So what's the worse thing you have dropped and where did you drop it ?

[superheat6k]

I changed the oil yesterday on my Port engine using a 12v change pump from Aldi / Lidl I bought a few years ago. So I thought, having successfully drained the oil in quite short order, and with no mess, I would use the pump to put the new oil in.

The end of the outlet tube has a small plastic nozzle to ensure a clean drip into the receptacle.

So suitably inserted this tube into the oil filler aperture in the rocker cover, I then pulled out the tube, which got slightly stuck so I lightly tugged it, and out it popped - WITHOUT THE SMALL END PIECE !

The wet & dry hoover didn't retrieve it so in the end I had to remove the rocker cover - not so easy on a Ford Sabre with ~ 2 - 3" clearance above the cover to the deck head above. one screw would have required extensive engine dismantling to get to, however I was able to gently prise the cover where the fitting had dropped in and was able to locate & retrieve it with some long nose pliers.

So two hours and an enormous amount of loud expletives later the fitting was removed and it is now in the bin as a completely unnecessary PITA device.

This exercise was accompanied by a change of the fuel filters. Before these were bone dry, and afterwards both drain caps started leaking, and in the end were replaced with some secondhand filters bases from the Chandlery Barge where my boat is based. This left the bilge with an annoying quantity of diesel that had to be soaked up with oil absorbing pads, then a through scrub with detergent where the fuel had managed to pray itself, not least from having to prime the system several times until I got the drains sealed.

So a 2 - 3 hour job became a 5 - 6 hour job due to completely unnecessary problems, and I still have the delightful Eau de Diesel aftershave scent stuck up my nose this morning !

 

[Supertramp]

I managed to do something similar emptying a gearbox from above with a plastic pipe which snagged on the gearbox internals. Took an hour of careful jiggling to release it.

But my favourite was when my father was rowing ashore in St Margarets, Orkney and he managed to jump the plastic rowlook out of its fitting and it dropped into 12ft of water. He thoughtfully took a position fix, returned and said that it was his last spare rowlock - they broke regularily. I donned a wetsuit (Scotland) , sculled to the drop point, anchored and dived to begin a search. Miraculously I found and retrieved it after a few dives. And added the little rope ties that stop rowlocks escaping.

 

[Tillana]

My outboard off the back of the tender. 2 days on the seabed till I found it.

 

[V1701]

My outboard off the back of the tender. 2 days on the seabed till I found it.

Very similar story, happened to me in thailand crewing on a big old wooden Indonesian boat equipped for diving. Two of us divers eventually found it. Worst thing here I dropped my keys & marina access fob in & got them out with a magnet on a string...

 

[Clancy Moped]

A roast chicken with all the trimmings plus gravy down the back of the gimbal oven, what a kin mess!

 

[lumphammer]

Did the lost keys thing into the marina, then lost the magnet that I'd rather hastily tied to a bit of string when the knot came undone. Fortunately the marina had a magnet (rather better tied on) and I got back my magnet and keys.

 

[johnalison]

I've not dropped much of importance other than the odd pawl spring overboard. I was carrying a tray of glasses of red wine and making my way up the companionway to join my wife and friends when I missed a step and managed to upend the glasses towards me, which made an interesting additional pattern on my new summer shirt.

The most spectacular droppage, though not mine was at Queensborough on a friend's boat when we eventually fished his friend who was sailing with us out of the water, having given prior attention to the dinghy outboard that he had managed to dunk in a clumsy manoeuvre. By the time he (my friend's friend) got into the cabin he was mildly hypothermic but, keen to show willing, picked up the boat-owner's toolbox that he was using to deal with the outboard. With his mind only working at 30% he failed to notice that the lid was unlatched and the entire contents exploded out to cover the cabin sole. My actual friend was not very pleased.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

We’ve not dropped much ourselves, but, sailing up the Thames on a Strider cat with our 2 yr old son on deck in his harness, we solved a mystery. He was conducting experiments on the buoyancy of our galley gear, which was in a washing up bowl on the forward tramp. We wondered where our cutlery was disappearing to.

