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Confession time... Lets hear the stories


tccombs

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I posted this earlier in another thread and it got me thiking that I should make a new thread.

I thought it would be fun to hear the dumb or embarrassing funny mistakes we have all made.

Okay if this doen't make you feel better nothing will...

Dont beat yourself up over something like that. There are a million things that can go wrong while boating. I'm a great boater always very safe very careful.. I've been skiing for 30 years now. But You will not find any boater on this site who can say they have never made a mistake while boating.

To make you feel better i have 2 embarassing stories for you, I'll come clean about mine... first.

The day I met my wife, a freind brought her onto my boat. We had instant chemisty. To say i was distracted is an understatement! I was in awe ... I just couldn't take my eyes off of her. We dropped anchor and had lunch with a few other boats that were tied together. I was trying so hard to impress her. We were having a great time and started talking about all the dumb things we had seen other people do while boating as the other boats started to untie from us and leave. I was mid sentance... right in the the middle of bashing some other boater when in a moment of pure stupidity, I hit the gas.. and ran over my own anchor line..

This One is my personal favorite, Hope he doesn't get mad at me for this.....

It was my buddy, who is also a great driver. nearing the end of a long houseboat trip on a large lake, A bunch of us were sitting in the hot tub and watching as he took his boat about 200 feet from the houseboats to swim, bathe and clean the scum off the sides of his boat. When he finished he got in the drivers seat and started to idle forward. When he realized he had forgotten to put his bumper out. so he stood up and leaned over the side to attach his bumper. As he did, his sunglasses fell off his face into the water. So he dove for them because they were so expensive. Well he got them!

He rose to the surface, with his sunglasses held high in his hand smiling and looking at us thinking he was being cheered by all of us for making the spectacular grab.

He looked at us trying to figure out what we were pointing at... He looked over to see his boat leaving without him beause the boat was still in gear with nobody now in it.

Being a great swimmer he started to do a mad sprint.... and made about 3 strokes before he decided he liked his boat more than his his beloved sunglasses and dropped them to the bottom.

He had gained on it and was only about five feet from reaching the back deck when he got too tired and it began to slip away...

Meanwhile all of us on the houseboat looking like a bunch of keystone cops... all of us on the house boat were trying to jump in our boats to go help.

we were all too late the boat hit the muddy shore.. and beached itself.

Luckly the only damage was his pride.

Here is mine from an earlier post

Edited by tccombs
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I saw a guy leave his van in reverse at the ramp, (reverse lights were still on), jumped out of his van to unhook the boat from trailer, and van takes off into the water. Sunk his van, trailer, and bass boat.<br /><br />Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk 2<br /><br />

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I was pulling a friend of mine's wife behind my boat. We were pretty loaded down with ballast (including around 700 lbs in the bow), so the wake was pretty big. As we approached a no-ski zone I began to make the turn around to take her back the other direction. She decided that she was ready to stop riding, so she tapped out as I was about midway through the turn.

Mistake #1: Instead of turning the opposite direction of the way I was turning and letting the wakes dissipate, I decided to turn into what I call "The Gauntlet", which is the area where the turn-around wakes converge into a rolling, washy, monstrous mess.

Mistake #2: I thought as I was approaching "The Gauntlet", Oh, I can just hammer the throttle and get the bow up high enough to make it over this mess...NOPE!

I took a tidal wave over the windshield and SOAKED everything in the boat. It took me a week to get every nook and cranny dry...never again...

Brett B. can chime in on this one, he was one of the people I soaked...

