How many times have you been towed & why?

[jwanck11]

wow... what a way to start the morning.

[jwanck11]

water will scald at over 130 degrees. it is a good thing that as the water rose, no one even touched it! at 175 all it would take is a touch....

[thtrog]

Just once…this past Sunday. After launching we cruised a few hundred yards to a no-wake zone at a bridge; when clear my son hit the throttle the alarm went off. I guessed immediately that is was the impeller and I was partially correct. What I did not expect to see when I lifted the hood was water spraying into the bilge…my first thought was we are going to sink!

I reached down under the pump and could not tell if the water was coming from a split hose or the pump itself, but I could not stop the leak. After a few minutes the bilge pump was running and my son was getting the Tsunami ballast pump out just in case. To make things worse it was a winding day with gust 15 – 17 mph pushing us straight down the lake. I started the engine and could not make any headway into the wind and it leaked even worse running.

This is not a very busy lake; it’s a water reservoir and mainly fisherman and a few of us fanatics frequent it’s great boarding conditions. At this point we hooked up the ballast pump and got most of the water out, so I knew I could keep it afloat….as long as the battery lasted. I noticed a fisherman tucked close into the bank a couple hundred yards from us and waved to him for help. I was relieved when I saw him reach down and pull us his trolling motor and head toward us. He pulled us back to the dock in a 14 foot aluminum boat with a 40 hp outboard as we kept the water pumped out.

After thankfully getting the boat on the trailer I decided to pull the pump and see what was wrong. As soon as I loosened the second bolt on the mounting bracket the intake hose fell along with a chuck of the pump house housing.

I keep with me a tool kit, serpentine belt, impeller, prop, prop puller, and a paddle wheel kit, but no pump housing, so our day ended early. I realize I could have most likely prevented this if I had changed the impeller as part of my annual maintenance. I had a spare and had intended to change it next spring if it made it the rest of the season – I guess 215 hours was pretty good!

It’s a long story to answer your question, so I did include a picture of what caused my tow!


If you look close you can see all the trashed I pulled out of the strainer. Pieces of impeller and housing, pine straw, fishing line, and looks like a small piece or brass metal? I haven't checked...maybe it's gold.

[snoopy]

1 time! tige gas guage.

DITTO

[thunder550]

Never seen an impeller housing fail like that, wow.

I've been towed in twice - once for a bad impeller (which now gets changed before the first trip out every spring, and I keep a spare with me), and once for running out of gas.

I have more than made up for those two tows though - I think I've probably towed 6 or 7 people in for one reason or another.

The biggest issue we've had is actually with the tracking fins on the boat. We have lost the center fin TWICE. Once was just before pulling the boat out anyway, so it wasn't a big deal. The other time was at Powell, about 30 minutes away from the closest ramp. We had beached the boat earlier in the day while waiting for our houseboat to hit the beach, and I guess the fins must have dug into the sand. The side-to-side motion of the boat must have slowly loosened the bolts, and it eventually fell off. Funny thing is that about 3 days later one of the little kids in our group found the fin, lol.

Anyway, I didn't notice that the fin was gone until later on in the day when I was pulling a tube and noticed that the boat was feeling very sluggish. Stopped and opened the hatch, and there was probably 12 inches of water in the bilge. The light for the bilge pump was on, but it was not running (later found out that it was clogged with a piece of carpet). Luckily one of the other guys we were with had 3 ballast pumps, so we got those in the boat and managed to keep ahead of the water coming in through the 4 open bolt holes where the fin used to be, which allowed us to haul *** back to the ramp.

Best part was on the ride back. If any of you have been to Powell I'm sure you have seen the tour boats that throw up the HUGE wakes. I have no idea how big the wakes are, but if I had to guess I'd say that they are probably around 10 ft rollers. Anyway, I was coming up behind one of the tour boats and went to pass. I must have had the perfectly wrong speed and angle, because I came up over one roller and dove down into the trough and went THROUGH the next roller. My girlfriend's dad was following in his boat to make sure we got back ok, and he said our boat disappeared INTO the wave, then came shooting out the other side.

Funny thing is that since I was driving, most of the water hit the windshield and went over my head, and straight into two friends who were riding in the back. They were soaked, I was a little wet but not bad. That little stunt bent our biminy top, ripped off the front two straps and shattered the ski mirror, but the boat stayed afloat and the engine didn't skip a beat. Got it the rest of the way back to the marina without incident.

[jwanck11]

Wow!

[rogersbm82]

Been towed once. Alt. crapped out and battery died. Only person around was a girl on a Seadoo. It was myself, my brother, my mom, and my wife. We finally flag the seadoo down, and the girl won't come within 20' of the boat. She didn't want to tow us so we asked her if she could give my brother a ride to my uncle's dock so he could get my uncle's boat and tow us. It took atleast 20mins to convince her that we were not dangerous. I guess she thought we were pirates.........