Speaking of doing stupid things a.k.a how not to launch your new boat.

Well your ramp adventure beats most of mine. Glad that you survived and your truck didn't become a submarine. I hear that new trucks are expensive and old trucks don't float very well.

My latest relaxing boating adventure occurred on last Sunday. It was hot (95 degrees), sunny and low humidity. Everyone in the greater Portland area was converging on this ramp and park to launch boats and listen to a free concert. I launched my new Bankes Crusader at an extremely busy 4 lane ramp, got it in the water and the wife and dog loaded up. The dock cop said I had to move it from the ramp docks to the temporary waiting areas on another dock before going to park the truck. Ok, so I move the boat, run back to the truck and start up the ramp to clear it for the next guy who is already backing down in the adjacent lane. He has a big expensive water skiing boat and trailer that was so wide that it would difficult to get it side by side with my trailer. So I pull forward and over closer to the dock so he will be clear. Well as I move forward I hear my trailer fender brush along the dock. No big deal and I whip up the ramp to the extremely crowded parking area. When I get to the top of the ramp, I hear someone say Whoa! Being rushed, stubborn, and half-deaf I drove past the 5 or 6 rigs waiting to launch and tried to find a parking place in a parking lot that looked like the Mega Car and Boat Trailer Store at the Miami Boat Show. There had to be 1-200 hundred rigs parked there. Once I found a parking space in the next county I realized that the trailer wasn't towing well despite being empty. So after securing the rig, I inspected the trailer. It was listing hard to starboard. The brand new (less than 50 miles) steel-belted radial tire was as flat as a green grass meadow muffin after 3 days in the sun. Apparently as I was being a nice guy for trying to get out of the other guys way, i brushed the tire up against an exposed 3 inch long 3/4 in diameter bolt on the dock. That bolt tore the sidewall of that tire open like big box cutter in the hands of the neighborhood punk. Since this is a brand new rig I haven't had a chance to buy a spare tire for the rig. Hmmm, now I have a brand new boat with my wife and dog baking in the sun at the world's busiest boat ramp and no way to get the boat out of the water and no place to moor it and no nearby tire stores open on a Sunday afternoon. Just another fun-filled, leisurely boat ride.

In order to prolong my marriage and diminish my wife and dog's agony, I found a somewhat shady spot on the mighty Columbia River to anchor the boat near the free concert, got the dog into the water to cool off and left the wife to enjoy the tunes from the boat while I spent the afternoon driving around looking for a Load Range D tire. Load Range D 225/75/15 radial trailer tires on a Sunday afternoon are as mythical in the Northwest as Bigfoot or Sasquatch. Everyone's seen one or knows of someone who has seen one, but no one actually has one in their possession. After expanding my carbon footprint by 10 times my expected amount, I decided to cry Uncle and purchase a Load Range C tire in order to get my prized family and boat back to my house. The always helpful, pimply-faced boy at Sears only charged me $110 to purchase, mount and balance a tire that I really didn't want. He said he could get in done in an hour or two, but when I offered to do it my self since there were no other vehicles in the shop, he conceded that he could probably get it done sooner. Thirty minutes later he found me pacing in the waiting room and made me sign 4 pieces of paper acknowledging that I was purchasing a tire that didn't match the tire I was replacing and that Sears, the tire manufacturer, Western Civilization and the Supreme Being of my choice had no liability in my decision to violate all things sacred and understood about tire fitting.

With my new tire, I slunk back to the ramp parking lot to place this mismatched evil tire on my trailer. Well, I found that the ramp parking lot where I dropped my trailer was now being used by every person in 100 mile radius to listen to the free concert (celebrating the 100 year anniversary of opening the town dump or other completely forgettable local historical event). Some esteemed members of the Mensa convention-goers had decided to park along all sides of my seemingly abandoned boat trailer that I had parked in a boat ramp parking lot. There was no way to free my trailer from the parking gridlock. So I put the new tire on the trailer, it seemed to fit, so I decided to go find my wife, dog and boat and see if we could get in that Sunday now evening boat ride.

The boat ran great, the scenery was grand and we got a chance to cool off from the heat and the experiences of the day. Two hours later, we pulled into the boat ramp, the concert was just winding down and only half of all the boats on the river were queued up at the ramp to go home and treat their sunburned bodies. After waiting for my turn to tie up, I ran the many miles to my truck and drove over to my trailer. I was able to retrieve my trailer after pushing it by hand through the parked cars to a pace where I could hook to my truck. After reconnecting everything I was able to join the line to wait to actually take the boats out of the water. Well my turn to retrieve my boat came in due time and after loading the boat and stowing the gear, we got to join the long line to actually leave the parking lot and then wait for the stoplight to set us free. Although mismatched, the tires held up on the 5 mile drive home, where I promptly crawled under my bed. I can't wait until my next relaxing boat trip.
 