Edited by Love2Ride
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Lets go back in time, Some 33 Years ago, Just out of HS Taking my Dads boat to the lake, A friend and myself and my dog, Long story short ...we thought it would be fun to pull a 12x12 wrestling mat behind my Dads 16 ft Beech craft, Way before all the cool water toys kids have now, Anyway My Friend 6 Ft 9 280Lbs ( Played For Oregon) Thus why I;m a Duck Fan, Anyway So its just him on this mat and my dog and me in the boat, Everything is going great until this larger boat comes along side and take a look at what we are doing, As they leave it throws out a massive wake that we hit, And next thing you know i'm in the water, Thrown out directly behind the boat, Very lucky I have all my Limbs!!! But Now I see my buddy fly past me still on the Mat with only the dog to drive the boat, The boat circles around hard and Comes right at me, I swim for my life and the mat Dives down and the rope breaks, So I make it to the Mat with my friend and we are both in shock...The boat takes off racing around the lake in an out of control circle, as it does the boat begins to head wider and wider, a few more passes and it will hit the shore, Luckily the people who came by and unknowingly knock me out, saw what had happened and raced to get along side, when they saw it was way too dangerous they though to knock its wake into our boat to get it to turn into itself, that did the trick and so it began to turn in a smaller circle into the middle. Thankfully it finally got so small it raced full speed into the tightest left turn and did that for an hour and a half...( Eternity ) Until it ran out of Gas... Wow I just relived that nightmare..Dog was OK We were OK and Nobody got hurt ..Big Lesson learned And something I will never forget,

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This one goes a long ways back. Late 1960's, in fact, but it still makes me chuckle.

My dad was thinking about buying a boat. A friend of his (kind of an arrogant, South Carolina Orthopedic surgeon with a blustery, Foghorn-Leghorn quality of speaking), offered to take my dad out on his fairly new I/O and show him the basics. Back then, there were no bilge pumps, and the plug was inserted from the inside, one of those brass and rubber things that shortens and expands when the center stem is bent over at a right angle.

After a couple of hours out, they had acquired some water in the bilge, so the good doctor decided to demonstrate how to empty it. He asked his then 8 yr. old son to take over

the helm after he throttled up to planing speed [despite the fact that there was another adult on board]. Then, he reached behind the rear, forward-hinged, dog house while on his knees, pulled the plug, and stood up to proudly demonstrate that the bilge water was draining. At that exact moment, his young son inexplicably decided to turn the steering wheel to initiate a brisk turn, throwing the good doctor off balance, crashing against the gunwale and breaking a rib, as the plug in his outstretched hand went sailing out into the lake! No spare on board! Needless to say, the fun stopped there.

Trailering that boat entailed circling by the ramp at planing speed as dad jumped off the transom with the car keys and swam ashore to retrieve the car and trailer. The corner of a towel stuffed into the drain hole did not serve well as a makeshift plug, but they did manage, coming in a little hot, to get the boat on the trailer, and the trailer pulled out of the water, before she took on too much.

Dad did end up buying us a boat of our own that summer. We always had an extra plug. :biggrin:

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Man I wish I had a cool boat story.

I do have a story of how I met my wife some 20 years ago though. I was working in a laboratory at the time in a fume room decanting sulfuric acid into big test tubes for analysis I was getting ready to do. Well, this pretty girl walks past my lab window so I watch her walk by then my gaze lowers and settles on her bum as I watch her walk away. This lapse in concentration causes me to miss the test tube and pour sulfuric all over my hand. Luckily I got it neutralized before it burnt me but I did ask her out that lunch break and she accepted.

The incident report that needed to filled out mind you did not include "staring at co workers bum and not concentrating"

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I will add a real dumb one that I got lucky on. Just a couple weeks ago we were camping out at the local lake and had a full day on the water. Lots of riding and tying up with full sun...one of those days that really wears you out. Anyway, I dropped the crew off close to our campsite and proceeded with one friend to dock the boat at a friends dock for the night about a mile away. The water was low so as I pulled up to the dock I was just touching the sandy shore and the boat was stable. I threw my tie off lines across the top of the dock with the intention of securing them after I had cleaned the boat out. Well, I cleaned the boat out real good for about twenty minutes and forgot all about the dock lines. Next morning I cruise back over to pick the boat up and its gone. Started thinking it had been stolen and then remember the docking line! Luckily for me, the wind had pushed the boat farther down the cove it was in and a neighbor spotted it and pulled it in to their spot. No damage except for the walk of shame down his dock to pick it up. :)

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my biggest mistake was not seeing what happened to this boat when i had gone wakeboarding.

