So, God did me a favor, and I'm about to become a Tige owner because of His favor.
About three weeks ago, my wife and I were awakened by someone pounding on our front door and ringing our doorbell as fast as you can ring a doorbell. We think it was around 12:30 AM, but I'm really not sure. I was too startled to look at a clock. I jumped out of bed, put my glasses on, and grabbed my gun because I didn't know what was about to happen.
I get to the front door, turned on the porch lights and saw a youngish looking kid who looked like he was on his way home from a date or something. I figured he wasn't banging on my door to kill me or my family, so I put the gun down and opened the door.
His exact words were "Dude, your boat's on fire!"
It took about a second for me to register what he just said, but when I did, I immediately ran towards my garage because my boat was parked on that side of my house. Well, when I get to the garage, the garage door wouldn't open. So, I ran out the back door on the garage, and as I turn the corner I immediately see that my boat - a 2003 Gekko Revo 6.7 V-drive - was engulfed in flames from front to back. In fact, the flames towards the back of the boat were 12-15 feet high. I immediately knew my boat was toast, but then my panic turned to my truck.
See, we had gone out to the lake for Memorial Day and we got home late. I lazily didn't want to unhook the truck from the trailer so I just parked it beside the driveway and left it. So my 2006 Dodge 2500 4x4 was still hooked up to the burning boat.
I ran inside, grabbed the truck keys, ran back outside and in record time unhooked the trailer from the truck. I jumped in my truck, turned the key and the truck wouldn't start!!! I tried 3-4 more times, and finally the truck started and I was able to drive it a safe distance away from the burning boat. I was mainly concerned with the gas tank on the boat exploding since I knew there was probably 3/4 of a tank in there. Suprisingly, it never exploded.
We live out in the country so my wife called the local volunteer fire department, and it took them about 20 minutes to get to our house. So we just stood there and watched my old boat burn.
This is what was left:
I said God did me a favor, and I truly believe that. There were some severe thunderstorms that rolled through our area that night, and everything points to the boat being struck by lightning. Other things that point to a lightning strike: my truck's electrical system was messed up (had to file an insurance claim on the truck), my garage door opener was "fried" and we had to replace it, a printer inside the house (on the end of the house towards the boat) was "fried".
As you probably know, Gekko was arguably the bottom of the totem pole with regards to wakeboard boats. It was my first boat, and I bought it in 2004 as a dealer demo. It was the nicest boat that I could reasonably afford, and we enjoyed it a lot. It did what we needed it to do, but it wasn't without problems. The upholstery was shot, and all of the upholstery needed replacement. The electrical system was very iffy in that some of the gauges worked, some didn't, sometimes it'd start on the first push of the start button, sometimes it'd take 20 pushes. There were multiple problems that were starting to add up, and would've been expensive to fix.
Also, I had an expected value policy on the boat that I set up in 2004. I didn't really know anything about boat insurance at the time, but it was very fortunate that I had the expected value policy. If I'd had a market value policy, I might've been screwed because there is no market for Gekko's.
So, in the end, I lost my boat, but the good news is due to the insurance payment, and now that I am in a better financial situation than I was in 2004, I have ordered a brand new 2010 Tige 22Ve. I ordered it through Brandon Raymond at Texas Tige in Conroe, TX, and Tony Fussell, director of sales for Tige. I met these guys at the Houston boat show, and both were incredibly helpful.
Here are the first pics ever of my new Tige fresh out of the molds at the Tige factory:
Now I just have to patiently wait for it, and soon I'll be a "Tige Owner", too! I can't wait!
About three weeks ago, my wife and I were awakened by someone pounding on our front door and ringing our doorbell as fast as you can ring a doorbell. We think it was around 12:30 AM, but I'm really not sure. I was too startled to look at a clock. I jumped out of bed, put my glasses on, and grabbed my gun because I didn't know what was about to happen.
I get to the front door, turned on the porch lights and saw a youngish looking kid who looked like he was on his way home from a date or something. I figured he wasn't banging on my door to kill me or my family, so I put the gun down and opened the door.
His exact words were "Dude, your boat's on fire!"
It took about a second for me to register what he just said, but when I did, I immediately ran towards my garage because my boat was parked on that side of my house. Well, when I get to the garage, the garage door wouldn't open. So, I ran out the back door on the garage, and as I turn the corner I immediately see that my boat - a 2003 Gekko Revo 6.7 V-drive - was engulfed in flames from front to back. In fact, the flames towards the back of the boat were 12-15 feet high. I immediately knew my boat was toast, but then my panic turned to my truck.
See, we had gone out to the lake for Memorial Day and we got home late. I lazily didn't want to unhook the truck from the trailer so I just parked it beside the driveway and left it. So my 2006 Dodge 2500 4x4 was still hooked up to the burning boat.
I ran inside, grabbed the truck keys, ran back outside and in record time unhooked the trailer from the truck. I jumped in my truck, turned the key and the truck wouldn't start!!! I tried 3-4 more times, and finally the truck started and I was able to drive it a safe distance away from the burning boat. I was mainly concerned with the gas tank on the boat exploding since I knew there was probably 3/4 of a tank in there. Suprisingly, it never exploded.
We live out in the country so my wife called the local volunteer fire department, and it took them about 20 minutes to get to our house. So we just stood there and watched my old boat burn.
This is what was left:
I said God did me a favor, and I truly believe that. There were some severe thunderstorms that rolled through our area that night, and everything points to the boat being struck by lightning. Other things that point to a lightning strike: my truck's electrical system was messed up (had to file an insurance claim on the truck), my garage door opener was "fried" and we had to replace it, a printer inside the house (on the end of the house towards the boat) was "fried".
As you probably know, Gekko was arguably the bottom of the totem pole with regards to wakeboard boats. It was my first boat, and I bought it in 2004 as a dealer demo. It was the nicest boat that I could reasonably afford, and we enjoyed it a lot. It did what we needed it to do, but it wasn't without problems. The upholstery was shot, and all of the upholstery needed replacement. The electrical system was very iffy in that some of the gauges worked, some didn't, sometimes it'd start on the first push of the start button, sometimes it'd take 20 pushes. There were multiple problems that were starting to add up, and would've been expensive to fix.
Also, I had an expected value policy on the boat that I set up in 2004. I didn't really know anything about boat insurance at the time, but it was very fortunate that I had the expected value policy. If I'd had a market value policy, I might've been screwed because there is no market for Gekko's.
So, in the end, I lost my boat, but the good news is due to the insurance payment, and now that I am in a better financial situation than I was in 2004, I have ordered a brand new 2010 Tige 22Ve. I ordered it through Brandon Raymond at Texas Tige in Conroe, TX, and Tony Fussell, director of sales for Tige. I met these guys at the Houston boat show, and both were incredibly helpful.
Here are the first pics ever of my new Tige fresh out of the molds at the Tige factory:
Now I just have to patiently wait for it, and soon I'll be a "Tige Owner", too! I can't wait!
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