Nos4r2
Lieutenant Commander
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2004
- Messages
- 1,533
Ok, after cracking up at some of the stupid things you guys have done and seen I figure I oughta add my tale of woe...<br /><br />About 8 years ago I bought my 1st boat,a 14' dory with a cuddy and a 25 johnson e/start.Me, 2 friends and the dog went down to Poole Harbour in October to try it out for the 1st time. I should have known it wasn't gonna go right...<br />We got to the ramp and it was a real shallow angle so I couldn't leave the trailer hooked to the car during launch. I decided it'd be a good idea to try and keep my feet dry so I climbed into the boat, hooked the winchline to the tow hitch on the car and started to pay the line out on the handle. The ratchet fell apart and I lost hold of the winch.<br />Off I went, down the ramp at quite a speed,thinking "it'll be ok-I'll stop when the line runs out"<br />No such luck...I'd forgotten to check the line was actually attached to the winch and it wasn't.The boat floated off, leaving the trailer disconnected from everything in 4 feet of water. I had to jump in and drag both boat and trailer (one in each hand) to shore whilst spitting water with my chin just showing so one of the guys can hitch the trailer back to the car.<br />This would normally be enough, but it gets worse.<br />We get halfway across the harbour and she won't come above half revs so I grab a mooring bouy and take the cowl off to check the choke's released. While I'm doing this a cross-channel ferry goes past at about 25 knots.<br />At this point the younger of the guys with us c**ps himself when he sees the wake and dives into the cuddy (which was just big enough to sit in with your head on the ceiling)with my doberman cross and the auxiliary motor. He shuts the door behind him and starts screaming that he's scared. Turns out he has a phobia of large expanses of water and hasn't told us but didn't want to chicken out.The dog desperately tries to escape as the wake hits and stands on him, all while he's screaming "get this *****ing dog off me, holding the door shut and then starts to chuck up all over himself, the dog and so on...We were cruel and laughed til we cried...<br />He got outta the cuddy afterwards and said it wasnt all that bad and he was ok to carry on. <br />I shoulda ignored him and taken him ashore. Hindsight is wonderful aint it.<br />anyway, we carried on outta the harbour at about 12 knots after I pushed the choke in manually.<br />Then I notice that the bung has fallen outta the stern. No problem I think, the bung only stops the water getting into the fuel tank well-there's 3 bouyancy tanks that make up the hull and we cant ship more than about 4 gallons of water with the way it's set up.No such luck-She starts to roll drunkenly as I discover that all 3 bouyancy tanks to leak like sieves.<br />At this point there's a loud clunk from the gearbox as I try to get us to the nearest shore. She's jammed into reverse and the swells are close to coming in.There isn't time to put the auxiliary engine onto the transom so we head for the shore about 200 yards away backwards. We get ashore but on the wrong side of the harbour entrance and on sand with the tide going out rapidly.She sinks into the sand by 6" and we can't refloat her with a new bung-we're stern first on the beach and she weighs too much to turn her to drain her.<br />At this point the other guy that's out with us started to panic-he'd told his girlfriend he'd be back by nightfall and she didn't trust him to keep it in his trousers after dark. He phoned her from a payphone and she went so mad at him he decides to walk the 25 miles back to the car round the marshy side of the harbour.At one point he wanted to go out into the harbour on the auxiliary engine and get into trouble so he could get us brought in by the lifeboat. It took me half an hour to convince him we were stuck for the night and that it was a BAD idea to go out into a tidal stream on a leaking boat.<br />He found a car with 2 women in instead and tried to get himself a warm bed for the night with one.He wondered why his girl didn't trust him...<br />Come the morning, we managed to get refloat her and get to a ramp fairly close by on the auxiliary. When I got her home I stripped her of anything worth keeping,cut her up and took her to the tip.<br />That was a rather sharp lesson- I'm a lot more careful and doublecheck everything now-including my passengers!