 

[Meps1983]

I wouldn't call myself clumsy but I seem to send something to the bottom everytime I'm onboard. But my finest achievement was probably a mini karcher jet wash! I was at my previous marina washing my boat when I noticed that things had gotten a bit quiet. Looked over the pontoon and the Karcher was fully submerged!! I'd been using it for a couple of minutes without realising. Still working fine 3 years on and I lived to tell the story

 

[Clancy Moped]

I think the most satisfying was a rat in a metal snap trap, he's at at the bottom of Nisyors harbour, it had been living with us for just under a week.

 

[Sea Change]

Our babystay. I was replacing the rigging one stay at a time whilst alongside, and the babystay was lying on the pontoon, stupidly draped over one of the mooring warps. A little bit of surge and a tightening of the rope flicked it in to the water.
It took about an hour messing around with a go pro and a grapnel to get it back.

On another occasion, my wedding ring went over the side. However the boat was on the drying out wall of Stornoway harbour, and when I came back at low tide I found out glinting in the mud.

 

[Wansworth]

Small screw from impeller cover……straight into the bilge…..flushe with water and found in the sump

 

[harvey38]

I changed the oil yesterday on my Port engine using a 12v change pump from Aldi / Lidl I bought a few years ago. So I thought, having successfully drained the oil in quite short order, and with no mess, I would use the pump to put the new oil in.

The end of the outlet tube has a small plastic nozzle to ensure a clean drip into the receptacle.

So suitably inserted this tube into the oil filler aperture in the rocker cover, I then pulled out the tube, which got slightly stuck so I lightly tugged it, and out it popped - WITHOUT THE SMALL END PIECE !

The wet & dry hoover didn't retrieve it so in the end I had to remove the rocker cover - not so easy on a Ford Sabre with ~ 2 - 3" clearance above the cover to the deck head above. one screw would have required extensive engine dismantling to get to, however I was able to gently prise the cover where the fitting had dropped in and was able to locate & retrieve it with some long nose pliers.

So two hours and an enormous amount of loud expletives later the fitting was removed and it is now in the bin as a completely unnecessary PITA device.

This exercise was accompanied by a change of the fuel filters. Before these were bone dry, and afterwards both drain caps started leaking, and in the end were replaced with some secondhand filters bases from the Chandlery Barge where my boat is based. This left the bilge with an annoying quantity of diesel that had to be soaked up with oil absorbing pads, then a through scrub with detergent where the fuel had managed to pray itself, not least from having to prime the system several times until I got the drains sealed.

So a 2 - 3 hour job became a 5 - 6 hour job due to completely unnecessary problems, and I still have the delightful Eau de Diesel aftershave scent stuck up my nose this morning !

Have your Sabres not got the handy, built in oil draining suction pumps? They make life so easy.

 

[Boathook]

A small plastic clip bit on the furlex when I was getting everything ready for the mast to come down.
Another time a short 14mm combination spanner, one of a set. Can't buy individual spanners, only a set.

 

[Buck Turgidson]

dropnose pin that went through the bowroller. It was attached with a lanyard so I was casual when removing it until the day the lanyard failed. Still haven't found a replacement :

 

[Daydream believer]

A b..lok. I only have 2--- but I seem to have dropped one or the other an awful lot of times

 

[Daydream believer]

Small screw from impeller cover……straight into the bilge…..flushe with water and found in the sump

Change them for socket headed screws. You can hold them on the allen key & line them up better
Well you cannot, because you have a lawnmower, but forumites who do have a boat can
Do lawn mowers have raw water pumps?

 

[Yngmar]

Hole saw including arbor. Mid drilling, because I pulled it out to check how deep I'd drilled, the chuck had vibrated lose and plunk it went. I'm now the proud owner of one and a half sets of hole saws, and paid special attention to buying a locking chuck when I bought a new drill.

Oh, and the pin for the forestay while stepping the mast. I did get that back though, as that was in clear (but freezing cold) water. Then I went in again to fish out the rigger's phone, which slid out of his pocket while he was up my mast, bounced off the toerail and into that same clear, cold water. The SIM card still worked, the phone not so much.

 

[Wansworth]

Change them for socket headed screws. You can hold them on the allen key & line them up better
Well you cannot, because you have a lawnmower, but forumites who do have a boat can
Do lawn mowers have raw water pumps?

I think that engine convincedmeIwas a outboard man

 

[billyfish]

Leatherman