Near miss stories

[GoVols]

I’d like to start a “near miss” thread where we novice sailors can share our stories of how we (or our friends) nearly maimed or killed our boats, ourselves, or others. These stories, while hopefully harmless can serve as lessons to others as well as an entertaining thread to follow. I’ll start us off!

In July ’14, I traded a 2004 model Regal 1800LSR for a new Regal 1900ES. The boat is beautiful with a solid bright blue hull and special 2 tone interior and I was on cloud 9 on our maiden voyage. The wife, 2 kids, and I were cruising the lake for a good while and decided to anchor down and swim for a while. I pulled into a quiet cove, threw out the anchor in about 30’ of water, and turned the kids loose in the water. They had a blast jumping off the new big swim platform and then swimming all around the boat while I chased after them. After a while, it was time to head back to land, so I loaded the kids back in the boat and sat everyone back down. I deflated the inner tube and tucked it back into the locker, pulled up the swim later, fired up the boat, and engaged the tranny to get us underway. The boat quickly popped up on plane when all of a sudden there was a big jerk that shook the whole boat hard accompanied with a loud slap noise. Instantly, I figured I just hit something with my new boat, but before another thought could enter my mind, MY ANCHOR literally landed with a loud thud inside the boat between me and my wife!! In all my haste, I forgot to pull the anchor back up before leaving the cove!! The big jerk and the loud slap was the anchor rope being yank hard against the hull of the boat and then being sling shot inside the boat. Thankfully, the kids we sitting in the bow, where they always sit. If anyone was sitting the back seat, the anchor surely would have struck that person on its flight into the boat. Amazingly, there wasn’t even a scratch on the boat after all that. Ever since then, I pay much closer attention to my anchor.

[hcooperrn]

I drive everyone nuts with safety, so go figure I'm the one that had the close call.

I drive unless it's my turn for a set. It was a bit windy, but still getting a good wave, so we stayed out. They talked me into getting wet, so I turned over them helm to my friend. He usually drives fine, a bit fast on the approach to pick me up, but I've gotten used to it. On this day though, as he got close I could tell he was still under power and going to blow past me. What I didn't expect was the gust of wind that blew him on top of me. He cut the power just as the boat came up over me.

Instant thoughts of the chines slicing something were quickly followed by panic that he would throw it in reverse. I managed to get a foot on a chine and push off to get out from under.

Moral of the story for me - SLOW approach to a downed rider with a wide berth in rough water. And, from now on, every driver will get a thorough chat about conditions and my safety rules, regardless of their experience or how much I sound like an a**.


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[D&P Powell]

Went out on Lake Mohave with 5 others. Right before my wife boarded (she had just dropped off the trailer), a lady walks up to her and whispers to her "They will be doing safety inspections when you pull in". We get out about 200 yards from the dock, and my wife tells me. That's the exact moment I realized I only had 4 life jackets and a throwable. I had loaned someone else the other 2 I normally keep on board. I drove to the beach, enjoyed the day, drove my wife by herself back to the dock, went back and got everyone else. When we returned, sure enough, we were pulled off to the side for the safety inspection. Lesson learned. Stupid on my part.

[IDBoating]

MY ANCHOR literally landed with a loud thud inside the boat between me and my wife!!

The other stories in here pale in comparison to this. That anchor could literally have killed someone. Wow. Glad everyone is OK.

Reminds me of the time my wife and (then small) son were over at an older relative's house. He had a nice workworking shop and my wife likes woodworking. The guy loaded a bit into his high end router and fired it up. My wife said something didn't sound right, and just as it hit full RPM's the router bit came flying out of the chuck, whizzed between my wife and son, and EMBEDDED ITSELF into the wall. Yes, that's right. A heavy metal object with very sharp edges spinning at high RPM's zinged between my family members fast enough to embed itself into the wall behind them. Just imagine if that had hit either one.... Not a boating story, but your anchor tale reminded me of it. Freakin' scary.

[Thegerman618]

Oh geese where to begin...close calls.

I almost killed a bass boat at last years Tige Reunion, he was ripping across doing 50+ didn't see my surf roller. Sent him vertical. Sorry dude!

Any trip with DP Powell.

Most recently I was driving, turned around to pick up a downed rider....hit my own roller...almost spilled my beer. Whew close call.

