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Tell us your boat horror stories


Roger123
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I was in the Navy for 30 years and finally bought my fist boat six months ago.  Nice 2003 Triumph 15’ Center Console with a 50 Hp Yamaha outboard to cruise the Intercoastal here in the Tidewater area of VA.

Been having a great time, boat runs like a champ and does everything I wanted it to do exploring all of our local inland waterways.

Went out on the 4th to see the fireworks show from the water, it was a blast, daughter and son-in-law loved it.

On the way home the left side axle failed and the tire came up and hit the side of the boat doing some damage to the hull.  Triumph boats are made of a product called Roplene and it’s able to be weld repaired.  It’s not major damage but it will need to be addressed.

Geico Marine was great, got a rollback sent out and got her to the dealer where they sold me a nice shiny new trailer.  Mine was pretty rough and I knew it needed to be replaced when I bought the boat, but I kept putting it off, dumb, dumb, dumb.....

Oh well, still love the boat.

What’s your story?

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Dughter and son-in-law

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Edited by Roger123
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I don't own a boat, but I was once called to an accident on an overpass where a truck collided with a pickup pulling a boat. The 14" fishing boat flew off the trailer and over the rail of the bridge. It was hanging by the rope used to pull it up onto the trailer when in the water. No other fasteners or straps had been applied. That rope only held out for a moment until the rope finally broke and the boat fell from the bridge to the highway below. Where it was promptly hit by another truck. The guy pulling the boat was in near hysterics as the boat was his Dad's boat and he had borrowed it without permission.

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Wheel bearing failures are very common on boat trailers.

We had a customer at my fathers automotive shop that owned a small sail boat. Every spring he would take it to the lake and drop at the marina for the summer. He would immediately bring the trailer to me to pack the wheel bearings and they always had water in them. 

Thirty miles on the road to heat up the bearing and then backing into the water. The cooling effect would create a negative pressure inside the hub and suck the water in.

The next year, he repeated the cycle. This time I thought I would try something. Since he put a total of 120 miles a year on the trailer (two times to the lake and back) I figured that I really did not need to bother with keeping grease in so much as keeping the water out, so this time I put the seals in backwards and never had water in the hubs again.

He still had me pack the bearings every time anyway.

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Thanks for your service.  I was in the navy for 20 years.  My story takes place long before, when I was about 9 years old.  My grandfather took me on a weekend fishing trip.  I did everything wrong but sink the boat.  I made Gilligan look like Admiral Nimitz.

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Many moons ago, we were water skiing in the Gulf of Mexico.  We could still see the land, but were pretty dang far out.  Then the motor conked out.  We paddled for, like, ten hours.

All I was wearing was shorty jean cutoffs.  I burned up like a lobster.  Like a fire extinguisher.  Like a London phone booth.

I missed work for two weeks.  My body peeled three times, sometimes in huge all-one-piece chunks.  I probably should've been in the hospital.  I had a huge fever.

That was three decades ago and I can still see a faint outline of how long the jeans were and where the pockets stuck out below.

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I once saw a guy waiting in line at the boat ramp with a HUGE sailboat.  A richer.

I guess he couldn't wait, so he put the sails up while it was still on the trailer.  On a fine windy day.

I didn't see it actually happen,  but saw the ensuing chaos.

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I was paddling on a simple surfboard in the Bretagne, in France, and both got caught in a rip current as well as the Gulf stream that passes through between England and France. I was 16 and on vacation with my parents. They lost sight of me and knew I was in trouble. I was gone for many hours, and my parents called the police.

Meanwhile I tried to get back ashore alongside some very dangerous cliffs, screwed up the board and was lucky that I didn't get cut up.

After a while I realized that I wasn't able to get back into the inlet I was coming out. So I focused on the next stretch of land that wasn't blocked by huge cliffs.

I was able to make it, barely. Was totally exhausted.

Just in case you have no idea of the waters around the Bretagne: the tide is over 16 feet, and once you get in to the stream, you are dealing with this...

 

 

Does that count as boating nightmare? :)

Edited by crockett
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More of a ship story than a boat story....

Nighttime Carrier Quals in the Virginia Capes.

To make a long story short, S-3 Viking launches off our #2 catapult....and goes straight into the water. The plane is floating when we run it over. After being cut in half, the wreckage sinks and is never found.

Every single crewman stopped eating, sleeping, playing cards, whatever, to man the rails and search the night. Back then, everyone carried a mini-maglight. They were nothing compared to the giant search lights on the ship and helicopters, but it was still a surreal sight seeing 5,000 mini-mags all lit and searching through the darkness.

Before returning to Norfolk, we stoped dead in the water for two days so we could send painters over the side to cover up the scrapes going down both sides of the hull, since the families would be at the pier.

The first operational fatalities of CVN-74.

Edited by Airmotive
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The worst boating story I heard was on the TV.  There is/was a locally well renowned "sportsman" on the local TV show that featured him and his dog.  On his show one night he told of his going to a local lake to put in his boat and go fishing for material for one of his shows.

