IS THIS TRUE

[puggsy]

From an email i received...
"8. THE GRAND FINALE!!! Last summer, down on Lake Isabella, located in the high desert, an hour east of Bakersfield, CA, some folks, new to boating, were having a problem. No matter how hard they tried, they couldn't get their brand new 22 foot boat, going. It was very sluggish in almost every maneuver, no matter how much power they applied. After about an hour of trying to make it go, they putted into a nearby marina, thinking someone there may be able to tell them what was wrong. A thorough topside check revealed everything in perfect working condition The engine ran fine, the out-drive went up and down, and the propeller was the correct size and pitch. So, one of the marina guys jumped in the water to check underneath He came up choking on water, he was laughing so hard.

NOW REMEMBER...THIS IS TRUE.

Under the boat, still strapped securely in place, was the trailer!

All responses gladly read...Puggsy

[bastonjock]

is there someone that dim????,then again i suppose that you dont need to do the mac bump everytime you retrieve

[Rick Westlake]

Snopes.com doesn't quite verify the story ... but the version they cite is a bit more politically-incorrect, because the boat owner is ... how can I put it without stereotypes ...

Blonde.

http://www.snopes.com/humor/jokes/isabella.asp

[c130king]

I saw this "myth" tested on the TV show "MythBusters". They used a small fishing/power boat. And it worked to some level...obviously they couldn't get the boat going very fast.

I find it hard to believe anyone capable (smart enough) of actually backing a trailer into the water not being smart enough to know that you have to take the boat off of the trailer.

Jim

[Paul S]

have heard from different sources different stories, but same deal - trailer strapped to the boat. Never the same story twice.

from the MB episode, I guess it is possible to do it

It would take a special person to take the effort to unlock the hitch..lower the jack to remove the trailer from the tow vehicle..lower the jack and sail away. I find it hard to do this 'by accident' But maybe that is just me

[Paul S]

Going off topic a bit (well OK, a lot), also on the website is a story http://www.snopes.com/autos/accident/seatbelt.asp

Anti-seat belt law advocate is killed in automobile accident.

Kieper, a 21-year-old senior at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, died early Tuesday morning when the Ford Explorer he was a passenger in traveled off an icy section of Interstate 80 and rolled several times in a ditch. Kieper, who was riding in the back seat of the Explorer, was ejected from the vehicle.

Two others in the vehicle, including the driver, Luke Havermann of Ogallala, and the front-seat passenger, Nick Uphoff of Randolph Air Force Base in Texas, sustained non-life threatening injuries. Havermann and Uphoff, both 21, were being treated at BryanLGH Medical Center West.

Derek, who was thrown from the vehicle, was not wearing a seat belt, [Capt. Joe Lefler of the Lancaster County Sheriff's Office] said. He said Havermann and Uphoff were wearing seat belts at the time.

Reminds me of a major accident I had. I had a plymouth Laser (think Mits Eclipse), I was going about 40-45, t-boned a Lincoln town car (illegally crossing a highway). Crushed the bumper of my car to the front wheels, pushed the engine under the car, bent the hood. (great accident engineering I must say!) I walked away. Worst thing was I broke my glasses when they flew off my head into the windshield.

The cop that came to the scene wanted to know where the ambluance was, or did they leave with the 'guy in the blue car'. I told him I am the one that was in the blue car. He looked at me..said... 'you were wearing your seatbelt'. I said yup.

Later on that same day, I borrowed a pickup from my uncle...in downtown medford, I was at a redlight, and there were school kids handing out flyers to all the cars in traffic encouraging motorists to 'buckle up'. Timing is everything!

I guess the only thing linking this to the thread is the snopes website

Make sure you buckle up when trailering your boat!! (back on topic?? )

[bastonjock]

Theres a story in this months PBO

A boat owner was shot in the rear end by his dog,apparently the chap had been hunting and his dog jumped into the boat and triggered his shot gun,it also blew a hole in the hull,this happened in Oregon.

[Lease]

The myth itself has been around for quite a while as atested by otheres here. The notion that no-one could be so stupid is up for debate though.