I assume you climbed in using the outdrive! I've had to swim a few down...sometimes it's a bitch to get in. That's a classic...you're lucky you didn't get hurt and we can laugh about it! I'll bet that bad boy has some serious weight to it....probably rip your arm out of it's socket.

I had my Lund come off on the icy ramp and shoot in like a bobsled once at the Little Bay De Noc ramp in Gladstone, MI. All the big walleye pros were there and letting me launch first because I was duck hunting. Gary Roach, Mark Martin etc. Unbeknownst to me my buddy undid the strap and the chain. The bunks were iced up and as soon as I hit the ramp it just shot off and hit the water. It stopped about 30 feet from the ramp and my buddy had his waders on so he grabbed it. The Lund pros were spitting their coffee out and hiding behind things laughing. You could barely tell where it hit!

On this past Mem Day weekend I guided a guy on an early morning trip in his boat which is a tricked out Power Drifter with a 115 Merc jet that weighs a ton. Frankly the man shouldn't possess a row boat much less a jet sled(but that's another story). He insisted on putting the boat on the trailer as I drove the vehicle and it took like 5 tries and 10 minutes. Finally, he goes up to the bow...I can see him in the rear view and he messes around for a second and says,"Okay Jay.....go". As soon as I pulled out I saw the boat move. It slid off right on the ramp. I won't go into details but he started yelling at me and calling me nasty things. I had a come to jesus "chat" with him that was spectacular and then called some drunken hillbillies over from the campground and we sorta slid it into the river. That aluminum makes the most horrendous gut wrenching sound as it scrapes its way down. We shook hands afterwards but I haven't heard from him since. I have no idea what he did on the bow...it was almost as if he was setting me up.
 
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Wow, sure feels good to know that you aren't the only dumbass here at the DHBP. Actually I already knew that but it has just been reaffirmed. Hehehehehe

Don: The picture is the original sales photo before I had all the extras put on the boat. It had a 150 on it when I made the dealer the offer but they pulled it to put on another boat they had sold. Since they were out of 150's on hand they gave me a 175 for only a few dollars more than the 150.....plenty of get up and go.I had them put on the new Suzuki high thrust 9.9 kicker with electric start, power tilt and a TR-1 autopilot on it. Sweeeeeeet for trolling. If I ever start to catch fish I call you and you can come hold the bow line.

Eric: I don't know that my torso would have made a very effective wheel chock.....I probably would have ended up looking like that old snake on Gary Larson's Far SIde cartoon with the tire track in the middle of his body.

Brad: Sounds like you made the best out of a bad day!

Jay: I'd have kicked that guy's ass. Actually I wouldn't....I just wanted to say that so I'd sound tough..need to boost my self esteem after this incident you know. No climbing on the outdrive since the motor is mounted on an offshore bracket and the boat has full swim platform, I just grabbed the rail and climbed right in...... I knew I got that feature for a reason.

bowl_of_stupid.jpg
 
I pulled my 1448 jon out of a very steep ramp that was deep water...backed the trailer in and hooked the bow eye to the boat and cranked it up to the jack...the boat was floating but I figgered it would pull right out on top of the trailer. The tired slid so I locked in the 4 wheel drive and floored it. I got traction and shot up onto flat ground with the boat off to one side and a line of decoys and other crap you need for hunting going all the way dow and some in the water floating away. That same day, I put the boat in forgetting to unhook the straps from the back and took a shitload of water over the transom...could just barley pull it out to drain and unhook the straps.
 
I had a friend (Tom) who was backing his 19' Lyman down the ramp at the foot of St. Jean in Detroit. Now, that's a very steep ramp into deep water...just off the Detroit River. A fella said that somebody was already there...behind him. Tom said........no there isn't. The fella stated....look closer. Tom could see the top of the trucks antenna just barely above the water. Turns out the guy didn't unstrap the boat (like Lee), took on water and couldn't stop. The entire boat, trailer and truck went under water. Bummer. ;)
Lou
 
hunting by myself one day I needed to launch on a very steep, very narrow ramp on the saltwater. There had been a big blow the night before and the ramp was littered with logs...most of them of the TREE variety that I could not move by myself.....fortunately fo launching purposes none of them were blocking the lane on the ramp but you couldn't go to either side without being in a pick up stick forest of massive tree trunks and root balls....