He said when he got to the ramp, there was a person who apparently didn't know anything about how to launch a boat from a car trailer.  This "expert" in outdoor activities went on to detail everything that the neophyte boater did wrong in attempting to back his car down the ramp to launch the boat.

He told how inconvenienced he was and how he languished for a long time waiting for this ignorant individual to perform the simplest activity the expert could imagine, launching a boat properly.  He berated this poor individual for his whole allotted time on the air.

He never once went to the person and offered to show him how to launch his new boat, or even assist in backing up the car and trailer.  This "expert" demonstrated just what a self centered idiot he was and never offered to help in any way.

 This was a despicable behavior from someone who could have helped and didn't.  There are few opportunities in this life to help another person in need.  This is a chance for a person to really shine in helping others.  There is no excuse for his behavior except narcissism that explains how someone with knowledge could refuse to pass some of that knowledge, on to another person that needed it and could benefit from it.

 

 

 

 

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I have been very lucky with my bass boat. I bought it new and never had the slightest trouble out of it, but it has taken dedication to preventative maintenance.  And a few tips passed down from my father. 

 

I religously only use ethanol free fuel, and treat every fill-up with blue Stabil. I have Z fitting hubs and pump a squirt or two of marine grade axle grease in before every outing.  I check the tire pressure in both tires and the spare also. 

 

Always carry a hydraulic jack jack, a 4-way lug wrench, and a cheater bar when trailering a boat. No exceptions.  

I store the boat under a carport with a well fitting and quality boat cover.  And I use a trickle charger. 

 

Its always parked in condition to launch immediately, and it always starts right up when I launch it.

 

boats don’t have to be a nightmare, but they do require diligence on your part. The biggest thing I see with boats that causes problems is neglect and lack of experience. 

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During Hurricane Gloria in 1985, our Newport 28 sailboat took off up the Mystic River in CT. Did $25,000 worth of damage, and we were among the lucky ones. Our boat went ashore at a spot where the river jogs to the right, then back to the left. Most boats kept going up the river and ended up part of a several layers deep boat sandwich against the Mystic railroad bridge.

What pain in the butt. Seven months of riding herd almost daily on the insurance company and the repair facility. But we got it back at the beginning of May, 1986 and it was better than new.

 

 

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When I was around 15yrs old, I had a 17' fiberglass canoe that I loved.  I used to paddle all over Dworshak Reservoir with it during the summers.  Dworshak is a giant reservoir and is 52 miles long but narrow at maybe a mile or so.

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I was a big kid and had to add weight to the front of the canoe so it tracked properly.  I navigated some pretty big waves with it during storms that came out of nowhere and used it to travel across the lake during hunting season to the prime hunting grounds.

One summer day, my parents are out in their boat, back then a 19' 1959 bright green little cabin cruiser.  They pull up to chat and dad gets the bright idea to tow me around in my canoe like an inner tube.  Sounds fun.  So we tie the ski rope to the front of my canoe and dad takes off.

For about 10 seconds, I was thinking this was the greatest idea ever.  Then dad did what he always does and pushes it too far.  He hits the throttle to get his boat up to plane and with my 175lbs in the back of a 17' long canoe, and all the force pulling on the other end, I started to hear an awful cracking noise.

I start waving my hands and yelling.  Dad goes faster.  Suddenly the canoe breaks in half.  Not completely but bad enough that they heard it on the boat.

Dragged the canoe back home and dad attempted a fiberglass repair.  It was ugly.  Poor canoe never tracked properly or was nearly as fast as it used to be.  Broke my heart.

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I once went out with a high-school friend on his sunfish sailboat (a tiny 2-person jobbie) on a huge lake, on a day that was WAAAY too windy for this little boat.

We could get it almost sideways, with the sail 2' from the water, all leaning back and hootin' and hollerin'.

We tipped over 100 times, but it was easy to tip back, so we just kept going.

At one point, the park rangers came to yell at us, while we were tipped over.  They yelled because we had all of the life-preservers strapped onto the beer cooler, instead of on us. 

(High school kids used to be allowed to have a cooler full of beer, on the lake, in a hurricane, but you were expected to practice proper boat safety.)

Later, we came across a huge sailboat that had sunk, with only the top of the bow sticking out.  The rangers already had all the passengers, but they ordered us to paddle around and gather anything that was floating.  That's a pretty good job for drunk teenagers full of adrenaline.

 

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I use to work for Astor/Procraft boat company. Many stories there on why a customers boat was returned for repairs. Some of the boat techs started their own repair company because business was so good.

You should not hit things with your boat especially rocks and such at very high speed. You should put in the drain plug before launching, you should properly retrieve the boat and secure it to the trailer. 

Maintenance on the boat and motor was pretty good on most but few maintained the trailer properly to include lube and tires.