IMG_20130707_081451_634_zpsc44a47a0.jpg

my biggest mistake was not seeing what happened to this boat when i had gone wakeboarding.

IMG_20130707_081451_634_zpsc44a47a0.jpg

I was at the lake that day and saw this happen. I believe everyone was ok, right?

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Many years ago, when I was a kid of 16, went to launch my old WellCraft for the season. Backed the trailer down and I was pushing (and Pushing), and the boat was not coming off the trailer. Oh yes, transom straps (doohh). Disconnected the transom straps, came back around and gave the bow a Great Big Push; The unwinding winch handle hit me squarely in the lower lip splitting it wide open. No stitches but I talked like that guy from the Fat Albert cartoon for a few days.

I have never since forgotten to remove transom straps or to release the bow strap. :)

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about 30+ years ago - pre kneeboard/wakeboard - we would ride styrofoam surf boards - kneeling and standing. A buddy and I were about 15 - and had full boat privileges with the 70hp outboard.

We would each ride a board and try to knock each other off. We found that if you pulled up on the rope - you could really spray down that other guy so we were pulling forward hand over hand. About half way up the rope - he falls off and as I look back to enjoy the victory I go down. The rope somehow gets between my legs - Serious rope burn and some trouble walking but got away pretty lucky. Changed the battle rules to mandate a handle in hand at all times and had a great summer.

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Lets go back in time, Some 33 Years ago, Just out of HS Taking my Dads boat to the lake, A friend and myself and my dog, Long story short ...we thought it would be fun to pull a 12x12 wrestling mat behind my Dads 16 ft Beech craft, Way before all the cool water toys kids have now, Anyway My Friend 6 Ft 9 280Lbs ( Played For Oregon) Thus why I;m a Duck Fan, Anyway So its just him on this mat and my dog and me in the boat, Everything is going great until this larger boat comes along side and take a look at what we are doing, As they leave it throws out a massive wake that we hit, And next thing you know i'm in the water, Thrown out directly behind the boat, Very lucky I have all my Limbs!!! But Now I see my buddy fly past me still on the Mat with only the dog to drive the boat, The boat circles around hard and Comes right at me, I swim for my life and the mat Dives down and the rope breaks, So I make it to the Mat with my friend and we are both in shock...The boat takes off racing around the lake in an out of control circle, as it does the boat begins to head wider and wider, a few more passes and it will hit the shore, Luckily the people who came by and unknowingly knock me out, saw what had happened and raced to get along side, when they saw it was way too dangerous they though to knock its wake into our boat to get it to turn into itself, that did the trick and so it began to turn in a smaller circle into the middle. Thankfully it finally got so small it raced full speed into the tightest left turn and did that for an hour and a half...( Eternity ) Until it ran out of Gas... Wow I just relived that nightmare..Dog was OK We were OK and Nobody got hurt ..Big Lesson learned And something I will never forget,

Man that is a great story! haha I bet that was the longest day of your life...

The most I can add to the topic is I took my dad's boat out one day while he was out of town.. I was still in HS, ya you know where this is going. I was so focused on getting the boat in the water correctly that I completely forgot to put the plug in. I'm going away from the boat ramps about to exit the no wake zone and noticed the bilge area had alot of water, I found that odd since the bilge was running and the water level wasnt going down. kept head scratching for a few minutes and realized the plug was still sitting in the cupholder and not in the back of the boat. so I floored it up to speed and ran for a while like that to try and get some water out. I threw the boat in neutral and shut it off before coming to a stop. Right as the boat stopped I dove in and inserted the plug. Did'nt think too much of it at the time but looking back, man I got super lucky.

