Hello everyone, I?m still pretty new to boating and this forum but I have something I would like share. While at the lake this weekend I witnessed some very disturbing lack of common sense.
After my boys and I were ready to call it a day we headed back to the ramp but could not pull our boat out due to this boat full of people taking up both sides of the ramp. After about 15 minutes of watching them pull the boat in and out of the water and checking the bottom I docked my boat and asked them if they would please move so I could pull mine out. The owner said he would but asked me if I could show him how to operate his boat. I was confused by his question and asked him what he meant. He told me he had just bought this boat and he could not get it to go in gear. This explained why he had nine kids (not exaggerating I counted them) maybe two were over the age of twelve. In addition there were a total of three kind of big adults. This was only about a 16?ski boat. The disturbing part was none of these kids or adults had life jackets on. Two of theses kids were younger than two years old (just a guess). I explained to him that I was pretty sure he was overloaded and the kids under 13 were suppose to wear life jackets. He quickly told me everyone on board was a great swimmer (the toddlers also?). So at this point im just walking around the boat when I noticed the propeller had two blades missing and the third was pretty chipped up. The worst part was there was no plug in the bilge and when I asked him why he responded ?I thought it was suppose to fill up with water (the bilge) as it did not have a radiator?. I told him the best thing to do was for him to take the boat to a repair shop and come back with somebody experienced in boating. Can you believe he joined the no plug club on purpose?
Sorry it was such a long post.
After my boys and I were ready to call it a day we headed back to the ramp but could not pull our boat out due to this boat full of people taking up both sides of the ramp. After about 15 minutes of watching them pull the boat in and out of the water and checking the bottom I docked my boat and asked them if they would please move so I could pull mine out. The owner said he would but asked me if I could show him how to operate his boat. I was confused by his question and asked him what he meant. He told me he had just bought this boat and he could not get it to go in gear. This explained why he had nine kids (not exaggerating I counted them) maybe two were over the age of twelve. In addition there were a total of three kind of big adults. This was only about a 16?ski boat. The disturbing part was none of these kids or adults had life jackets on. Two of theses kids were younger than two years old (just a guess). I explained to him that I was pretty sure he was overloaded and the kids under 13 were suppose to wear life jackets. He quickly told me everyone on board was a great swimmer (the toddlers also?). So at this point im just walking around the boat when I noticed the propeller had two blades missing and the third was pretty chipped up. The worst part was there was no plug in the bilge and when I asked him why he responded ?I thought it was suppose to fill up with water (the bilge) as it did not have a radiator?. I told him the best thing to do was for him to take the boat to a repair shop and come back with somebody experienced in boating. Can you believe he joined the no plug club on purpose?
Sorry it was such a long post.
