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One of those days...


Boomer

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Ok, seeing the other thread about hitting something, and coming out unscathed reminded me to post what happened to me last weekend.

I decided to drive down to the coast (Texas) to visit my dad, and watch Texas beat up on Oklahoma. Against my wife's intuition, I decided to take the boat down, and go wakeboarding on a little lake I used to boat on all the time when I lived down there.

The lake, Coletto Creek Reservoir, is a relatively small lake, fairly shallow, and had lots of areas with standing timber. However, the main areas and channels are clear, and I've never had a problem with debris or hitting anything, well, except once before, which was what my wife remembers.

The last time we went there, several years back in my Mastercraft Prostar 205, we hit a submerged tree, log, or something right in the middle of the lake, away from the visible timber. It didn't do a lot of damage, but did knock a little chunk out of the gel coat.

Anway, after that happened, she is scared of the lake, and didn't want to take the new VLX. I wish I'd have listened to her, lol.

So we get there Sunday morning. I didn't expect much boat traffic at all, since season is nearing the end. The guy at the entry gate seemed kind of a jerk, which should have been my sign. This is hick country, and they like their fishing there. Us recreational boaters just mess up their fishing, so I think he was giving me some attitude. WHATEVER.

When I got down to the ramp area, there were like 50 bass boat trailers. GREAT, a freaking fishing tourney. Again, bad sign.

I noticed the water was about two feet down or so, which I'd never seen on this lake. It's normally constant-level, but with little rain lately, it was down. Again not good, since it's normally not that deep. About 35 feet near the dam, 12-15 in many areas, 8-10 where we ride a lot.

When I got on the ramp, it didn't feel good. There was sand washed up on the ramps from the water being low, making the trailer tilt uneven. Also, since the ramp was relatively short, my truck was still mostly on the parking lot area, while the trailer was on the ramp, making it even steeper. When the boat came off the trailer, it was so steep, the winch eye hit the V-bunk on the trailer, knocking a big chunk out of it, and raising the wood pretty bad.

Great I thought, I have to figure out how to fix that before putting the boat on, and I had no idea if it damaged the boat.

I walked back to the lake after parking, and since it was shallow I had to walk out like 100 feet through mud and hydrilla to get into the boat, ugh. That stuff doesn't bother me too much, but I could do without walking through hydrilla.

I took off back to an area where we used to ride, and my depth alarm started going off (set at 6-feet). I slowed down, and actually was plowing through sand and mud, depth gauge showing 3-feet, 1.5 feet, no reading, etc. Nice. I slowly worked my way out of there, hoping like hell I didn't completely run aground. Was kicking up mud and stuff behind me. I really had to just idle along, because if I tried to plane out, the back end dug into the bottom as the bow rose.

Anyway, made it out and decided to just go out to the big area and see if we could wakeboard. I was cruising right in the main channel about 25 mph, then suddenly, WHAM! Then 1 second later, WHAM again, that horrible sound as you run over something.

CRAP, SOB! I should have listened to my wife, damn, lol. I stopped, very pissed. I've never known anyone to run over a tree or something and not cause $3k damage at least, so I was very depressed. I felt sick to my stomach, and was so wishing I hadn't put the boat in.

I had her pull up the back seat, check around the V-drive to see if we were taking on water. At this point I was concerned about sinking, it sounded and felt that bad.

She said no, so I put it back in gear to see if it was vibrating. I don't THINK I felt anything unusual, but when you are looking for it, you always think you feel something. My wife said she thought it was vibrating, but my dad said, "Hell no, it's not vibrating."

By now I was pissed, and just wanted to go back to the trailer, call it a day, and assess the damage.

I decided we'd anchor in the big area of the lake, and swim a little to at least relax a little. I wasn't going to wakeboard at this point, with possible damage to the running gear.

Well, I could barely even get my son and friend to swim, wusses. Water temp had dropped to 80, and they kept complaining it was cold. WHATEVER, felt good to me, but oh well.

I donned my goggles, and tried looking at the prop. Water was murkier than I'm used to, but it looked and felt perfect? Damn, interesting...

Ok, we swam a while and headed back.

I walked the 100-feet again through the hydrilla and mud, and went to get the trailer. I luckily had a hammer in the truck and was able to "repair" the V-bunk board with the hammer enough to give it a smooth surface.

Back to the ramp. I had to back so far in, the rear pole guards floated off into the lake, nice. When we finally got it on, no matter what I couldn't get the damn boat all the way up to touch the roller. Got it like 1/2" away, thought I was going to break the winch, so gave up.

Well, when I pulled it out, and climbed under, I was amazed... There was one tiny gel-coat scratch in front of the gorilla fins, that could have been caused by anything, it was not even deep enough to feel with your fingernail.

The fins, shaft, prop, and rudder seemed completely untouched? WTH? Closer inspection revealed where it appears the fins MAY have contacted something (sorta clean on the front edge in a couple areas) but even that's not for sure.

They felt tight as ever, the prop had no dings or even discolorations.

I have no idea how I could hit something that would be that loud, and felt, and have zero damage? I can only guess the big gorilla fins completely cut in half the tree/log, whatever it was?

So, even though the day sucked, and just went wrong in so many ways, there is no lasting damage other than a big chunk knocked out of the trailer bunk, and even that caused no damage to boat.

Wow, I must count my lucky stars, listen to my wife, and never go back to that damn lake again!

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Boomer,

You obviously hit something soft (maybe a big bass!)..I once hit a sheet of submerged black plastic at WOT, and the noise was incredibly loud and awful, BUT like you ,no damage..My friend , you had a GOOD day!!

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