Worst boating situation you have encountered

[H20Rat]

Re: Worst boating situation you have encountered

Very nice day last summer, hot, muggy... A storm decided to swell up on short notice, and unfortunately about 30 other boaters all decided to load at the same time. Although I was in no danger of large swells or the wind itself (missouri river is only a couple hundred yards wide here), the large hail was my primary concern. Ended up spending about 20 minutes idling in the current to stay under a nearby bridge, with 5 other boats.

Best part is, after the storm blew through, it turned into an absolutely gorgeous day and we had the river to ourselves!

 

[r.j.dawg]

Re: Worst boating situation you have encountered

This past August we travelled with friends from our home marina in Lake Simcoe, through the Trent Severn water system to Bobcageon. The day of our return trip was a windy one. 15 mph gusting to 20. As we exited the lock at Fenelon Falls to enter Cameron Lake, both sides of the lock channel were jammed with boats tied up. The boat ahead of us decided he was going to squeeze in between two sailboats so that left me leading the pack out through the channel into Lake Cameron. I got about 100 ft up and noticed a 45ft rental houseboat on my forward port side, whose stern was slowly drifting out into the channel pretty much blocking it. I stopped but couldn?t back up as I had 6 other boats behind me. Suddenly the back of the houseboat went back in towards the wall so I continued forward. Just as I got beside the houseboat it started to drift back out into the channel. Not wanting to get hit by him I gave full throttle and just squeezed between it and a very large Regal tied up to my starboard side. Once past the idiot houseboat I looked back and watched as it punched a basketball size hole in the hull of the Regal. My buddy was about four boats behind and I radioed him to watch out for the now out of control houseboat that was now at the mercy of the winds. We continued on into the lake and waited for our friends. About twenty minutes went by when I finally saw them heading towards us. They came along side and told us that not only did the Regal get damaged, but two sailboats also got hit by the houseboat before park officials could get control of it. I now have a hard and fast rule to never enter any lock with rental houseboats.

 

[rfdfirecaptain]

Re: Worst boating situation you have encountered

I my Crownline CR250, I was anchored about 2 miles off shore at a reef near Atlantic Beach, NC with my 4 boys ages 9-16. We had been at anchor about 6 hours. The air temperature was about 38 degrees. It was a beautiful sunny December day until the wind picked up. 1-2 foot swells started rising. Fishing was good so no one really wanted to leave. Slowly the 1-2 foot seas were rising and at about the 3-4 foot mark I decided to lift the anchor and head back in. After about 20 minutes of fiddling with a stuck (brand new) anchor I decided to cut the rode. By this time the boat was rolling around pretty good in about 5-6 foot swells that were spaced about every 8-10 seconds. Although a little rough we were doing OK. Forced to drive toward the inlet in the trough I was turning back out to sea about every 4th swell just to stay in water around 45 feet deep. All the boys were in the cabin except for 1 who was standing with me at the helm. About a half mile out from Beaufort Inlet my son looks seaward and says, ?Dad look at that big wave?. At this time my visibility is fair with all the overspray streaming down the sides of my enclosure. So, I replied, ?What wave?? All he did was point seaward. When I looked to my right I saw 1 swell and 1 giant wave right behind it that was just starting to roll over. (The top of the wave appeared to be at least eyelevel with me. Since then I have measured from my boat?s waterline up to my eyelevel and determined that to be a height of about 9? 6?.) Immediately I turned seaward at full throttle. I humped the swell and tried to drive through the wave killing the throttle near the peak. It was a very hard landing on the backside. Everyone was tossed around, but otherwise OK. But, that?s not the end of it. After a very quick damage assessment we were back underway toward the inlet. We arrived at the inlet to find a couple boats even smaller than ours already there. They were all riding the swells staying back from what looked like a field of 5-6 foot breakers. Even though I was the ?bigger boat? I was probably more scared than they were considering what I had just been through 15 minutes prior. Well, the Lord always provides a way. Along comes large fishing vessel of about 60 feet. As he was coming down the channel toward the inlet I called him on the VHF and ask at what speed he was going to enter the inlet. He replied about 25 knots. Well I?m a MPH guy, but that sounded good to me. So, I told him I was going to fall into his wake and follow him in? ?please don?t stop? I told him. Once inside the safety of the barrier islands I cannot tell you how relieved I was to get rid of that stress. So we loaded up and trailered the boat back home 144 miles away. With about 75 miles to go? it started snowing! Now I?m stressed again.

