Safe Boating Tip Of The Day

quote:

---

28 gallons of fuel were inadvertently pumped into a fishing rod holder

---

Did they let their teenager pump the gas or something?

I know two people that have done this very same thing. One of them handed the nozzle to their 14 year old, but the other one is in his 40's and did it on his own. Got in a rush at the pump and had a brain fart. Surprising because he is a very competent individual and a very experienced boater. Just shows it can happen to anyone. Bad thing about having the rod holder adjacent to the fill port I guess. Boats that have the chrome fill port and chrome rod holders are probably more susceptible. I bet it happens more often than people realize. Bottom line, don't go near your batteries, ignition switch, or touch any electrical accessory switch. The people I knew got away with their mistake because they called off the trip and went to the house.

I've seen this happen twice to strangers at the gas station while filling up my truck/boat.

Something like this happened in Ft. Walton last year. The guy left his hatches open and ran the blower while filling up with gasoline. He started it up and blew every one off the boat and blew out every window. It was still smoking 3 or 4 hours later when we went by.

The guy that built my t top knicked the gas line when installing it causing a slow leak that caused gas to pool in some storage compartments and on the floor inside the head down in the console. Almost found it the hard way when on the first trip offshore a buddy that's a heavy smoker opened the console door and stepped in there, luckily he didn't have a lit cig bc there was ankle deep gas sloshing around in there

I saw that yesterday and wondered how many beers those guys had drunk.