On a serious note, lessons learned/After Action Report:
This was when I was still very new to tow boats and learning my way with my old centurion DD. I headed out for an early run on the lake after the spring maintenance on a local lake. No plans of getting in the water just a day cruise, have lunch and burn some gas. Back the boat in, fire it up, pop the hatch no leaks, oil pressure, charging, temps are good. GF comes back from parking the truck hops in and off we go. As I bring the boat to speed the motor barked and missed as it had been idling for 15 minutes I just figured small air bubble in the line, bad gas, no biggy. In my infinite wisdom I decided that I would just go to WOT and blow through any "bad gas" that may be left from the previous year. After about 4 miles at 45mph WOT I check the temp just to be sure. Hmmmm it's reading 0 that's weird, no sooner does my GF say "why is the floor wet?" I pull the power back just as the motor dies, and see water dumping out of the motor bay. Pop the hatch, everything is under water, trans, plugs, distributor has water coming out of the weep hole boat was FLOODED. I know what your thinking " dumba$$ didn't put the plug in". NOPE I triple check that every trip. Fun fact. Do you know how much water comes out of 2" hose at WOT? I do...about enough to sink a centurion. Appearntly when I went to leave the harbor I blew the main hose coming off the trans cooler. Must have missed it when I did the water pump, needless to say found the leak wasn't hard it was the fire hose of water coming out of the bilge. Disconnected the raw water hose let it dangle in the bilge plugged the through hole and fired it up. Ran the bilge pump, had that baby dry in 3 min flat. My moral of the story, always carry extra clamps. Have a working knowledge of all your systems so you can troubleshoot problems and have a plan to get a lot of water out of your boat quickly. Ohh and double check your work.

[chpthril]

July 4th, 1999, I blew myself up. Took my first chopper ride that afternoon too

[skibumsd]

Chpthril that is gonna need some more explanation please!

[007]

X2

[007]

i've had some stupid boating moments, but most of them were not life threatening. Old boat almost sinking after developing a crack in the hull, hit a submerged object at dusk on the river, got my wakeboard stuck in heavy clay in the shallows right when the driver started to pull...all manageable with cool headed freinds and some laughs after all said and done.

The weekend I picked up my last boat there were 2 horrible accidents within minutes of us, a guy backed over his wife in pontoon. His hat blew off, wife dove off the back to get it. He put it in reverse...she lost both her legs. The same afternoon a guy was wrapped up in a tube rope and the driver gunned it. He was in a bad way at the ramp as we were loading the boat and didnt want to go to the hospital, but clearly had broken ribs if not internal bleeding. In both cases the whole crew was smashed drunk. I enjoy my drinks on the water for sure, but non threating situations can go south in a heart beat without a cool head and an experienced "DD" captain.

[chpthril]

89 REGAL so it was certainly built prior to the intended use of ethanol blended fuel in boats. We all know what this does to older fuel system. Older boat that had actually sat unused and neglected for a few years so it was a restoration project in the works. Launched boat earlier that day, but left it beached/tied up as we had planned to go out later to see the fireworks. Did not plan to have my own show though.

Boat was soaking in the sun all day and apparently had some fuel leakage. I pushed it off the beach, jumped in and fired it to motor over to dock to pick up wife and my parents. Trim wold not go down. Pull access panel to get to trim motor and relays, Wiggle wire and thats all she wrote! Spark, fumes BOOM...........

I dove overboard cause i knew my @$$ was on fire. After putting me out (wasnt really on fire just didnt wait to find out) I could see that the boat was not on fire as well, just a flash fire of the fumes. I swam the boat to shore and tied it back up.

2nd degree burns on legs, arms and face, but I had my sunglasses on. Wife called 911 but was too panicked to talk to them, so I did my own triage to the 911 operator. They sent the ambulance as well as dispatched the life-flight. The chopper met us just up the road behind the volunteer fire dept. Im in severe pain and the life flight tech and ambulance medic argued about where to take me. I told them give me the damn morphine first then they could figure it out. I convinced them I did not inhale fire so to just take me the close hospital (more than equipped to handle my case) rather than the one that would be a 2 hour drive for the family, and they also would not have known until reaching the other hospital. Spent the night and went home.

Worst part was the dumn @$$ discharge nurse that removed the line from my arm. Told her to leave the tape just pull the needle. She ripped the tape off anyway and took the blisters with it.

[Eastern shore wake]

This was stupid and completely avoidable. Years ago before owning Tiges had a 25 ft Four Winns bow rider. Went for a day of fishing with a buddy and his two kids and my oldest two. All were 12 or younger. Am in northern Chesapeake bay and we go south an hour + into the mid bay. Current and wind much greater. We anchored and set out a chum bag as we are after striped bass. Chum bag tied to rear cleat. Fishing out in open bay on a weekday so not many people around. The chum bag which costs $7 comes loose and starts to float away. I jump in and swim after it. No life preserver. I get it and start swimming back when it becomes clear I am not making any headway against a very strong current. In fact, going further away from boat although swimming toward it. My buddy sees this and grabs two life preservers, puts one on and jumps in. He quickly reached me and we now both have life preservers but now neither of us can get back to boat. 4 young kids on the boat who are getting scared. We calmly tell them to stay on boat and all will be allright. Not sure we entirely believed that. No boats visible anywhere around us. Shore over a mile away. We were out there for 10 minutes and then we saw a charter fishing boat and waved and shouted. Thankfully they saw us and picked us up and took us back to our boat where kids and us were so glad to see each other. The two smallest had been crying. In retrospect it was stupid and completely avoidable. Why jump in to retrieve a $7 chum bag and even if I did no excuses for not grabbing a life preserver. Of course, my buddy shouldn't have left boat either but he was trying to help. Also, needed to be more aware that an hour away can present completely different currents than what I was used to. Anyway, although nobody was hurt could have ended very differently.


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