re: Boat launch comedy

Not really at the ramp but...
When I was a kid out on the Ouachita River near the Hangout, there was a guy in a jet boat hauling arse up the river. When he got around the corner we heard the engine abruptly shut down. We all jumped in the boat and rode around to see dude and the boat on the sandbar, him bailing water with a fricking Dixie cup. His old lady was knee deep in his arse about wrecking the boat and losing the truck keys and everything else under the sun. There were probably 100 people sitting on the sandbar watching dude get chewed out by his wife.

Buddy of mine had a wakeboarding boat but drove a 2wd standard ranger, so he always had me pull the boat in my f150 when possible. His boat ramp was about 20yds long and fairly steep. I showed up one day to go boarding, but had to drop a deuce before backing the boat down. So I backed up to the trailer and went inside to shite while they hooked the trailer up. I come back, get in my truck, and proceed to pull towards the ramp. As I start to back up towards the top of the ramp, I'm checking my mirrors to see if I'm lined up. I notice that the trailer is slowly inching down the ramp. I'm thinking "hmm that's odd my foot is on the brake" and hang my head out the window to confirm that my truck is indeed not moving. By this time I look back in the mirror and see the boat/trailer doing what looked like Mach 1 down the boat ramp. Took a 90 degree turn once it hit the water right into a cypress tree. Somehow nothing was damage other than a chunk out of the cypress tree. The trailer had a removable tongue, and the idiots didn't put the retaining pins in it. We had to winch the trailer up to the ramp far enough to get a jack under the front of it, so that we could get the tongue back in it. shite's hilarious in hindsight.

quote:

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bailing water with a fricking Dixie cup

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My bil and his 2 buds went fishing out of Bayou Bienvenue? in St. Bernard years ago. They launched about dawn and noticed 2 guys in a boat tied up next to the boat launch. One guy was working on the motor and the other was sippin on a 40.
They fished till about 10 Am and came back in. The mechanic was STILL working on the motor, but his bro had evidently drank a few more 40's and was sitting at the wheel, turning it back and forth and making motor noises, while the mechanic was trying to work. Just as my bil turned his motor off, the mechanic threw a wrench, narrowly missing drunk bud's head.
My bil and friends almost fell out the boat laughing as the mechanic screams, "SEE!! You de reason I cain't have a gun cuz I'da shot you arse by now!"

Not quite a boat launch story, but I know a guy that lost his boat on hwy 90 because he did't strap it down. He was drunk. Got home and called the cops saying someone stole his boat. They came pick him up for DWI.

Went to visit my mom and stepdad a while back and my stepdad has a bandage above his eye. Come to find out he took my bil fishing who doesn't fish at all. They were in the lake on a school of reds and my stepdad was running the trolling motor while my bil was in the back. Well my bil casts a jighead and hits my stepdad in tbd head. After that we bring football helmits when bil tags along

I lived on the east coast for a few summers and we stayed in a house right by a 80 ft long lock system connected to a yacht harbor. The lock was staffed from 6 am - 7 pm, but if you had a boat in there you could be trained to lock yourself in and out and get a key.

Most afternoons at like 4-5 there would be quite a few 30-45-60-75 ft boats heading out to cruise up and down the intracoastal. Come 645 most of the boats that went out would be lined up waiting to lock in.

Several boats however always just stayed out there cruising back and forth right outside the lock, waiting for the staff to head home. All of those guys were usually way too drunk to operate the boat safely and did not want to be seen drunk.

It was always a spectacle watching the 75 ft motor yacht trying to get in. You always heard crunching fiberglass, big bangs, popping fenders.

It was just great to sit there on the porch and watch some hoighty-toighty a-hole try and get it done. The wife was always running around trying to get the fenders out.

I have a friend who is a menace on and off the water. I used to fish with him, but eventually stopped because I want to continue to live. Seriously.

One day, we went to Reggio, actually launched without incident, went fished Lake Amadee, and actually caught about 30 specks between the two of us before we left em biting and headed in (it was a pre-determined short trip for both us). We get to the ramp, and that's when the fun starts.

I back the trailer down for him to right where it should be. He's int he boat yelling to back down more. I get out, we discuss for a few moments, and he insists that I go deeper, so eventually I give up and back till tells me to stop, which is with the winch just above the water. All trailer bunks are well below the surface.

He comes in real hot, spinning the wheel one way, then the other, gets crooked, takes out the left pvc guide, goes straight across the trailer, takes out the right pvc guide and slams into the dock so hard that I thought it was gonna break and the boat sink. Thank god Mike wasn't there or he would have been pissed.

I said, "see, the whole trailer is sunk, you went right over it." He's yelling and screaming "frick this, frick that" and finally gets all pissy and says "fine, try it your way." So, I pull up till its just right, he comes in hot again, misses the two center guide bunks and gets stuck on the trailer. Eventually he backs it off, cursing and screaming and asks me to try it.

I switch places with him, come in like a fricking sane person, right up the middle, right up tot eh bow stop. We pull out, and he's looking at his two broken and bent pvc guides, and the 3 foot long gouge in the gel coat, and the crushed rail and says "I hate this fricking boat ramp. It's terrible. This is why I only like BSM (hoist)."

Um, yeah dude, the ramp is the problem.

Same dude once didn't make sure the trailer tongue was fully seated, resulting in a pit stop on the side of I-10 during weekday morning rush hour. Good thing he had the chains on.

My first time saltwater fishing my bil launched the boat fast but didnt hand either myself or my sister and his mother the rope. That boat started slipping away from the dock at da pernt and with about five feet of water between the dock and the boat I just went for it. Managed to clear the water and land in the boat. I felt like superman.