, it makes me wonder why you didn't help Whistling.gif Now, this old guy is going to be tell everyone he sees, Yeah this really nice guy with "such and such brand boat" helped me out so much " what a guy" and this lady with a really nice Malibu just sat there and watched the whole time. Tongue.gif

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Yeah I know. You kind of had to be there, minimal room on the docks & I was by myself in the boat, so I could have tied up but it would have blocked things up more than they already were. Plus, I'm really not good with a trailer at all - I seriously doubt I would have been any help to them on that count. Joe's the Backer-Upper in the family. But maybe they do think that, I'd had that thought.

To be perfectly honest (& this may sound pretty crappy, but here it is), I didn't want my boat anywhere near that ramp. The MC was up top with his tow rig, ready to launch so it was out of the line of fire. If I had gone to offer help, the only place to tie up would have been on the ramp side of the dock almost directly below the debacle. Not a good situation to put the boat in.

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