There was a lot of money made because people did not know how or did not care to do proper maintenance. 

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While camping in W. Virginia (?), we rented "rubber duckies" (these "sit-on" inflatable canoes) and did the river trip.

They said the river could be a 2 or 3.  Today it was slow.

And lame.

So..  I'm sitting ON my life preserver, and went over a 1 (wooo!)  and, I don't know, a 2 (Wooo!).

OK, so, at the last second, I can see I'm getting a lazy 3' dropoff.  A class 0.  woo!

And I nailed it.

Now I'm in a ten foot pool of green boiling river-water.  It's trying to suck me back into the 3' water fall.  The water was actually fizzing, and green, when the rest of the river was brown and gray.  It sounded DEEP.

I instantly thought that I should put on my life-jacket, right about now.  Too late.

I paddled like Deliverance for five minutes to get out of that suck-hole.

The rest of my family went off to the side and never even came close to drowning.

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Let's talk about the Comal River in New Braunfels!

We were 20-year-old bikers, but we couldn't have our bikes on the river!?!

So we had a bunch of inner-tubes, with one inner-tube floating a beer keg.

And there were river off-shoots, where they hung 4x8 pieces of plywood with skulls-and-crossbones and "Death! Death! Do Not Enter!!!, spray painted on them.

Where do you think we went?

They were right.  It was pretty bad.  We should probably still be missing, twisted up amongst all the tree roots.

So, after we managed to not DIE!,  we floated into the oom-pa-pa pavilion and drank beer.

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Nice, lots of good stories, my situation could have been much worse.

My issue was completely caused by rust, the area where the axle failed was significantly rusted and I knew it.  I’m a tire pressure and bearing grease nazi, I had just replaced both sets of axle bearings and I saw the corrosion, just thought I had a bit more time.

Oh well, got the boat back today and the new trailer rides like a dream, huge difference from the old one.  I don’t think the springs actually worked on the old one.

I’m with Collim1, my boat is always ready to hit the water at a moments notice; fueled, charged, clean, safety gear on-board and ready to go.

I’ve experienced the best day of my life (buying the boat), but not yet the second best (selling it), LOL.

 

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Edited by Roger123
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I've got several more, stop me, but,

(Now we're reduced to inner tubes, not boats.)

We were at Tonkawa Falls.  And partying.  And bikers.  Good stuff.  Beer, maybe.

(and THAT story. that's next.)

And, so we floated down the river (crick?) (the Bosque?), into the Bush ranch.  He was president.

So, some hippies, wearing only cutoff jeans...

I don't know how far we went, but it was too far.

They were not secret-service guys.  Just some regulators that said, "You should probably turn around now.".  So we did.

But it was miles back.  No one had shoes or sandles.  It was cactus and rocks, and ****. And the asphalt on the one road was 1M degrees.  I couldn't deal.  All my yankee high-school friends were almost already dead from Texas, alone.  We bounced across on inner-tubes.  It was insursivably insursivable.

And then the Righteous Bosque River People would yell at you for being a drunk biker/hippie, and wouldn't let you walk up their bank.  So you had to go into the river, at waist deep. So we hated them.  And we didn't do that again.

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Google search:::


Your search - insursivably - did not match any documents.

Suggestions:

    Make sure all words are spelled correctly.
    Try different keywords.
    Try more general keywords.

 

I've done that before.  There's a word for a zero return.  Some words were repeated on the web, so they are real words.

Edited by Huaco Kid
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I was standing on the dock at Port Clinton Ohio when a nice pleasure boat came in to refuel.  The boat had a BBQ grill on the stern, blazing away.  It was windy and flames from the grill caught the awning -I guess that's what you call the cover over the pilots steering wheel area-on fire.  The boat was fiberglass and before you knew it the whole back end was on fire.  Someone from the refuel depot shouted out to the boat passengers-"if you can swim, jump now".  They did.  The boat drifted helplessly.  It looked like it was going to be a total loss. 

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36Ft Chris Craft Cavalier off of Santa Catalina. Lost the boot and packing off of one of the propellers shafts. Started taking on water. The water around us was boiling with squid. Then little sharks came in for the squid. Moving the boat just took on water faster. The USCG got to us just before the gunnels went under. They pumped us out in about 5 minutes. We packed off the shaft with rags and came home on the other engine as fast as the bilge would allow. 

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So,

We were at Tonkawa Falls, my friend's 60's-something Mustang, beer, I guess, on the second tier of Tonkawa Falls.  

You could jump in!  All day long!  It's what we did!

And so,  some guy, we don't know, an Aggie, probably, their car whipped in and skidded to a halt, and the first one jumped out, going' "woohoo", and dove into the falls. From the second tier.

We knew it was only 4' deep and had a floor like a pool table.  That guy didn't.

He got out on his own and ran away, with some of his neck sticking out the back.

Someone called EMS.  We didn't have cell phones then, so it probably took an hour or two.

That's the last we ever saw of that guy.

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