 

[JBooth]

Re: Worst boating situation you have encountered

The worst I ve ever been in was at Lake Verrett. It's about a 24,000 acre lake in southern Louisiana. My family and I were coming back from a fishing and got caught in a storm. We were in our '06 188VS Ranger bass boat. We got about a quarter way across the lake when we began to hit 3-5 foot white caps. Not much fun in a bass boat! The waves shattered the covering on the trolling motor, and swamped the boat. Had the bilge pump on the entire time. Had waves breaking over the bow of the boat and it was pouring. We made it out but it was not easy.

 

[southkogs]

Re: Worst boating situation you have encountered

I only got caught in one Great Lakes storm. I was out a little less than a mile, but about 2 miles downwind of the house we were staying at and noticed a BUNCH of boats headed in to the harbor to the south. Within minutes the storm cell was visible and the water started getting MUCH rougher. With the wind changes, the trek back to the house started to get more and more difficult - eventually a real live Great Lakes storm was brewing with solid 6 footers. I've left out the boat type on purpose until now: I was on a sunfish sailboat working against the wind all the way back ... and having the time of my life!

I know this is "worst" boating situations - and honestly had I been in a bigger boat it would've been bad - but that little sailer was so easy to get back up after it got knocked down (and believe me ... it got knocked down a lot on that run), it just made it fun.

Kids, don't try this at home.

 

[V153]

Re: Worst boating situation you have encountered

March 27 2011, a day that will live in infamy. Heading south across Dona bay after sunset on a particularly dark moonless night. Been through there 100s of times so I figgered no big deal right? Wrong! There's a lil dog leg in the channel just before you enter the intracoastal/no wake zone. Slowed down to barely on plane cuz I knew marker 9 is sometimes hard to find. Well I found it - saw it at the last second just slightly port of dead on. Jerked the wheel stb and yanked the throttle back but it was too late. Wham!

Impacted about 3 ft aft of the bow. Threw me like a rag doll into the port corner of the dash. Tore the meat off my arm from wrist to elbow and fractured my collar bone. Took some meat off the side of my face and some fur off my head too. Piling almost came through the rubrail but stopped short, proceeded to rake the port side all the way to the transom.

After regaining my wits a quick assessment told me the situation wasn't good. Immediately switched the bilge pump on and went back to turn the fuel tank right side up & shove it back where it belonged. Hull was split all along the chine and water was coming in fast so I reckoned I'd better get her up on plane and get my butt back to the ramp asap. Screw the Manatee full speed ahead!

It's a distance of roughly 4 mi to the South Venice ramp from there so I had a few minutes to think. Reached the conclusion I was in a purty bad way & the boat was worse. Had to slow down and make the 110-120 deg turn to port to negotiate the little channel to the ramp which was almost my downfall. Discovered the wheel was very hard to turn past a certain point. 'Specially with one arm. Anyway she got me to the dock and I unlocked the chain and raced off to get the truck. Got the trailer backed in and untied the boat. By that time the fuel tanks, one full btw, were floating and water was halfway up the transom. Managed to get her on the trailer fairly level and pulled her up the ramp in increments as the water drained.

The boat is a total loss. She's been sawzalled down to the composite core. Breaks my heart to think of the 4K spent on materials during the rebuild but I believe that's probly what prevented me from breaking my neck?

Moral of the story: Even if you've been through a body of water 100 times & think you know the way? Slow down when you can't see! Duh ...

 

[soggy_feet]

Re: Worst boating situation you have encountered

This summer I was out in 4-6 ft waves running pretty close together with my houseboat. The deck on that boat low, wide, and flat, so every wave is like driving into a brick wall. I've been in that situation a few times before, but was lucky enough to be able to run with the waves. Deck is sealed pretty well, so its not really a problem for waves to wash over the transom, but plowing headlong into them starts to weigh the bow down, piling even more water onto the deck, weighing the bow down even more....

It was about 45 minutes of that, avoiding floating chunks of sod, full trees (this was all about a week after Irene (and I rode that out onboard)) before I got to sheltered water.

Back at the mooring, the bilge pumps (500, 600, 2000gph) ran for a lot longer than I was comfortable with to clear the water from below deck. I was aware of a weak point that had turned into a small crack in the bow when I had beached the boat the day before, but smashing thru the waves opened that up into a 16" crack in the tired steel. I've been meaning to get pics up on the forum now that the boat is out of the water.

