The Trial and Tribulations of Boating

     I've owned a pontoon and multiple ski boats over many years. My sister (Rose) and I loved to go water skiing.  We introduced many of our friends to boating and water skiing.  We spent many weekends out at the lake with our families until the kids got older and interested in other activities.  Boating was always fun for me but it was not problem free plus it was a lot of responsibility.

     Most of our boating was on small lakes about an hour & half from home.  Mimi was not as enthusiastic about boating as me so I would try to get our outings planned well so it made life easy but things did not always work out.  Sometimes it was the bad weather that would pop up in the middle of the day chasing us off the lake. Lightning was always worrisome, it concerned me because of the others in the boat, so I would do my best to get back to the dock as quickly as possible.  I remember one day when we had dock the pontoon because of bad weather but the wind had caused the boat to pull away from the dock (rope came untied) so Bud (my brother-in-law) and I ran down to retie the ropes when we heard this clash of thunder that scared the BaGeeBees out of us.  It sounded like it hit right next to us.  You never saw two people run so fast without expecting a trophy.

     When summer is over it's time to winterized the boat, that means draining the lower unit and filling it with antifreeze plus a few other task, none of which are difficult.  Sometimes I did this myself but other times I paid the storage place to do this for me.  I would always remove the drain plug during the winter because the cover did not keep the rain from seeping in the boat and it could fill up with water.  This happened on time when I picked it up in the spring.  The place that winterized the boat didn't remove the drain plug so while driving home trailer in my boat I wondered why it was so hard to pull, Yeh! Filled with water, not good.  Next time I found a new place to winterized and store my boat and they removed the drain plug but they didn't put it back in, now I should have checked this, but I assumed they reinstalled the plug (rookie mistake).  I don't know what they did with it but it wasn't in the boat.

    Being excited about launching the boat the in the spring I neglected to check the plug. I know, stupid move, so I launched the boat filled with gear and people then waited in the harbor for my brother-in-law (Bud) to launch his boat.  While waiting for Bud my boat was filling up with water.  As we motored to beyond the "No Wake" zone I throttled my boat to full power but it bogged down badly.  I opened the hatch for the engine and found the water filled the entire engine bay.  Holy crap!  The engine was still running but even an inexperienced boater knows this is a big problem.   We returned to the ramp as quickly as possible and everyone jumped out.  I ran to get the trailer, while Bud got in my boat to drive it on the trailer.  Well, we got it out successfully but it wasn't easy to get the water filled boat on the trailer.  We drained the boat, I bought a drain plug and we continued the day. Whew!


     Usually my wife (Mimi) would drive the boat on to the trailer because she didn't like to back up the trailer, I admit it wasn't easy. So one day for some reason she said she would get the trailer, I agreed and tried to explain the technique for backing a trailer down the ramp.  She got out of the boat beaming with confidence and went to get the car and trailer.  After waiting for her turn in the line of cars/trailers she attempted to back the trailer down the ramp, mulling over my detailed instructions, I'm sure.  Well, after about 4 attempts she gets out of the car and throws up her hands stating, "I'm done" leaving the car/trailer jackknifed on the ramp. "What the hell" I'm thinking.  Since I'm in the boat there is little I can do.  There happens to be a guy watching this circus act and he offers to back the trailer down the ramp, which Mimi accepts graciously, but I'm thinking I hope he doesn't steal the car/trailer.  He backs the trailer down the ramp and I drive the boat on to the trailer.  I thanked the man for his kindness and I hoped we provided him a good laugh for the day.  Are we having fun yet?