What's the silliest (dumbest) boat related thing you ever saw?

[JamesG161]

Yesterday, a vehicle tow trunk was backing down the boat launch ramp, trying to launch a 22 foot power boat on it tailer (the Admiral just said we should have taken a picture).
The tailer apparently had a bent or broken axil. So they just picked up the boat and tailer.

The tow truck begins to raise his bed and lower the boat/trailer. Rut Roh...
Too high of an angle and they proceed to shove the ass end and motor under the water and fill the boat.
Screams!!!!!
But at least the tow pulled forward and recovered. They had too pull the aft drain plug to drain the water.
This time a very shallow angle and slow successful entry.
The family was ready to ride and the engine started fine!!!
_____
When opening a deck fill cap, I always say, read the label on the cap, look at the color of cap and...

Do a SNIFF test!!

No mixup so far, but they all whine when I say loudly.... Sniff it.
Jim...

 

[DArcy]

Many years ago I worked on a square rigged ship, in the summer months we took passengers around Sydney Harbour on day cruises. I was asked twice by guests boarding if the ship ran on rails.
--------------
This same ship had a peculiar tendency to turn the wrong way when reversing one of the engines. You would expect it to turn to starboard when reversing the starboard engine but if the sip was traveling ahead more than about two knots and one engine was reversed, the ship would turn, quite quickly, in the opposite direction. The captain normally in charge of the ship was away and there was a fill in captain who was not as familiar with the ship. One windy day we were heading into the overseas passenger terminal, making a turn to get into the dock when the captain called for the starboard engine to be reversed. The ship abruptly turned to port. The captain didn't know what was going on, panicked a bit, fumbled back and forth and we eventually were blown down onto the Circular Quay ferry docks. We managed to block three of the ferries in the dock. I had to jump in the rib and push the bow out to get the ship off the ferry docks. At least no damage was done, other than to the captain's pride.

 

[All U Get]

We're were at Sundowners Bar shooting pool while sipping a beverage during happy hour. A young woman staggers by and announces "I'm otta here, where's the door" and promptly walks into the wall. Missed the door by three feet. Good thing she had a ride waiting.

All U Get

 

[Stu Jackson]

As you may be aware, I post a LOT of links to boating information. We were racing with another "vintage" boat of our class (we are hull #224,he was #108). One of the really important links I'd posted was to add an additional thru bolt to the traveler. He didn't. It popped out on him on the last race. No great damage to him,it coulda been a lot worse, but I didn't mind...

 

[Brian D]

Many years ago, I would sit on my boat at the end of the day and watch this guy wash his boat down after a sail. His boat was in the middle of the dock and he would stretch out his hose before washing. To do this, he would walk toward the end of the dock then walk back. Well, I guess he moved his boat to three slips away from the end of the dock. He pulled in one day, tied up and was ready to call it a day. He unraveled his hose to wash his boat and proceeded to stretch out the hose as always. Wasn't but 10 seconds and off the dock he walked, right between two boats. I watched and he safely made it out of the water, looked around to see if anyone saw him, then proceeded to walk the other way to unravel the hose. He washed his boat, put the hose away and left. Soaking wet. I was so embarrassed because I was the guy who walked off the dock.

 

[Capt Robbie]

Watched I guy that was working on an old wooden boat lose his cool and his mind. After he got pissed off about something he was doing on the boat while at anchor, he proceeded to start chopping his boat up with an ax. Listening to another boater talk to the coast guard about this situation. The coast guard replied that they can't do anything about it as long as he was not causing any navigational issues. So everyone sat back and watched this crazy guy chop the the hell out of his boat with his ax.
It was quite entertaining.

 

[vetch]

I had one where everyone though I was the moron.

At the time I had an Aquarius A23 which has a center board and draws only a foot with the board up. Well I was pulling into a crowded bay for a lunch stop. My plan was to just beach her have lunch then continue the day. Well no one in the bay knew my thinking and as I got further and further into the bay I could see all activity on shore and in the other boats come to a stop. They were all trying to figure out what that crazy sailboat guy was doing that close to shore and no seamed to have no plan to stop. Well I beached her and enjoyed my lunch but everyone thought they were gonna have a great show. I was almost sorry to disappoint them.

 

[agprice22]

I have 2.
1st is the memory of driving home from the marina on freshly paved ashphalt out of Watkins Glen. As we approached Horseheads, a town 15 miles away, I noticed a narrow white line on the road, making long curves as it went. I looked up and saw blue lights flashing ahead. We slowed and passed a state trooper who had a boat in front of it, and about 50 feet in front of that, a car and trailer with several inebriated-looking young men. The surprising thing is that the boat stayed attached to the cable as it was dragged along the road about 1000 feet!

