Strangest things you've seen while boating..

[xpjim1]

A few years ago on the 4th of July we made a day site at Body Beach In Havasu. It is a dirt area where you pull in with your toys, and set up a camp. Not too many boats put in there due to the uneven launching in the area. It is right across from where they launch the fireworks. Like many we were there from 5 am to about 10 pm. Next to us were a bunch of guys partying hard all day. They had a 30 foot offshore boat. It came time to put their boat on the trailer, they could not back the trailer in far enough to get the boat all the way up due to the drop off. They were all tripping and falling in the water in their drunken stage. The guy who was trying to get there boat on the trailer was getting upset. Finally one of the guys said the boat is good. No one could understand how they got the trailer to go any farther back, when one of the drunk guys said it was easy, he just disconnected the trailer from the truck. Now they couldn't get the trailer back connected to the truck.

We left before we saw how they worked it out.

That is one way to launch with the trailer still attached

[Matt Garcia]

I love these threads...I always laugh out loud. I have always said people need a license to have a boat and have kids.

[kirk]

A6 Peeping Tom

The area where we boat is a canyon that is used by NAS Whidbey to fly radar avoidance practice below the canyon rim.



One day my wife and I were " improving our tan lines and cleaning the boat seats" when I see an object coming down the river at low altitude. When they are flying at you you can't hear them until they are almost on top of you. Anyway, as the pilot close the gap on us, he dropped his wing and flew at a very low altitude with his wings in a vertical position. He was close enough above us that I swear I could see the grin on his face and a thumbs up he was giving us...

[Original Wing Nut]

About 4 years ago, we were at Powell and a crew had closed the Wahweep ramp to launch this monster 2 million dollar house boat. The tow rig had been uncoupled to allow them to do some assembly on the uppere decks. The crew then attatched a wrecker cable to the trailer and chocked the wheels of the wrecker. They also chained the wrecker to a front end loader and the original tractor. They then started to unchock the wheels when physics took over. The chain to the front loader broke and the wrecker and tractor went flying down the ramp, there were a couple guys still under the trailer. They had sense enough to just hold on. Afer 30 seconds of shear terror everyone was deemed ok and the boat was succesfully floating. The wrecker was in over the hood and had to be towed. The best part was one of the guys on the crew said "good thing the owner didn't want to be a part of the launch". I wonder if he ever found out? Lots of folks were taking pics. My camera was in the boat waiting for the ramp to clear.

[rogersbm82]

Had to bring back this thread.
So here's one of my stories. We were on Possum Kingdom lake early in the A.M to get in a slalom runs before the A-holes get on the water. This was when I was like 15 or so. We are getting the ski out of the locker when this boat was honking it's horn like crazy. We looked up and it was coming for us, still too far to really see though, but we could tell he was pulling a skier. As he started to get closer we were laughing at the skiers apparell. Me and my dad were like, "look at this guy. he thinks he is really something with all his matching gear on. What a weirdo." Then the boat and skier made a pass with in 50ft. of our boat and it was clear why the skier was wearing all matching apparell. HE WAS BUTT NAKED! No life jacket just a set of skis and a smile. I was in tears from laughing so hard.

[rogersbm82]

Also if you want to see some good boating gone bad videos, go to youtube.com and type in Bill Dance bloopers in the search. Great stuff. He does a lauch with the trailer still attached.

[dinfusino]

Thanks for the great stories; really helps kill time at the airport reading these.

I got one I pulled back in my younger days:

A group of friends and myself used to do a weekend in the summer up in WI Dells jetsking the WI river. I use to pull this trick called the fountain (at a slow speed climb on to the hood and ride backwards, decelerate until the front end drips down below the water line, then gun it = results in the front half of the boat under water and the rear sticking up in the air with the jet throwing a spray about 25 feet at a 45 degree angle). So I did this quite a few times this day and took on more water than expected. After one of them, I noticed the ski was sitting low in the water. Jumped on and tried to start it, but no luck. Jumped off, popped the seat off and saw that that I filled the thing up with water over the battery. Ended up having to swim it to shore (luckily yhe river is not that wide) and had to get a couple of my buddies help lift it enough on to shore to drain it out the plugs. Couple hours later, back in business.