Emergency patch was plumbers putty, and magnets (a steel hull is nice), and it got me thru the season on the mooring without any more trouble.


First and only time I've had a sinking feeling in my stomach that I might actually sink....

 

[SkeeterDuke15]

Re: Worst boating situation you have encountered

I was fishing with my grandpa on his ( now mine) 15' skeeter below the dam on wilson lake, alabama. we tied up to the railing right under the dam when they started pulling water. after about 5 minutes the current was out of control and the only thing keeping us from getting sucked into it was our rope...we powered up and got out hugging the bank. when i was pulling the boat up on the trailer about 20 min. later the rope snapped. I had the worst gut sickening feeling that if the rope had snapped earlier, im not sure what would have happened.

 

[NHGuy]

Re: Worst boating situation you have encountered

False alarm story.
Sunny July 4th, we decided to take the boat down toward the other end of the lake for the parade. No problem, it was a nice day and the run down was uneventful. Water was sort of calm, moderate air temps. I had a chance to run the boat at speed for once since the broad part of the lake was relatively flat. Usually when it's lumpy the wife insists on going at comfort speed. In my little boat that's 20 or 22. I'd rather go faster when I can.
We watched the parade and had lunch with the in laws then started for home.
Well holidays are boat days and I think everyone with a heavy boat was out there that day plowing up the broads. The water was pretty rough with wind & wakes.
I tried going slow, then I tried speeding up. So we were motoring along in 2 to 3 foot wind blown boat chop exactly half way home when I heard this banging happen every time the boat came down from a wave. We stopped, looked under the gunnels for splits, none. Checked below the deck, dry. No lines hanging out. Boat looks OK, but I was worried. So I told everyone where the lifejackets and flares were and we started off again...same banging thing.
Then I realized, look outside the boat dummy. The rub rail insert had pulled out down most of the port side, it was slapping the hull with each wave. Scared the shishkabob out of me til I realized what it was.

 

[rivermouse]

Re: Worst boating situation you have encountered

I would say it happened to me this summer. I got caught in a sudden thunderstorm with lightening near by and was forced to beach my small tinny on an island . Then it got real hairy as the wind picked up to aprox 70 mph gust with hail the size of pinto beans and me with no place to go. I for sure had to stay away from the metal boat but retreating under the trees was just about as dangerous. It is not unusual to also have tornadoes with these type of storms on lake wylie and for the first time in my life I considered tying myself to a tree. It lasted about 10 minutes.....

 

[drrpm]

Re: Worst boating situation you have encountered

Getting a beat down in a nasty river hole and having to swim out of my kayak above a class V rapid.

 

[mommicked]

Re: Worst boating situation you have encountered

Years ago my brother, friends and I hunted deer on the Roanoke River gamelands near Williamston NC., permit hunts allowed parties of 5 to hunt together and camp remotely near the riverbank if you drew a hunt like a lottery. We always took a friends old powerboat to hunt there. One year we got a permit, but nobody else could go on that date, so I went alone w an old lighweight fiberglass racing style canoe about 16'? I planned to hunt for 3 days and 2 nights, but brought enough crap to stay for a week!!! I carefully loaded the canoe and left the ramp at Williamston paddleing down river in the slow current. 30 mins. later I heard a boat approaching fast upriver and it occured to me I had'nt counted on dealing w boats or wakes when I overloaded the long canoe. We rarely saw other boats when we went before. As it approached, bassboat, I headed for the bank and the moron seemed to panic when he was close and finally saw me and the camo painted canoe, he slowed rapidly and turned slightly, though we were nowhere near colliding. I frantically tried to point the bow of the highly unmanuverable craft at the now very large wake right in front of me, already watching my gun and other nonfloating gear sinking to the bottom of the river forever in my mind Someone must have been watching me as the canoe pitched and rolled and the wake came over the bow and rails, on the verge of capsizeing. I believe I cursed at the guy 50' away and he throttled back up and took off before I even stabilized the tossing canoe. I made it, and continued a ways further and set up camp, but I carefully packed my non floating stuff when I made my return journey. Lashing it to floating things like the large cooler and foam sleeping pad I carried.