2nd is arriving at the marina to prepare to launch our little center console which we keep on the water on weekends when we stay at the marina to sail. When we arrived, there was a crowd around the ramp. We parked and walked over to see. In the water at the end of the ramp was a white Ford F250 with a trailer attached fully submerged at the end of the ramp. Maybe not an act of idiocy, as his parking brake cable snapped after he had launched his two jetskis.

 

[dlochner]

Sometimes it is just simple things.

Went to the boat today to work on the endless list of things to get done. Decided to turn on the stereo. Flipped the breaker, nothing happened. Pushed all the buttons on the stereo, nothing happened. Checked the breaker, it was on. Checked the main switch, it was on. Flipped the breaker off and on again, nothing happened.

Sighed, started to put "Fix the stereo" on the to do list, when I took one last stab at flipping the breaker off and on again. It was then I realized that VHF is not the same as Stereo. Flipped the VHF breaker off, the Stereo breaker on and quickly reached for he volume control on the stereo.

 

[Charles Erwin]

One of the most agreeable people I have encountered lived at Pacific City Oregon. We launch the famous PC dory boats off the beach through the surf in an an effort to catch fish, crabs and the occasional accidental wolf eel (very grim creatures.) Anyway he does not go fishing that day rather he and his new labrador puppy go wood cutting - and having loaded up his very rusty (and far less that roadworthy) dory-launching pickup detours to the Netarts Bay ramp to visit some friends. Parks the pickup at the boat ramp, engages in conversation - and someone says: "Hey is that your new labrador puppy swimming out at the end of the ramp?" And by the way "Do you know why the bay is so littered with firewood?"

Same fellow took some Japanese clients out fishing - he was a salesman - and T boned a whale. Much drag coming back to the beach owing to an oversupply of blubber trailing from the bow eye.

FastBottoms will back me up on this - he fished there too.

Charles

Thanks for the opportunity to remember these things

 

[Kermit]

Sometimes it is just simple things.

Went to the boat today to work on the endless list of things to get done. Decided to turn on the stereo. Flipped the breaker, nothing happened. Pushed all the buttons on the stereo, nothing happened. Checked the breaker, it was on. Checked the main switch, it was on. Flipped the breaker off and on again, nothing happened.

Sighed, started to put "Fix the stereo" on the to do list, when I took one last stab at flipping the breaker off and on again. It was then I realized that VHF is not the same as Stereo. Flipped the VHF breaker off, the Stereo breaker on and quickly reached for he volume control on the stereo.

Yeah... I learned that the kill switch will NOT start the engine. No matter how hard you push it.

 

[SFS]

or how often.

 

[Rick D]

First diesel boat I had was an O'Day 27. When it was launched, I went down a day early to the yard to check out the systems. I started the boat. Ran fine. I then realized I had NO clue how to stop it. Looked all over for a cable or something. After 30 minutes, I sucked it up enough to ask the yard guy, while red-faced and embarrassed. He told me to pull the throttle lever back past the idle position. I did. It stopped. I felt like an idiot.

 

[Brian D]

And how many have tried to start their outboard when it was in gear? Oh whoa is my outboard issues. LOL

 

[Ralph Johnstone]

And how many have tried to start their outboard when it was in gear?

I'd never do that.

I much prefer to try to start the engine with the kill switch activated because the little spacer on the safety lanyard has been pulled away.

 

[capta]

I was taking my 70 foot St Augustine Shrimp trawler across Lake Okeechobee in a year when the water was so low both locks were open. We were dragging our keel down the Clewiston channel on the west side, when I noticed a 60 foot Buddy Davis sport fisherman heading for the shell reefs a mile east of us at full speed (around 35 knots). I couldn't figure out what he was trying to do, as we were quite visible and obviously in the only marked channel in the area. Whoever was driving managed to get the boat a hundred feet or so from the edge of the water, leaving the engines and much of the interior on the shell between the water and where she finally stopped.
We couldn't get any closer to where she was than we were, so we continued on, putting in a call to the authorities. I heard later that there were some serious injuries, which I don't doubt at all.

