Stupid things done on a boat.

Whilst an old thread back on topic.

Willaims 325 in st tropez been at club 55 for the day. I was not drunk but 2 of my friends were very drunk.

Time to go Hop in tender with the 2 ( large guys ) at the front and kids and mum in the middle

head out to the boat. Small waves.bow Low. Waves come over. Drunk people do nothing ( the situation was not their fault to be clear but mine ). More water lower boat. Seconds later rib full of water.

I gotfull power and do a 180 back down the tender lane- which now has swimmers in it.

frantic waving for them to get out of the way which they do.

lifeguard on the beach blowing whistle at us then realises there is an issue. He helps clear swimmers.

rib beached at full power.

we get out. Lifeguard Amazing. Takes the guest out to the boat in his rib , helps drain it and lift is back in the water.

rib survived with just damp speakers.

moral of this storey (1) think about boat loading (2) if people are drunk they won’t intuitively try to resolve an issue but will find it amusing.

In this case the water was warm, the sea quite flat and we were I guess100 m from the shore with a rescue rib on the shore. The risk of serious harm was low , in different conditions they could have been anything but.

ribs are very buoyant but everything has its limits.
 
I’m always amazed at how events can develop to make things worse than initially thought. I’m a volunteer lifeboat crew member on a large lake. A family were cruising down the lake when the breeze started to build quickly. They were in a 40ft ex hire cruiser with a small single engine and they were towing a ski boat. It was a smaller version of a Mastercraft type mid engined ski boat. An inflatable kayak on the roof of the cruiser took flight in the strong breeze. The skipper hopped into the ski boat to go back and rescue it, leaving his wife and kids on the cruiser. On his way to rescue the kayak, he ran over a wetsuit that had been lying on top of the kayak, drying. It fouled his prop and as it was a shaft drive ski boat, he couldn’t reach the prop to clear it. Then a wave swamped the low-freeboard ski boat, then another. Suddenly he is in the middle of a very rough lake, the aft end of the ski boat goes under and he clings to the bow where an air pocket keeps it afloat. His wife returns in the cruiser, now traumatised, and rescues him. They take the ski boat under tow but can’t make any progress as the boat is underpowered and they take a serious pasting from the rough conditions. The lifeboat is called out and we took the ski boat under tow, beached it, and later refloated it.
 
When I got my first boat - S58 - on my second outing we were in Andratz docked in the marina. We needed to get back to Cala D’Or where she was berthed and then a plane that pm. Having breakfast in the town it was a lovely day with not much wind it seemed. Checked the weather reports which kept showing rather large waves and wind, even as we were sitting in total calm. Couldn’t see any sign of this so after much debate decided to head out. All calm until we went past the breakwater on a course towards Dragonera before planning to turn to port when the first wave arrived. Totally out of left field and probably 3 metres high. Boat took air off the top of the wave - I was not going more than 8 knots, various members of the party screaming, spray over my head on the Flybridge. Impossible to do a u turn so I had to find a variable speed over the next set of waves to keep her on water and not bury the bow. Finally beyond the headland I was able to power a port turn which meant the waves were behind me effectively. Utterly stupid error on my part, massive lessons learned. Never ever treat weather reports the lack of respect I did that day!!
 
I mistimed the exit from Arcashon over the sand bar. I don’t recommend it ! Ex wife said can’t we turn round. Err no the boat will roll over. It lasted about 4-5 mins and we were clear of it but it was the most frightening few minutes I have had on a boat. I don’t know how high the waves were - very high was all that mattered.
 
Anchored up on a friends boat (in the Adriatic) and we were all just dozing around and he decided to put out another anchor. So he put the anchor on a li-lo and got on himself. We were unaware but to stop the anchor falling off he tied it to his wrist.
After a couple of meters out the anchor of course fell off dragging him to the sea bottom (5-7 meters)
Again we had no idea of his potential fate until he came gasping to the surface having untied himself in time.
He’s a physics teacher as well!! :eek:
 
Last edited:
DavidJ said:
Anchored up on a friends boat (in the Adriatic) and we were all just dozing around and he decided to put out another anchor. So he put the anchor on a li-lo and got on himself. We were unaware but to stop the anchor falling off he tied it to his wrist.
After a couple of meters out the anchor of course fell off dragging him to the sea bottom (5-7 meters)
Again we had no idea of his potential fate until he came gasping to the surface having untied himself in time.
He’s a physics teacher as well!! :eek:
Click to expand...
I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry!!!! Worthy of a Monty Python sketch
 
Based at Port Solent a locked marina.
I had to demonstrate a 45ft Flybridge to potential purchaser.
All onboard and left berth then noticed no response to helm made decision to steer boat on throttle/ gears.
Took boat into lock tied up and only then light bulb moment no high speed control!
 
We usually went out as 3 in my dory to go diving, 1 as the boatman while the other two dived, this time we had a lad that was on the same diving course as myself and had done a little bit of diving since, this was his first time as boatman while the other diver and myself went down.
We were wreck diving in Wick bay off the north shore in about 20m of water, the dive started out well with "Joe" left onboard and "Fred" and myself descended to the deeps. While down on the bottom we could hear the engine of my boat start, nothing too unusual as at times you have to reposition, but then we could hear the highspeed prop and see the wake of the dory criss-crossing the "ceiling" he kept that up all while we were down. With a mixture of hand signals and text on the writing tablets Fred and I decided to head for the shore keeping on the bottom.
Once we got ashore on the rocks we called Joe in and got back in the boat, we, Fred and myself, had serious words with Joe about what he was doing while we were down.

With him going 30+knots back and forth we had a big chance of getting hit by the boat, was not a nice feeling looking up and seeing the wake of the boat directly above.
 
stelican said:
Based at Port Solent a locked marina.
I had to demonstrate a 45ft Flybridge to potential purchaser.
All onboard and left berth then noticed no response to helm made decision to steer boat on throttle/ gears.
Took boat into lock tied up and only then light bulb moment no high speed control!
Click to expand...
Call me stupid, and many do - I have no idea by lightbulb moment and no high speed control. Are you suggesting the boat had some sort of switch to alter the rudders depending on speed ?
 
Yes on our Raymarine (2011 Princess 50 fly) the display would show MOT STALL if you manually adjusted steering with autopilot enabled and the autopilot stopped trying to steer.
 
We launched our speed boat in the Dart to watch the Red A rrors i forgot to put bung in , mum and wife had a wet arse.
 
Phantomfil said:
We launched our speed boat in the Dart to watch the Red A rrors i forgot to put bung in , mum and wife had a wet arse.
Click to expand...
The person that owned my dory before me had glassed up the elephant's trunks that drained the boat when underway so I had to pull the bung out while underway to keep the dory dry ... it was not always replaced in a timeous manner when heaved too with the consequence that the boat quickly filled with water usually with lots of shouting of "Where the F... is the bung...?"
I've had about a foot of water in the boat with the bung in and she still floated fine, it was said that you could fill her to the gunnels and she would still float, never tried to find out. With the boat half filled and a 2m sea running it was interesting trying to get her up to speed to get the water out in Sinclair's bay after an afternoon's fishing.
Boat was an ex Royal Marines Rigid Raider with a Johnson 75 V4 2stroke on the back.
 
Setting off with the cooling water seacock closed. Boat lives on a dry stack, so I leave it open. When engine was serviced, it was closed and I forgot to check on the next trip. However, I did check the salt water discharge from the bathing platform, as always, and water was bubbling out as usual.

Lesson: the ‘water coming out check’ is no substitute for checking the seacock. There is enough in the circuit/strainer to create the impression all is well - but it may not be.
 
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