Dumbest Move Ever Seen

[charmc]

Mychael started a thread about the dimwit things "boating" people have said, under the title "Still Get Amazed". That started me thinking about some of the dumb things I've seen people do around and on boats. I'm sure we'll all have gems to contribute.

Like the time a canal along the New Jersey coast was crowded with boats on a holiday weekend. There's a choke point under a bridge, wide enough for 2 small boats but generally passing just one boat at a time because of strong currents. On this day, quite a few boats were waiting their turn downcurrent of the bridge, holding stationary with occasional nudges of the throttle, waiting their turn to pass through. With a load roar an idiot in a large, custom painted "cigarette" boat, named Macho Man (Really, you can't make this stuff up) came up the canal at a high speed, weaving through the group of waiting boats and going right up to the bridge ... where he saw the bow of a large trawler emerging. Mr Genius immediately chopped both throttles, his boat sank off plane, ... and his large stern wave broke over the length of his boat, sinking it instantly.

Fortunately a bit of the bow remained above water and the hulk was towed out of the channel fairly quickly. The comedy show was worth the delay.

[Trevlyns]

That absolutely HAS to be a classic!

[timgoz]

Thankfully he hurt nobody but himelf/boat. Probably good he lost the boat before he killed someone. Great story!

TGoz

[SamSam]

There was a similar thing happened around here last year with bad results. Two brothers in a small boat and one says to stop so he can light his cigarette, the sternwave sunk them and the smoker drowned. A funny thing I saw once was a 'swell' boat with 5 snooty babes all laying around on the front deck blasting thru a cut down in the Keys at that Bahia Honda park, when it hit a sandbar and stopped within a few feet. All the women were piled up in the bow rails like fish in a net, everyone on the beach was laughing.

[timgoz]

My neighbor, a notoriuos drunk, went fishing on the Monongahala River several years ago. I assume he was hitting the bottle as usual. He and one or two friends were out in a boat about midstream when they noticed a tow boat and barges heading there way. They continued fishing figureing they had plenty of time. The tow boat operator knew better and rightly began laying on the horn. My neighbor still kept fishing. Way to late he decided to move out of the way. Problem, the outboard would not start. They barely got out of the way, only because by putting the motor in gear and cranking the starter, the prop gave them enough propulsion to move to a point were the bow wave pushed them clear.

One of those barges hits you square you'll be drowned long before getting to the very large props at the tow boat. I feel for the tow boat crews having to deal with idiots like the above.

TGoz

[safewalrus]

Hers a salty one! OLd Navy story - coming alongside the dock in Aden the young naval rating on the 'front' of the boat standing smartly (it wasn't me Bergalia, I said smartly!!! never could get the hang of this smart thing!) to attention leaning into the painter to give him some balance. As the boat came close to the jetty the young sailor jumped for the beach in a dramatic leap - forgot about the length of the rope and neatly, at attention , slide between the boat and the dock, Splash! God How we laffed - Shark infested waters see!!! when he realised this he came out quicker than he went in (for Jack Tee! Hee!)

[charmc]

A neighbor once asked me to go for a ride in his new boat, a nice little fiberglass outboard runabout. It was obvious that he had little or no experience, so I found myself giving a running course in navigation, how to read buoys and channel markers, etc. We got to an area where he wanted to stop for lunch. My neighbor said, "OK, let me do the anchoring. I've watched everything, and I can do it myself." I moved to the back of the boat as he pulled a tiny anchor and line out of a locker. He tied the end of the line to a forward cleat ... then whirled the anchor around his head and flung it about 50 feet in front of the boat. As the anchor reached the end of the line it stopped momentarily, then the knot (who knows what type) he had tied came loose and the anchor disappeared into the depths. After almost falling overboard from laughter, I wiped the tears from my eyes and asked him why he did that. With a straight face and a puzzled look in his eyes he said, "Well, I know the ropes go out almost straight when boats are anchored, and I'd heard the phrase 'throw out the anchor', so I figured that's how you got it out in front of the boat."

[charmc]

Originally Posted by SamSam

it hit a sandbar and stopped within a few feet. All the women were piled up in the bow rails like fish in a net, everyone on the beach was laughing.

I always wondered what would happen to all the babes lounging on the front deck if one of those boats stopped quickly. Thanks, Sam, now I know.

[Mychael]

Last year in Port Phillip bay. I was out with my mate and a zillion other boats to watch one of the legs of the yacht race.. ABN Amro etc.
Anyway boats everywhere, all at anchor and this very large (about 50footer) steel ketch tries to fit in amongst us all. It was full of middle aged blokes, all with stubbies (beers) in their hands. Either the anchor was too light or they did not put out enough rode but they were creating havoc but constantly drifting amongst the rest of us. The thing was they were either so pissed or stupid that they did not twig to the fact that they were the ones moving not everyone else.. Sitting in the cockpit of my mates 20foot trailer sailor and seeing a bowsprit way above my head and bearing down on us was an expeirence I do not care to have again.

Mychael

[Mychael]

A silly thing I did (my excuse I was still learning back then) was to sail too close to a large tanker sitting at anchor in Westernport bay. We were in my mates Dragon (no motor), I thought it would be fun to go close to have a look at the big boat.
What I did not allow for was the lose of all the wind once we were alonside the ship, it was a tense moment or two but fortunatly we had just enough momentum to get us past before we drifted onto the side of the ship. My mate was not impressed, he could see all his nice paintwork getting a beating.

