Lighten Up!

[MicroKap]

A member of our club finally brought his boat in about four weeks ago. This is his second year with the boat, an early '80s 46 Uniflite flush deck with flybridge. He hasn't had that many hours "behind the wheel" of this boat.

A week later, on Saturday afternoon, my wife and I are walking down the dock with our kids when we notice that he is taking the boat out. He's docked directly on the other side of the finger from my parents' boat. My wife counted 7 teens and four adults onboard. The boat has a fully enclosed aft deck with a door that opens to give access to the ladder down to the swim platform and two hausepipes for lines. There's a guy standing on the dock pulling quickly on the stern lines to get them out of the water before being sucked into the props as the boat is moving forward in the slip. He then runs around onto the finger dock and waits for the owner to try to get the boat over to that side of the slip so he could jump on while the rest of the crew is scrambling to get the rest of the lines off. They got about half way out of the slip before realizing that a spring line was still on which tightened and turned the boat into the yacht basin, perpendicular to his slip. Once they removed that line, he BACKED the boat out of the marina into the channel with no audible signal for unaware approaching boats that were passing.

The next day, Sunday, I noticed he still wasn't back, so I figured he must have gone away overnight. Monday night I went by the club to check on the boats and noticed at the marina next door, where they have a haul out facility, against the back fence was the boat. Each of the four bladed props was missing a blade. The rest of the blades were curled over. One rudder was missing. The props were about 2 feet back from where they should have been. One strut was hanging around the shaft and touching the ground......and the keel...about 1/3 of it was gone. The fiberglass cloth looked like someone put a ruffled skirt on the boat. Not to mention, the salon windows were open and it was just starting to rain.

I heard later that he hit a coal barge that sunk just outside of the channel in Highlands, NJ, a well known "landmark" in the area. He had been going about 11 knots. We don't know if he pulled the shafts out of the couplings or if he moved the trannies or engines back a couple of feet.

I guess he won't be back this season.

[Captned]

Early eighties, my father had a 32' Alglass ( I loved that boat - Katrina did her in) We had her based at the Broadwater Beach marina in Biloxi. We were leaving to go fishing one morning and I would do the bow lines as he would do the stern. We always backed into the slip. Back in those days, the marina was a lively place with a lot great boaters, good friends that docked on either sides of us. Well with everybody watching we start to pull out. Suddenly there is a great wrenching sound and people start yelling. We spin around and look back. Someone (ME? I was at the bow!) had forgot to unhook the shore power and we pulled the whole box off the dock and into the water if I remember correctly....Well, dad didnt hear the end of that for quite a while...

Funny thing back then, I dont think the Marina charged him for the box or the electrical work. Try that these days!

Early nineties, fishing in my center console off the coast of Louisiana, we pulled up to a rig about three miles offshore, dropped a bait down and hooked up to a huge speckled trout. Sensing the fishing was on, I yelled at my buddy to throw out the anchor. Both of us were quite excited. I watched my friend open the anchor locker, grab the anchor and throw it over. As it sank, he then figured out, the line was not attached! When he turned around, the look on his face was hilarous..... We just tied off to the rig and had a hell of a day. The boat was called "Tiger Bait". Wonder why?


Captned
MBMM

[Avenger]

Boatsb's post: "Jesus should have been the co-pilot" post reminds me of another one:

When I was a teenager we had a neighbor who was sort of what Garyd would describe as an old salt. One day he tells me that he and a friend are taking his boat out snapper fishing, and would I like to go along? Sounds good to me, so we run out in the bay and find a good spot.

Now it would help to know here that at this point in time my dad and I are doing a lot of offshore fishing and there was always some good natured ribbing going on between my dad and the neighbor about the size of their boats and the size of the fish they caught inshore vs. offshore.

Anyway, he grabs a bait and starts rigging up and turns to me and asks "How do you usually like to hook a spearing?" And I, being a junior wise@$$, reply with "I don't know, we don't usually use bait that small."

He gives me the old salt evil eye, and after a pause says "You ain't got your Jesus-shoes on either son."

[Boatsb]

SAILING with a friend around Montauk on his 37' Gaff Rigged Ketch we lost power when the batteries shorted and could not start the engine. My friend who owned the boat was partially disabled due to being run over by a car while sitting at a light on his motorcycle so he has only 25% use of his left leg.

We rounded the point from the south in what was becoming a nasty wind and building seas. Because of this we put on safety harnesses.

While he was stuffing a genoa in the forecastle (pronounces folk-sole) hatch he slipped. Fell in behind it and was swinging 3 feet above the bunk and 3 feet below the deck. He could not get up or down. I went looking for him and through the hatch saw him swinging like a snag hooked bluefish and could not help him up for what seemed about 5 minutes because I was laughing so much. Al was not amused.

After that we had to sail up wind into the inlet at Montauk at night with no lights. As we approached a dock ( I believe it was the town dock) the Coast Guard arrived and was angry that we had no lights. We were also 50 feet short of getting to the dock and making no headway into the wind. When the asked why the lights were not on we replied the batteries shorted out. One of the coasties then asked why we just didn't motor into the dock because it would have been faster and we could have arrived before dark. Needless to say they needed to nudge us against the dock for us to tie on. We got new batteries the next morning and were out on the water by 2:00 that afternoon.

[yachtsmanbill]

I'm a sicko, but this made me smile! ws

[Passages]

I'm a sicko, but this made me smile! ws

Bill,
Either my monitor is too small or my eyes are too old.
Looks like Curious George on the nose. Whats the writing say? Can't read it.

[yachtsmanbill]

Sorry Jim... thats the way I got it. Thats WATERMELLON 1 with some sandscrit jibberish behind it with a pic o' da man eating a slab o' watamellon on the tail. I think that is CG on the nose. Good eyes you old... ;-))
I'm sure Achmed will supply all the fuel that knucklehead needs for free; plus maybe a few nukes for the 4th of Ramadan. NLOL ws

[yachtsmanbill]

Just did a google search for Watermellon 1 and theres about 1,000,000 links! ws

[nyrussell]

what the heck, I was almost the Sous Chef for that boat on it's maiden voyage. LOL got a 2 month Exec Sous Chef in NYC right before it launched. Been here almost forever since.

Noel

OK, what the heck.

Once I locked through last year onto Guntersville Lake in the Alabama section of the Tennessee River, I was amazed at how large that lake was. It looked more like I was running in a large coastal bay than on a river.

A couple of hours after entering the lake, I heard what has to be one of the funniest VHF conversations I've ever heard! Some guy hailed the "American Queen" and told the Captain he was approaching his stern and wanted to know which side he should pass on. The Captain said it didn't matter, so the guy told him he would pass on his port side.

The Captain then replied that there was a motoryacht approaching him on his port, so maybe he should pass to starboard. Then the guy realized that he was in fact the boat the Captain was seeing and that he was approaching the bow, not the stern! He aplogized to the Captain, who did his best not to do more than giggle.

About an hour later, I saw the "American Queen" having caught it from behind. Uhhh... lemme see, this is a huge riverboat (418 feet!) with a bright red paddlewheel on the stern, and the bow (the pointy end) has two huge gangplanks, a pilothouse, and two big smokestack thingys toward the front! No wonder he got confused.

[Traveler 45C]

I told the officer that I couldn't move my boat because I'd had a few drinks and didn't want to break any laws.

That is simply brilliant!