[tktige']

This summer on Lake Norman was out at 11am at the Sandbar Saturday getting the tie-up started ( just started to get crowded) when here comes the redbull float plane. Pulled up right next to me and tied up(first time I ever tied up with an airplane). It was an old auspree (same as what Buffett flies The Hemisphere Dancer) Spoke to the pilot and I told him he had some major balls landing that thing with all the traffic. He just shook his head and as if to say "hey there is a large metal object coming at you fast, get the hell out of the way". The Pilot told me he would be landing and taking off all day droping off more product for the Red bull girls to pass out on jetskis. He stayed for about 1hr and gave us 2 cases of redbull, hats, t-shirst. He had to pulled away before he got boxed in everyone wanted to tie-up with him. He had to go to the main channel to take off because the boat traffic was so bad at the Sandbar.

[jwanck11]

So we were sitting there patiently waiting for a husband wife combo to launch this saiboat that was as large as life. Unfortunately the ramp is very shallow and so is the water. She was driving the truck/trailer and he was at the helm of the boat. They had walkie-talkies which we thought was a really cool idea. Anyway after basically burying the entire SUV a couple of times trying to get enough water under the boat and him gunning the engine in reverse without any success... his temper starts to spin out of control.

He starts yelling at his wife and she starts yelling at him over the walkie-talkies. It whipped into such a frenzy that there was no need to use the communication deveces as they were able to hear each other plain as day and then some... but they continue to use them anyway. Gave us quite a good laugh.

[dogbert]

Thanks for the great stories; really helps kill time at the airport reading these.

I got one I pulled back in my younger days:

A group of friends and myself used to do a weekend in the summer up in WI Dells jetsking the WI river. I use to pull this trick called the fountain (at a slow speed climb on to the hood and ride backwards, decelerate until the front end drips down below the water line, then gun it = results in the front half of the boat under water and the rear sticking up in the air with the jet throwing a spray about 25 feet at a 45 degree angle). So I did this quite a few times this day and took on more water than expected. After one of them, I noticed the ski was sitting low in the water. Jumped on and tried to start it, but no luck. Jumped off, popped the seat off and saw that that I filled the thing up with water over the battery. Ended up having to swim it to shore (luckily yhe river is not that wide) and had to get a couple of my buddies help lift it enough on to shore to drain it out the plugs. Couple hours later, back in business.

I do this with my stand-up jetski. My kids love being hit with the jet blast. I usually prop myself against something solid. I had a friend ride by on his Sea Doo. He was splashing me all the time, so I dislodged him from his ride with the jet blast

[rogersbm82]

One more for ya, the cove that my parents lake cabin is in is a no wake zone. It is also full of old people who have nothing better to do than sit on their dock and yell at people who don't pay attention to the bouys. (I am not knocking this behavior as I join in, don't really like watching my boat get beat to death against the dock.) Anywho it was getting late, the sun was just starting to set and a lot of boats were coming through to get to the ramp at the end of the cove. This guy on a pontoon boat with his family is flying (well pontoon boat don't really go that fast but you get the point) was making wake. The old man across from my parent's dock runs out on his dock and is screaming at the guy, cursing and waving his arms at the driver. The driver obviously can't hear the guy and I guess just can tell that whatever the old man is doing he is doing to get his attention. The driver turns toward the old mans dock, never backing off the throttle. This is when I new things were about to get good. You could tell the driver was amature at best. You now those giant fishing rod looking things you put on the side of the dock to keep the boat away from the dock? The old man had those. The pontoon had a top deck. The boat driver pulls right up along the dock, keep in mind he has still yet to let even back off the throttle. Nails those rods with the top deck. Still WOT the rods finally stop the boats momentum and the driver I suppose finally thinks to put the boat in neutral. I swear I could see the old man's viens from where I was. He was giving this guy a cursing to remember. The driver still oblivious to what is going on, slam the boat in gear slamming up against the dock and finishing off what was left of those rods and drives away, still throwing a huge wake. I saw the old man get in his truck and speed away. I can only guess he was going to the boat ramp. Maybe I should have too. lol Wonder what happened there.

[jwanck11]

have you seen the old man since?

[rogersbm82]

Yeah he is still kickin. lol

[Redlined]

This happened last summer:
My puddle is usually pretty empty during the week, we only run into maybe one or two boats on any given weekday. We were riding and noticed another boat on the water, and as we came up on them, noticed the girls first, then noticed they weren't rockin' any gear-all natural, and yes, then noticed the dudes shooting film. Lucky for us, it was Porn Shot Day on the Lake. We passed by them many times.....they were very friendly.

[eks]

Friendly is always good!