Now this will be a good one & Probably the worst boating expirience I have and will ever have. I'm the oldest and was probably 8 or 9 at the time Our family; me, my brother, mom, & dad with our '89 checkmate I/O ski boat & gramps and Grams driving seperate towing their 78' Glasstron Jet boat boat are heading to the TN river to take our boats on the river. This is a 6.5 hr drive from our town, we get there and fill up the boats before heading to the river. Get to the boat launch and get both of the boats in the water, were ready to go so dad and gramps fire up the boats and we take off strong. We get maybe a mile or two from the boat ramp moving along pretty good maybe 35mph and my dads boat just dies all of a sudden. So gramps pulls up to us and gets in and they start inspecting the engine compartment to see what is going on. they are checking things out for 30-45 minutes or so and then I hear my dad yell over to my mom to hand him the gas receipt.. Sure enough he put 25 gallons of deisel fuel in the boat... right after this we hear a loud a** horn, look up and a huge barge is headed straight for us. Mind you were are sitting in the middle of the Tennessee River. Panic happens and my mom dives in the water to hook the rope up to the front of our boat and hook to my gramps so he can tow us out of there. In the confusion the front of gramps boat almost colides with the side of ours right where my mom is at in the water.. luckily she saw it coming and went deep in the water. Very close call. We get the boat hooked up and frantically start getting towed out of the middle of the river. We got out of the way of the barge by a good ways but was still way to close for confort. Then came the HUGE waves that barge was creating.. almost capsized both boats. I have no idea how my gramps towed us through those waves. All the action aside we start heading for the boat ramp, we get almost to the ramp and a fishing boat flies up and jumps right in front of us... and its obvious that my gramps is towing our boat. Gramps has to correct for the guy cutting him off and hits the dock putting a huge gouge just under the rub rail of his jet boat. We get the boats tied off and my gramps jumps on the dock and starts cussing this guy up and down about beating his azz and just givin it to him all the way up untill he drives off in his truck. I have never seen my gramps that pissed before but after what we all just went through I dont blame him one bit.

Edited by maroon88iroc
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I'll play.....

Let me start this off by saying I have been boating all my life.....Most of my life we/family have owned either I/O's or inboards.

Back in '03, my wife and I were at a point in our lives where we went to the beach every weekend. We would bum rides on our friends' center consoles and head out with everyone to an inlet, or island somewhere. After bumming rides for half the previous summer, we decided we would buy a center console. Our dad's had a Supra and Centurion so we figured why buy an inboard.

We bought the boat 3 days before Memorial Day Weekend. I took it to the lake for 3 days straight just to get comfortable with things. We headed to the coast that weekend. Saturday morning rolled around and my buddy and I decided to go get the boats put in at the neighborhood ramp while the women packed coolers and food. I helped him with his truck and trailer and them proceeded to back mine down the ramp. He was over at the dock messing with his boat. I was impatient and figured I would get the boat off the trailer myself and then move the truck once the boat was docked.(Very seldomly used ramp so I wasn't blocking anyone else from using it).

The only problem was this ramp was a little less steep than what I was used to. I was in the bow of the boat and proceeded to put my head and shoulders between the bow rail and bow of the boat. I reached down and released the safety catch on the winch. When I did, instead of the boat sliding back off of the trailer gradually, the boat dropped straight down off of the bow roller and somehow pinned my head between the bow rail and the bow roller. Don't ask me how....(I am laughing about it as I type this.) My buddy looked over and saw me in the position and started running over to help. I knew that I couldn't wait for him as the weight of the boat was on my neck and head, halfway choking me. Somehow I managed to put my hands on the bow roller and lift the boat up enough so it would slide off the trailer. My neck and ear were killing me. I stood up and went to the console to move the boat over to the dock and realized I was bleeding. I grabbed a towel and put it on my ear.

About this time, my wife and the other women, come casually walking down to the dock. My wife, being the caring soul she is shouted, " Hey, are you just going to leave the truck and trailer here?" She had no idea what had happened. I yelled back for her to quit running her mouth and come help me tie the boat up.