 

[SwitchintoglideIII]

Watched an older Dodge Caravan (front wheel drive of course) back down the launch ramp with a rather long, nice, pretty dual axle trailer.....that in itself seemed somewhat peculiar.
A minute or so later down the channel comes a rather long, nice, pretty 30' Baja!
You've got to be kidding, I said to the Wifey...
Sure enough...this 'Master of Go Fasts' proceed to power load his loud and obnoxious beast.
Hooks the bow eye to the tower, gets in the van...
There are a number of us now watching of course, there's no way, we're all saying.
Yep, no way.... He tried for ten minutes, smoking his front wheels....turning them left and right while spinning.
BANG!.....blew the right front tire.
He got the standing ovation from everyone...and his behind reemed by the Marina owner.
Two minutes later, the Marina Dually Dodge Deisel backs up to the van...hooks on, powers up and...Bang!
Rips the lower rad support right off the van.
OMG, we thought the smoking tires was funny!
Strap comes out, get put under the van and wrapped around the trailer tongue...out it comes finally.
15 mins later our MTO (DOT) was sitting outside the marina gates, lol.
Life at Lake Erie...

 

[BudGates]

One design flaw of the Hobie-18 was that the drain plugs needed to be out in order to remove the rudders for transport. Shortly after purchasing our Cat my wife and I drove the 1-1/2 hours to the closest lake, spent an hour raising the mast, bending on the sails, rigging all the lines and getting her ready to launch. The launch went fine and the wife stayed with the boat as I parked the truck. When I got back to the boat and sat down on the trampoline I noticed that the boat was sitting awfully low in the water. Then it dawned on me... That's right... You guessed it... I had neglected to reinstalled the drain plugs.

Even though I backed the trailer farther into the water for retrieval than I did when we launched her our boat still sat too deep in the water to float onto the trailer; so I hooked up the winch and started cranking away. Now that the boat is too heavy for the rollers on the trailer she slid to one side clear off the roller. The bracket supporting the roller put a gash through the starboard hull about an inch wide and 5 inches long. I managed to back the boat back off of the trailer and center her up enough that I could pull the boat and trailer out of the water. Fortunately there was enough room for more than one boat to launch at a time because I had to sit there on the launch ramp for at least an hour with water pouring out of both drain plugs and through the gash on the side. Needless to say that was more than a little embarrassing.

 

[Gene Neill]

One design flaw of the Hobie-18 was that the drain plugs needed to be out in order to remove the rudders for transport. Shortly after purchasing our Cat my wife and I drove the 1-1/2 hours to the closest lake, spent an hour raising the mast, bending on the sails, rigging all the lines and getting her ready to launch. The launch went fine and the wife stayed with the boat as I parked the truck. When I got back to the boat and sat down on the trampoline I noticed that the boat was sitting awfully low in the water. Then it dawned on me... That's right... You guessed it... I had neglected to reinstalled the drain plugs.

Even though I backed the trailer farther into the water for retrieval than I did when we launched her our boat still sat too deep in the water to float onto the trailer; so I hooked up the winch and started cranking away. Now that the boat is too heavy for the rollers on the trailer she slid to one side clear off the roller. The bracket supporting the roller put a gash through the starboard hull about an inch wide and 5 inches long. I managed to back the boat back off of the trailer and center her up enough that I could pull the boat and trailer out of the water. Fortunately there was enough room for more than one boat to launch at a time because I had to sit there on the launch ramp for at least an hour with water pouring out of both drain plugs and through the gash on the side. Needless to say that was more than a little embarrassing.

Don't feel bad. I almost sank my old boss' motorboat at the ramp, launching it with the drain plug out.

Worst thing was, it had a false deck that concealed my mistake until there was 6" of water onboard, and the plug had to go in from the OUTSIDE.

I darn near drown-ded myself trying to get that plug in, hanging upside down over the transom.

 

[walt]

The Hobie TI sailing trimaran has amas that are held on to the aka bars with bungee cords. The amas fold back when sitting on a trailer and I always undo the bungee cords when its sitting on the trailer. .

So.. one time I launched the TI from the trailer with the amas folded in and tied the TI to the dock. Parked the car and then went back to the dock and TI. A bunch of teenage kids on some sort of tour were on the dock all watching and I folded out the amas, pedaled away from the dock and then unfurled the sail. There was a good breeze and as soon as the TI hiked a little, the windward ama just fell off and was left behind while I was still sailing at a good clip on the lee ama. DOH.. I had forgotten to bungee the amas to the akas.. Lots of kids saw this.. must have looked real funny and they got to watch the recovery which must have also been fun to watch.