Not long after I got my Mac some years ago, I took it to the Marlay Point overnight race. The boat was in the water for a total of 4 days, and as the weather continued light the entire time, we never openned the valves to the ballast tank.

The first obvious sign was pulling the boat out of the water. It really sagged back on the winch strap (about a foot), but I didn't think of weight. There was a fair little sea running at the ramp, as well as a cross breeze and the whole retrieval was exciting enough to exclude other thoughts. We tried to get it back up to the post using all sorts of methods, but still ended up with a 3 inch gap.

The next sign was when we hit the highway. It really needed quite a bit more power than usual to keep at cruise speed. Put that one down to the headwind. Next was the cautionary stop to check tyre and hub temps. Whoa, the tyres are way, way hot. Almost can't keep your hand on them. Reduce the cruise speed, check again in fifteeen minutes; not too bad.

Finally we get the boat home, and then it just won't come off the tow ball. Winding the leg is super hard and finally, my mind snaps and the word weight finally comes to front of mind. Incredulously, I pull the gate valve and 700 litres of brackish lake water cascades over the driveway. Later analysis revealed that the centreline plate valve (mine is a '95 model) had becoem concave through use, and whilst the seal was good enough to hold water when it was on the trailer, without anything more than a drip, in the water it managed to leak enough to completely fill the tank over the four days of immersion.

So why didn't I think about the ballast all that time? Most of you reading right now are shaking your head, because you picked it right from the first few words.

I am a fairly conservative person when it comes to safety, and the foibles of trusting anything mechanical. I was an aircraft maintenance engineer in the Air Force for many years, where inspection, testing, and triple checking are religiously applied. Indeed, I maintain an interest still in the analysis of contributing and causal factors of air disasters. This of course is a field where it is often the case that seemingly innocuous occurences can lead to a series of minor events that together ultimately lead to tragedy. In other words, I'm not what we used to call newbies in the workshop - Marijhuana (slow workin dope).

The plain fact is that the ballast tanks had not been filled. There was no incentive to check that there was anything in them, and my mind simply refused to allow any thoughts in regard to weight to permeate the thought processes around the symptoms that were there. It wasn't until I had run out of palliatives, and no other possibility existed, was I able to admit any thoughts about weight. Now, I reckon about eight in ten people would probably have allowed their mind to roam further than mine did on that day, and to check the ballast anyway. Certainly, many is the time that i have used laterall thought to find a solution to a mechanical problem, and taken pride in the result.

On this particular day however, with any amount of potential other reasons for the symptoms, I towed a boat that was 700 kgs over weight for 350 klms without once considering that I had a weight problem.

beleive me...................................if it is your day, you are going to look like such an idiot.

PS - the 3500lb weight limit on the trailer is a crock. It'll take 5,500 at least before it breaks. JOKING!!!!!!

[puggsy]

It takes a good man to admit his mistakes...Salute'...Puggsy

[Kelly Hanson East]

Lease - working in aerospace will give you that mindset of course, where everything is set in tripicate and done by checklist. As long as your checklists are tried and proven, you dont want to 'think out of the box' when you are maintaining and flying a plane of course.

If you applied the checklist approach to operating the boat, you would sail smooth as silk!!

PS - I have seen 18-25 foot boat trailers on the bottom of the (drained for the season) Erie Canal at Lockport and other places - Ive often wondered how they go there.

Also, having heard the anecdote of people looking for the chart marks from a GPS on the water from a reliable (yet British) source, Im willing to believe in the unbridled idiocy of my fellow man.

[bastonjock]

what about the story of the woman who microwaved her small dog in order to dry it?

i was told by an electrician who worked in Africa that he had installed an electrical cooker,the woman called him a few day later to complain that it did not get hot enough to cook her pots,he returned and found that she had been lighting fires in the oven compartment,she had never used an electrical cooker before

remember the saying "common sense is not that common"

[Andy26M]

Here's a version that I have seen with my own eyes, that I think might be the inspiration for the original post here:

When I was a teen we had a powerboat which we used on the Hudson River (we're talking mid-late 70's here, so the old style boats with high freeboard and near indestructible hulls). One place we used to put it in was a VERY rough and nasty ramp at a public park - no docks, lots of rocks, and very steep - but it was FREE. The important part for this story was that it was VERY steep and dropped of very quickly into 6 or more feet of water. This ramp was also right out on the shore of the main river, so was exposed to the prevailing winds, waves, and wakes of passing boats or ships.

