Looks like I'm the first, so here goes... The sailers: My wife and me The boat: Our first - a Hunter 18.5 The setup: First boat, first launch, no real idea what we are doing, small outboard motor (very small, no reverse, no neutral). It really was the first launch. We had bought the boat the day before and parked the trailer on the street in front of our house overnight so the neighbors could admire it before we put it in the slip on day #2. Getting her off the trailer went surprisingly well; no cussing, no scratches or dings to the boat, no smashed fingers, and best of all, we didn't launch the pick-up truck. We slipped her off the trailer and used a couple of long lines to pull her over to a temporary dock near the ramp. But...being considerate folk, we wanted clear the ramp for the next guy. So I parked the truck in the field and hustled back to hang the outboard on the transom. The stock auxilory for a Hunter 18.5 is hardly big enough to power a dingy, a 3.5 hp Tohatsu that lives under a seat in the cockpit. By the time I had it clamped in position the fellow behind us had his boat floating off of his trailer and was ready to tie off his boat and clear the ramp for the next in line. I was ready to motor over to our slip. The problem was that I was not really ready to start the motor. I just thought I was. With my wife standing on the dock ready to release the starboard bow line, I threw off the starboard stern line and crancked the Tohatsu with a crisp jerk. She fired right up and the Hunter lunged foreward - straight at the bass boat floating above it's trailer at the ramp. Immediatly I realised that this was a problem and twisted the motor in it's bracket to steer the boat to port and away from the dock so I wouldn't scratch it up. I shot a look at the guy on his boat at the ramp straight ahead of me and his eyes were bigger that his face. I glanced at my wife and saw her try to jump from the dock to the boat, miss and fall into the water between the boat and the dock. I turned to the motor and tried desperatly to shift it to neutral only to realize it only had "go". Now I panicked. Not knowing what else to do, I tried to pull the Tohatsu off the transom and throw the damn thing in the lake. Unfortunatly it was clamped on too tight. My first boater's insurance claim loomed before me as I struggled to get that motor loose. I think God has a soft spot for fools. In my effort to pull the motor off the transom, I managed to tilt the prop out of the water. That gave me a moment to grab the throttle lever and shut it off. The surge foreward ended as the Hunter reached the end of it's teather on the bow and made a not-so-graceful piroutte, with the stern swinging around, and touching the dock gently on the port side and missing the boat at the ramp by about three or four feet. My wife was wet but unhurt, thanks to my desperate swerve to port when things went bad. I helped my wife out of the water and we took a few monutes to collect ourselves. Then, with what little dignity remained to us we loosed the bow line, pushed off the dock to aim us at the lake an restarted the motor. It was an uneventful trip around the marina to our slip. Now you know why we SAIL in and out of the slip whenever we can.