Leaving the boat chained to the trailer I backed down to the water, got out and looped the bow rope over the winch stanchion, (note that I said "looped" and not "tied"), unclipped the safety chain and back down the ramp and as the boat started to slide off "tapped" the brakes so that it would float off the traielr completely the plan being that the 20+ foot long bow line would pull the boat to the waters edge just as the trailer cleared the water.

Would have worked like a charm had it not been for the "loop" part of the process.....as line began to tighten it also began to "unloop" and looking int he mirror I realize that this isn't going to work the way I thoght it would.

It was a weekday and I was the only one at the ramp, the tide was running hard that morning parallel to the shore and I had just shot the boat out into that current so that it would be swept along the shoreline instead of pushed towards it.....million dollar homes with 8' high sea walls to the south of the ramp and after that 100' high bluffs meant there would be no chasing the boat down on foot and I remember thinking, "wonder where the CG is going to find it"?

I jumped out of the truck, scrambled like an overwt squirrel over the pick up stick jumble of logs to get to the trailer and then did my impression of an old, slow, fat, linebacker runing the tire drill, only substituting the corssmembers of the trailer for the tires.....it should be stated that fat old men in waders should not attempt the trailerr crossmember agility course unless they are prepared for very sore shins the day after.

I made it to the end of the trailer without a face plant and lunged into the water after the boat. Why I didn't grab the floating bow rope, which was much closer to the shore than the bow I don't know but I did manage to catch the bow of the boat just prior to the water cresting the top of my waders and managed to get the boat to shore with only a bucket or two of water inside them.....

As I sloshed to the ramp, then negotiated my way through the agility drill that was the trailer I was greeted by one of the local residents out for his mornign walk with his dog....as one might imagine he was laughing... I nodded to him, muttered "good morning" to which his response was, "I'd have done that different".....

It's a phrase I use frequently these days when I'm treated to the pleasure of watching someone else do something stupid instead of me.....

Steve
 
Sounds like boat-a-holics anonymous.

Hi, my name is Charlie and I've had a nightmare launch too.

O'dark thirty launching the boat at a river ramp with a pretty good current. Back the boat in, get out grab the bow line, give the boat a stout shove. Perfect. The boat goes off the trailer and into the current. The line plays out and when I tug it to redirect the boat back to shore... and the line comes off the bow and into the water. Splash. Turns out it wasn't attached to any cleats or the bow eye. Doh! I did the out-of-shape guy in waders run into the water and managed to grab the bow just before it came over the top of my waders. My two friends laughing their keesters off the whole time.

Good fun. And good learning. Now I pay very close attention to the bow line (as well as the transom plug) every time I launch...

Charlie
 
Bezubics maiden launch of his 14' Outlaw was a hoot. Colder than my wifes shoulder and the river was frozen 15' out from the bank. We figured we could break the ice with that heavy assed boat by backing it on the ice. The ice didn't break and we had undone the winch and chain off the bow..our 140lb buddy holding on to the bow line with the excess wrapped around his wrist....Bezubic pulls forward with a jerk and those rollers work REALLY well. The boat starts rolling backwards off the trailer and the midget isn't pushing enough ass to stop it. As the balance point of the boat hits the last roller, the bow shoots straight up in the air, flinging shorty like a tether ball over the trailer to the other side and then slamming down against the hull on the opposite side. There we sat, with an Outlaw on it's hind legs, brand new 30hp Johnson lower unit dug in the ice and snow...Bezubic doing paragraphs of only the F word, me laughing so hard I pee'd a little and the squirt yelling "What we gonna doooo". Bezubic pulled the trailer forward inch by inch and it let the boat down flat on the ground( ice) so we pushed it out till we could lower the motor in the water, put it in reverse and went hunting. Colby made a couple nice retrieves that day.
 
It could have been worse. You could have been under the truck while it was rolling down the ramp.

Be careful out there people.
 
Most of us have bowlines that are too short for single handed launching, because we want them to also be too short to be caught in the wheel when they inevitably end up under the boat from time to time while underway. My solution is to keep a 50 foot coil of rope in the back of my truck, one end tied to one of those metal do dads right inside the truck gate, and the other end tied in a small loop. When I launch without an assistant (often when duck hunting), I tie the end of my bowline to the loop so when the boat launches, it's got plenty of line to peel out, and more often than not the bow clears the back end of the trailer and I can just quickly get out of the truck, untied the bowline from the loop, tie it to a cleat on the dock and run back and park the truck.

Ed.
 
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