On the day of my little story, it was pretty busy so there were several boats lined up, and one fellow apparently got in too much of a rush - he backed his longish powerboat (maybe 21 feet) down the steep ramp without removing the rear tie-down straps. Rather than the rear of the boat sinking under water on the steep incline, the boat was large enough (or the trailer light enough) that the wheels of the trailer floated up off the ramp. Immediately, the boat started drifting sideways (this is a river with current, mind you) carrying the suspended trailer below it. Exactly what was happening was pretty obvious to everyone. The driver tried setting the emergency brake and ran around the back of the car, but with the current and waves the car was being dragged into the water and the boat/trailer was out of control and going to go onto the rocks.

At that point I'm not real sure whether (a) the driver somehow unhooked the trailer and let it go to save his car, or (b) the trailer hitch broke on one side or the other, but the net effect was that the boat did in fact go free with the trailer still attached.

Someone was able then to get aboard the boat, and with help from bystanders who got in the water to hold it off, got the engine running and backed the boat out away from the rocks.

At that point the boat loitered just off the ramp area until they found someone with a full size pickup and a tow chain, which they prepared on the ramp. They then drove the boat back up on the ramp, crashing the trailer hitch into the pavement, hooked up the tow chain to the winch support at the front of the trailer asap, and dragged the whole assembly back up onto the flat ground. It was not pretty, and I'm sure that the trailer was trashed, but I do remember thinking how amazingly un-damaged the boat was.

So, in this case the part about the boat afloat with trailer still attached was real, the part about folks trying to drive it fast and being too stupid to know the trailer was supposed to be left ashore was false.

Andy

P.S. I've seen lots of "ramp side follies" over the years, maybe we should start a fun thread to share them. Names omitted to protect the guilty, of course!

[Andy26M]

A slightly different item that my Dad and I have been guilty of:

Sitting out on the powerboat having lunch and drowsing in the sun, little brother says he wants to go water skiing. No problem says dad, so out goes the rope and brother and we get set up for a ski run.

Little brother gives the "go" signal and dad hits the throttle, but the boat is totally bogged down and we can't get enough speed to get the skier up.

Dad commences to light up the local area with colorful words. "What's wrong with this %^$#)(& outboard now!!"

Pull in the ski gear and little brother, and then we commence to troubleshooting. Cover is off the engine, gas cans are out, tools are strewn around the boat. All the normal problem areas seem to be working fine, and we are getting frustrated.

The wind starts blowing - dangit are we gonna blow up on those rocks? Hmm, we're still far enough off to keep trying to get the engine running right for a while longer.

More time goes by, my Dad looks at the rocks and says to me "Hey Andy, go up on the bow and drop the anchor until we figure this out so we don't keep blowing toward that shore".

And that's when it dawned on both of us at the same time - we looked at each other wide-eyed - yes, you guessed it - the anchor was already out!

We'd dropped the anchor when we stopped for lunch, and forgot to pull it up when we decided to go skiing. How lucky were we that as we were powering around at full throttle trying first to get the skier up, and then several times "testing" the engine, that the anchor didn't catch hard on something and cause some real damage to the boat?

This episode still comes up every year when we sit around and start up with the "Remember when ..." stories at family gatherings.

- Andy

[Chinook]

I heard a story once about a guy who intentionally ran his boat with a trailer strapped underneath. This was on a lake back in Michigan. The boat owner learned of a fellow across the lake who had a boat trailer for sale. In need of a trailer, and not wanting to drive around to haul the trailer home, he just motored across, slid his boat onto the trailer, and motored back to the other side and hauled her out.

[Kelly Hanson East]

No doubt charging for delivery per land mile