Mychael

[marshmat]

A few years ago I was darting around some back coves in Georgian Bay when we spotted one of those wide, fat "dock queen" cabin cruisers, perhaps ten metres or so, lying adrift a couple hundred metres out from shore, almost exactly in the centre of a very well-marked sand shelf that extended maybe half a kilometre out. (Dark blue on the charts, and buoys everywhere.)
I could barely get my five-metre runabout in to check it out, the water was so shallow. Seems he must have been on plane, then slowed down to look around. With the loss of planing lift, both his 300-hp outdrive props dug their way straight down into hard sand and died.
Had the boat been well maintained he could have trimmed the drives up and gracefully accepted a tow. Several boats tried; he had a seized trim unit and the one outdrive had no intention of getting its prop out of the seabed. Now, you can't dig down two feet into underwater packed sand, not by hand and not with any tools we had.
Then, while another boater and ourselves were at my boat discussing what to do, the guy fires up his 7.4 big-block. Of course the cooling's sucking in the sand and pumping it through the motor, so he starts jabbing the throttle between forward and reverse. Blasting sand all over the place in the process. We watch from the other boats as the guy inches his way out at two-thirds throttle, his prop grinding away in the seabed until he gets to open water.

[marshmat]

And a couple more, although I didn't see either of these personally and so cannot confirm first-hand every detail....
---
The boater, new to the lake system, who got there late in the evening and wasn't quite sure where to go. Following in the bubble trail left by the outboard engine of one of the locals, our boater apparently didn't notice the left-right-left S-curve going through a narrow channel, and on full plane drove right over a 20-foot-wide rock that sticks about two feet above lake level.
---
Another boater who was spotted sitting on a small rock about a hundred metres out from shore. No boat, but after being rescued he found his companion on the adjacent island. The next morning they were out with grappling hooks in the general vicinity, fishing luggage and beer cases out of the lake. Eventually, with some help and clever use of 55-gallon drums and rope, an outboard runabout was found.... a borrowed runabout, with a new engine. The local rescue party estimated the sum total of gear and booze would have loaded the poor craft to within four inches of its gunwales.

[marshmat]

And one more... this one not so much dumb as just plain strange.
---
Last summer we had what has got to be the heaviest thunderstorm the region has had in my (admittedly short) lifetime. It started late in the afternoon; storms usually go by quickly in the area but not this one. It just stayed there, for hours, raining like a monsoon (remember, this is Ontario). By nine at night we were starting to get concerned about the boats; the big bowrider was closed up, but the open craft were getting us a bit worried. Ten at night, we go out with 2-litre jugs thinking we should bail out, even if the storm is kind of fierce and electrical. We find my runabout with water at the top of the batteries and quickly approaching the motor cutout, and the utility boat is down to a few inches of freeboard. We bail like hell with buckets until the boats are floating again, and head to bed.... only to wake up the next morning to find just as much water in the boats again. The official rainfall? Twelve centimetres or so. My ass. Thankfully our fleet survived... although several of the fishing lodge's boats were apparently found, still moored to their docks, sitting four feet down on the lakebed.

well how abt bulldust and jelly beans
When I built my last, I had to deliver her NZ--AU which is the Tasman sea
This can be one of the worst bits of water
The owner was along, a very fine and courageous educted man, and full of shear grit It was rough, we were falling off very large waves and counting the seconds of dead silence as she fell
Well we had picked up 2 (pro crew) to help me, in NZ
One who said he had 170000 ocean miles
He was promptly sick, he called a course a bearing, he lay on the sole down aft sick while the 65 year owner and I battled the weather
He called home on the ssb, and cried to his wife, they both said they had never been in weather like it.
these guys had been sent to us by an agency
Needless to say he never got paid
The sea finds fools liars and idiots, quickly and merclessly

year ago I ran a small 43 footer to take people fishing, mum dad and I had a guesthouse and this was part of the deal
We had a man from Australia , who claimed he had been a crayfisherman in Bass stright and proceeded to tell us all abt his life in this notorious piece of water
the next day we went fishing I asked him to drop the pick, it was quite clear he had not a clue, when it was down , he made :fast" by wrapping the rode round and round and round the bollard, It rather sad when people end up like this, living this dream in their minds eye
there are lots of stories, some of the things we see here on TV, from Florida , about people with high powered boats are just staggeringly , !! well stuck for adjectives!

[Bergalia]

Yes, alright I can see you're all waiting for me.
Years back, when Walrus was still an egg, I was teaching the local sea cadets the arts of dinghy sailing on the Caledonian Basin in Inverness (A holding bay for boats waiting to go through the Caledonian Canal, maybe half a mile long by 200 yards across. It was a Sunday and the basin was empty.) I had all the cadets in their dinghies lined up in front of me as I tacked in a gentle breeze along their line stressing the prime rule of sailing: "Always wear a safety harness...If you go overboard you'll never swim fast enough to catch your vessel..."
Then I promptly stood up and tripped over the side - needless to say - not wearing a safety harness...
Five minutes later I caught up with my dinghy by running along the tow path...