 

[jacoboregon]

Re: Worst boating situation you have encountered

I've been very fortunate not to have any bad boating situations other than one a US Coast Guard cutter. I was on a 30 day deployment in the Bering Sea with our HH52-A sikorsky. The cutter had several boarding-partys on several fishing boats in the area. The marine weatherman reported a big low coming in and the captain chose to ignore it so he could maximize the boardings. Well, we got caught! One person broke an arm getting tossed about and several others got injured as well. Our flight deck nets were in the water several times on big rolls. We couldn't abandon our crews so we stayed out and already had a low fuel situation which created less ballast and a top heavy ship. We had several rolls that went beyond the maximum rating of the ship! It was not too fun.

 

[island mike]

Re: Worst boating situation you have encountered

Got several..
sailing the caribbean with my folks we got caught in a tropical storm $%^$@ ways out on open sea,i was about 9 years old...

Around the same age,Same boat,while anchored,Opened the hatch after hearing some noise...Guns everywhere.
Big,Ugly ones,Turned out to be the coast guard,searched the whole boat for reefer.pretty scary for a kid.


Almost lost a couple of friends to real pirates in venezuela about two years ago,they let them go after stripping them of everything they had.
very close call...

Got a few more but these were the ones that really stuck with me..

 

[Part-time]

Re: Worst boating situation you have encountered

Last spring I had a 14' FG with a 25 Johnson. Only a week or two after the ice was off the river I went out for a little ride and as I was hitting the choppy waters where the river gets wide, the motor decided to "miss" and it kicked like it had hit a rock!
Between the chop and the hard kick my transom gave out and was left hanging on by a bit of glass where it joins the bottom of the hull.
If I let go of the tiller handle the motor and transom would go to the bottom of the river for sure.
I made it to shore holding the motor up with one hand and steering with the other!!!
A 25 doesn't weigh much but trying to hang on to it while it's running... And to try and keep the boat moving fast enough to keep the water from coming in.
The next day I had muscles that were sore that I didn't even know existed.

 

[Home Cookin']

Re: Worst boating situation you have encountered

part-time, that's a good story

 

[Beefer]

Re: Worst boating situation you have encountered

March 27 2011, a day that will live in infamy. Heading south across Dona bay after sunset on a particularly dark moonless night. Been through there 100s of times so I figgered no big deal right? Wrong! There's a lil dog leg in the channel just before you enter the intracoastal/no wake zone. Slowed down to barely on plane cuz I knew marker 9 is sometimes hard to find. Well I found it - saw it at the last second just slightly port of dead on. Jerked the wheel stb and yanked the throttle back but it was too late. Wham!

Impacted about 3 ft aft of the bow. Threw me like a rag doll into the port corner of the dash. Tore the meat off my arm from wrist to elbow and fractured my collar bone. Took some meat off the side of my face and some fur off my head too. Piling almost came through the rubrail but stopped short, proceeded to rake the port side all the way to the transom.

After regaining my wits a quick assessment told me the situation wasn't good. Immediately switched the bilge pump on and went back to turn the fuel tank right side up & shove it back where it belonged. Hull was split all along the chine and water was coming in fast so I reckoned I'd better get her up on plane and get my butt back to the ramp asap. Screw the Manatee full speed ahead!

It's a distance of roughly 4 mi to the South Venice ramp from there so I had a few minutes to think. Reached the conclusion I was in a purty bad way & the boat was worse. Had to slow down and make the 110-120 deg turn to port to negotiate the little channel to the ramp which was almost my downfall. Discovered the wheel was very hard to turn past a certain point. 'Specially with one arm. Anyway she got me to the dock and I unlocked the chain and raced off to get the truck. Got the trailer backed in and untied the boat. By that time the fuel tanks, one full btw, were floating and water was halfway up the transom. Managed to get her on the trailer fairly level and pulled her up the ramp in increments as the water drained.

The boat is a total loss. She's been sawzalled down to the composite core. Breaks my heart to think of the 4K spent on materials during the rebuild but I believe that's probly what prevented me from breaking my neck?

Moral of the story: Even if you've been through a body of water 100 times & think you know the way? Slow down when you can't see! Duh ...

So much could be said about this, but I'll refrain.

 

[V153]

Re: Worst boating situation you have encountered

So much could be said about this, but I'll refrain.

No need to refrain. At this point I've purty much heard it all. Been criticized & congratulated. Go for it.