Feeling Stupid, bad boating day !!

[Richard B]

Originally posted by Mark Halliday
BWM did told me that the engines were NOT bolted on yet but the clamps were tight

Sounds like you were "Lemmerised"!!!!

[Mark Halliday]

Originally posted by Richard B
Sounds like you were "Lemmerised"!!!!

Ahh yeah, that was his name........

I was also a bit worried!
No engines, no paddle, no auxillary, no flares, no tools, no clean undies and all my swear words used up.

Fortunatly my wife flaged down a passing Gin Palace who towed us in to Sparkes. Only cost a bottle of single malt.

[Richard B]

Originally posted by Mark Halliday
no clean undies and all my swear words used up.

At least it sounds like your sense of humour wasn't depleted!

[Mark Halliday]

Originally posted by Richard B
At least it sounds like your sense of humour wasn't depleted!

Well, it was about 8 years ago and has only just recovered.

BTW is your PC clock out or were you really on line at 3 mins to midnight on New Years Eve?

[Daniel]

Since this thread is topical once again i suppose i should give you all a giggle.

Two days ago i took a short trip out with a friend and we decided to stop off at Minnis Bay for a quick pint before heading back to the slipway at Margate. Minnis bay is essentialy a beach with nothing more than two concrete groynes but an hour either side of HW you can tie off onto the pole at the end of the groyne and wade along the top of it in a foot or two of water...and to the pub.

Landing and beer consumption went well, but...

...my friend had not got a drysuit on so while he waited on a dry part of the groyne i waded back out to the boat, climbed abord, started the engine, put my lifejacket back on and started to untie the painter. The bowline i had tied around the pole had sliped down and was caught on some barnacles. I decided to best way to deal with this would be to hook it up with my foot, so i sat on the tube and tried to hook the painter. Digging deeper and deeper into the sea eventually i overbalanced and ended up in the drink, much to the ammusment of my onlooking friend, and the by now crowd of 5 or 6 people - visiting boats in December, in the dark to this pub are quite rare!

About 2 seconds after this, while i was laffing my head off... the autolifejacket went off! Damn. Followed by a few words i can't repeat here!

I seams there is a pattern emerging about me and my ability to stay in my boat

[Ian]

Last Sunday on one of our NWR trips, staying in the boat wasn't a problem. The boat staying in the water was, or should I say getting it in the water was. I was sat in Phil's searider pumping the fuel bulb expecting him to reverse back as the wheels where not yet in the water. I got this wierd disorientating feeling then heard a thud. The silly wuss had driven forward instead of back and the SR and I were now half on half off the trailer, bow up. We eventually winched it back on and his reason was ............. don't know why I did that. This made us feel so much better
The leg (mine not the ribs) has recovered now, but the biggest regret is we took no photo's of it.

[Hightower]

Excellent story Daniel, that reminds me a couple of Christmas's ago whilst I was Paracarting across West Witterings.

I was going hell for leather (40mph) across the beach and when your only 2' off the ground you don't get too much of a birds eye view. Lots of puddles around and you usual just go strait though them except this puddle was an unusually deep one. Feeling all that cold seawater filling every nook and cranny isn't a pleasant one. The dry suit purchase came shortly after.....I did find out that my buggy floats though.

I do have my own boating experience to tell you. 15 years ago I belonged to the Follands fishing club at the British Aerospace slipway Hamble. We had club boats that we could use but no Outboards.

I purchased a small air-cooled 2hp and decided to treat my Dad. On went the outboard and with the boat successfully launched I pushed off. By the time I'd got the outboard started I hadn't noticed that the wind had pushed us around and back onto the slipway and when the engine spluttered into life (no FNR gears) it drove us straight back into the slip shearing a drive pin and denting the prop.

To this day, my good old Dad hasn't heard of so much swearing from one person.........


Happy New Year,

Andy

[bogib]

Racing around Iceland ages ago (before time of RIB´s) completed more than half the distance with 17 hours ahead of 2nd boat we left town Siglufjordur after refuelling heading towards the Westfjord (sailing anti clockwise) excellent flat sea with light fog mist we on full throttle (54 knothes) due to the fog mist we decide to go further north (before GPS time and no Loran either) to avoid the coast line, after riding two hours we had big bang on hull and we dound our floor becoming swaying and unstable so we stopped and lot of bad words where flying in the air, trying to see whether we had broken hull so I went upfront on the bow leaning towards the sea surface but luckily no holes so we decide going ashore on low speed which took several hours to reach. When we came ashore and took the front benches up the latitude stringes on starboard where broken in three pieces because of poor (British) workmanship laminating stringes to the hull. So we had to give up taking the boat on truck taking the landway back to Reykjavik giving the Championship away.

[houser]

Ok.. here's one from my youth..in celebration of the New Year!
albeit rather Fellini Amarcord-ish ..but true, I swear...

When I was a little boy, my dad had an old fishingboat with a small cabin on it..
one window each side..port, starboard, bow ..you know...
Whenever it was time to land on anything, me, the dog and my three
sisters were sent into the cabin as to avoid being
in the way when the close-court manouvering took place..
This time my Mum (God rest her soul) was posted on the bow of the boat
with a hook to catch the jetty and tie up..
This day something went wrong with the old engine, which refused to
go into reverse (not the first time, nor the last...) and the whole family
cruised slowly but surely straight at our neighbour in the berth, a largish mahogany
palace, owned by a loud Danish man.
My Mum's reaction to this was to brace herself with the hook aiming
straight ahead at the point of impact..sitting on the bow with her back against
the window, so that all we could see was here backside..
at the time of impact she caught the mahogany palace on the portside
with her hook, and by the slow but heavy force of the impact, she (or rather her backside)
was pushed into the front cabin window, which gave way and ended up being caught
by me and my three sisters (and the dog)

...so there we were in the cabin...watching my Mum's backside stuck in
the gaping window opening..and holding the unbroken sheet of glass
in our hands that had been pushed out of it's rubberframe...
all to the accompaniment of the dog barking it's jaw off and abuse
in Danish from our kind neighbour in the harbour regarding
a small dent in his magogany hull...but no other injuries other than pride of the captain
and his crew..;-)..
Ah well..
..a bad boating day indeed...try and beat that for real-life comedy....,-)
best
jtm