After tying the boat up we took a look at my ear and luckily it was ripped off. I needed 4 stitches in my ear. Being Memorial Day Weekend I was PO'ed and thought my day was going to be spent in the ER. We went to an Urgent Care 2 miles away and were back on the boat within an hour.

So there is my most embarrassing moment. We still all laugh to this day when we talk about it and my buddy constantly imitates my wife asking about the truck and me yelling back at her.

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Lets go back in time, Some 33 Years ago, Just out of HS Taking my Dads boat to the lake, A friend and myself and my dog, Long story short ...we thought it would be fun to pull a 12x12 wrestling mat behind my Dads 16 ft Beech craft, Way before all the cool water toys kids have now, Anyway My Friend 6 Ft 9 280Lbs ( Played For Oregon) Thus why I;m a Duck Fan, Anyway So its just him on this mat and my dog and me in the boat, Everything is going great until this larger boat comes along side and take a look at what we are doing, As they leave it throws out a massive wake that we hit, And next thing you know i'm in the water, Thrown out directly behind the boat, Very lucky I have all my Limbs!!! But Now I see my buddy fly past me still on the Mat with only the dog to drive the boat, The boat circles around hard and Comes right at me, I swim for my life and the mat Dives down and the rope breaks, So I make it to the Mat with my friend and we are both in shock...The boat takes off racing around the lake in an out of control circle, as it does the boat begins to head wider and wider, a few more passes and it will hit the shore, Luckily the people who came by and unknowingly knock me out, saw what had happened and raced to get along side, when they saw it was way too dangerous they though to knock its wake into our boat to get it to turn into itself, that did the trick and so it began to turn in a smaller circle into the middle. Thankfully it finally got so small it raced full speed into the tightest left turn and did that for an hour and a half...( Eternity ) Until it ran out of Gas... Wow I just relived that nightmare..Dog was OK We were OK and Nobody got hurt ..Big Lesson learned And something I will never forget,

I can't read the rest of these. I'm laughing so hard, I'm crying and people at work want to know what's going on! Time to go home for the day.

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When I first got a boat, I had no idea about boat ramp procedure or etiquette, so instead of Googling, or asking somebody, I simply watched other people at the ramp to see how they do it. Well, I didnt know my local public lake is full of a bunch of other yahoos who dont have a clue. And what I learned by watching is that you back the boat in, tie it to the dock, load your crew, go park the truck, come back, hop in and go. (I did see a handful of people do what turned out to be the right way, but it seemed to be the exception). Needless to say, it only took a couple of days of doing this before other boaters made it VERY CLEAR that this isnt how you load at a busy ramp. Pretty embarrassing to be that guy.

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When I first got a boat, I had no idea about boat ramp procedure or etiquette, so instead of Googling, or asking somebody, I simply watched other people at the ramp to see how they do it. Well, I didnt know my local public lake is full of a bunch of other yahoos who dont have a clue. And what I learned by watching is that you back the boat in, tie it to the dock, load your crew, go park the truck, come back, hop in and go. (I did see a handful of people do what turned out to be the right way, but it seemed to be the exception). Needless to say, it only took a couple of days of doing this before other boaters made it VERY CLEAR that this isnt how you load at a busy ramp. Pretty embarrassing to be that guy.

But you don't do it that way now, do you??

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Haha, no, not after that first weekend. A couple of angry boaters got the point across very clearly. It was a Memorial weekend no less. Of course, I see people do it that way all the time, and its hard to get mad because I did it a couple of times. I want to point out the errors in their ways, but....ya know, I just let it go.

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Haha, no, not after that first weekend. A couple of angry boaters got the point across very clearly. It was a Memorial weekend no less. Of course, I see people do it that way all the time, and its hard to get mad because I did it a couple of times. I want to point out the errors in their ways, but....ya know, I just let it go.

It's hard to find some tactful way to let people know that this isn't the "proper" way to do whatever task on the boat..... ie; launching & picking up the boat, turning around to pick up the rider, even how people wind up their ropes. I can't imagine how anyone would learn this stuff without someone telling them once.

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