D
Deleted User YDKXO
Guest
Re: What\'s your biggest boating cock up ( that you care to share ) ?
After a year messing around on the Thames in a sports boat, we decided it was time to head out to sea and to buy a bigger boat. We purchased a Sealine 305 from Quay Marine on the Hamble and designated one bank holiday Saturday morning for the handover. We had invited some friends along for the long weekend who turned up with a scruffy mongrel dog. He and I immediately took a dislike to each other. I had meticulously planned our departure time for high water to give us the maximum depth for navigating down an unfamiliar river and a following tide for our planned trip to Lymington just as the book told me to do. So we cast off with me at the helm and SWMBO handling the lines. As we approached Bursleden Bridge, SWMBO started gesticulating from the bow and pointing upwards. I could'nt hear her over the engine noise. Silly woman, I thought, she should leave this to the experts. As we nosed under the bridge, I suddenly realised what she was on about, we were too high. I slammed the throttles into reverse but the boat slewed sideways in the now ebbing tide. There was a horrible graunching sound as the bridge wiped everything off the radar arch including the massive radome which plummeted into the cockpit below followed by a gut wrenching howl. I looked down and saw that the radome had smacked the poor dog on the head who had been standing in the cockpit minding his own business. As we extricated ourselves from the bridge there was a round of applause from bystanders watching us from the top
We limped back to the marina, cleared up the mess and set off the next day again a little wiser. The mongrel dog cowered under the saloon table for the rest of the trip. I guess for the rest of his life, he associated boats with heavy lumps falling out of the sky. Oddly enough, our friends never accepted our invites to go boating with us again
After a year messing around on the Thames in a sports boat, we decided it was time to head out to sea and to buy a bigger boat. We purchased a Sealine 305 from Quay Marine on the Hamble and designated one bank holiday Saturday morning for the handover. We had invited some friends along for the long weekend who turned up with a scruffy mongrel dog. He and I immediately took a dislike to each other. I had meticulously planned our departure time for high water to give us the maximum depth for navigating down an unfamiliar river and a following tide for our planned trip to Lymington just as the book told me to do. So we cast off with me at the helm and SWMBO handling the lines. As we approached Bursleden Bridge, SWMBO started gesticulating from the bow and pointing upwards. I could'nt hear her over the engine noise. Silly woman, I thought, she should leave this to the experts. As we nosed under the bridge, I suddenly realised what she was on about, we were too high. I slammed the throttles into reverse but the boat slewed sideways in the now ebbing tide. There was a horrible graunching sound as the bridge wiped everything off the radar arch including the massive radome which plummeted into the cockpit below followed by a gut wrenching howl. I looked down and saw that the radome had smacked the poor dog on the head who had been standing in the cockpit minding his own business. As we extricated ourselves from the bridge there was a round of applause from bystanders watching us from the top
We limped back to the marina, cleared up the mess and set off the next day again a little wiser. The mongrel dog cowered under the saloon table for the rest of the trip. I guess for the rest of his life, he associated boats with heavy lumps falling out of the sky. Oddly enough, our friends never accepted our invites to go boating with us again
