What's the Worst Thing You've Ever Hit?

[Tellie]

Never hit anything ever......and the checks in the mail.

[Silverado6x6]

Had a heavy incoming wave action on the North Shore Marina at Lake Tahoe back around 1991 that picked up the boat I was chief on high enough the spuds came loose, one came completely clear of the casing and was embedded in the rocky bottom and the recently installed new aluminum paddles I personally installed got chewed up a bit when we had to drive over it. The spuds are 25' long 12"x12" box tubes with a point on the bottom, they are lowered in a casing from each corner of the boat Tahoe Queen in shallow water to act as a parking brake. When we docked we never tied off with lines.

[svbeausoleil]

The worse was in the Mozambique Channel banging down against the wind with the 4 knot current in horrible seas.

This was before the days of GPS and I couldn't afford the new Sat Navs. We were approaching the Zambezi River which has huge islands of grass and weed, trees even, floating out of it. I spotted a local coaster and decided to speak to him.

Time Out was a great sailor (Columbia Challenger) and we had fun yelling at each other; me in english, him in arabic (or something) by crew in french. They threw out a line and I picked it up. (I know; stupid.)

A huge wave, they were running 30', pushed us apart and like a rubberband sprang us under him as he was on top of a wave and we under it. He tore off the first foot of the bow and we turned back north to the Comores.

It was a stupid thing to do in such waves, to get so close; but I was very young. I wasn't much of a seaman back then.

Want to know how it all turned out? Click:

http://sailingbooks.googlepages.com

The book you want is Education of a Falcon

Cap't Mike

[Chief Engineer]

My noggin when I turned to go thru the companion way in a center cockpit sailboat.
Had a boxfull of assorted electrical connectors in my hands.

Got up...turned...one step......WHANG....... then...I....saw....these....little...tiny....yello w....balls....with ....tails....in ....my....eyes.
it didn't leave a mark but it left an impression

[David M]

A mostly submerged section from an old pier at night. Wham!....probably slowed the boat down a good 10 knots. Checked for damage and leaks....nothing thank god.

[Canibul]

Most unfortunate thing I ever hit was an off-duty police superintendent in Austin driving his new Pontiac home from the car dealer, while I inadvertently ran a red light while leaning over trying to dislodge a loose Boone's Farm bottle that had rolled under the brake pedal...with two motorcycle cops sitting on their bikes in front of the govenors mansion watching the whole thing...and I was on my way to get my registration renewed because I had noticed that it had expired the week before...

Oh wait...you meant in a boat? Nothing, in 40 years at sea.

[senormechanico]

Originally Posted by Canibul

Most unfortunate thing I ever hit was an off-duty police superintendent in Austin driving his new Pontiac home from the car dealer, while I inadvertently ran a red light while leaning over trying to dislodge a loose Boone's Farm bottle that had rolled under the brake pedal...with two motorcycle cops sitting on their bikes in front of the govenors mansion watching the whole thing...and I was on my way to get my registration renewed because I had noticed that it had expired the week before...

Oh wait...you meant in a boat? Nothing, in 40 years at sea.

ROFL!!
Best post of the week!

Steve B.

[svbeausoleil]

Dear Canibul

If you had been in a boat, no wait, if you were trailering a boat and to get away ran off the bridge, jumped in the boat and motored down river, but there were two harbor police watching the whole thing....

What ever, great story

Cap't Mike

[Canibul]

Sadly enough, that story is totally true. I left out the part where I had no liability insurance at the time, either. They suspended my license until I paid off the damages to the car I hit. I was in college, and it took me six months to pay for it.

After that, I insisted people fling their empty's out the window.

[schoonerdog]

When I was fifteen I went out with my best friend Greg and his family up to northern Michigan. Greg and I were looking for something fun to do so we rented two small 10 ft power boats with huge outboards meant for racing around a water based track. I'd never driven a boat before and didn't understand the delay between turning a boat and actually having it turn. Actually I didn't know anything about boats. I did notice that the faster the boat went, the bigger it's rooster tail. So I had a plan to use that rooster tail to swamp my best friend by hitting the gas and cutting in front of his boat at the same time. I didn't see two things, the underwater fence post and the small boat in front of him being driven by a very well endowed woman. I hit the underwater fence post at full speed, went airborn, flew past Greg and skipped once on the water in front of the woman, sent a huge wave of water down on her instead and flew off toward the river bank where I ended up sticking like a dart with the boat hanging in the air and the outboard screaming and smoking. Even over all of the noise of the outboard I could hear the rental guy who saw the entire thing yelling well deserved obscenities from across the river. Between calls about my birth and sanity he told me how to shutdown the engine. It ended up that I had broken a steering coupling and had to be towed back to where my friend and his entire family were laughing and waiting at the dock.

[svbeausoleil]

The next strangest thing I hit was a whale in the Indian. It was one of those days you onlt get in the Indian Ocean. It was flat calm with a little 4 knot breeze. I was ghosting along (I was engieless) dozing in the cockpit. The birds were asleep on the surface. The dolphins were tired of pretending to ride my bow wave. The fish were sleeping down below. A sperm whale was asleep broadside just ahead.

When we hit I was thrown to the deck which is a rude awakening, the whale was steaming full speed in circles around the boat blowing it's stack every few seconds. I jumped up and with lots of hand movements begged to be forgiven. The whale glared at me as it circled, reading for attack.

In the end I got forgiven by a very nice whale. But it was a very intense 5 minutes.


Ok, it isn't as good a story as you guys, but hey, its true!

Cap't Mike

[David M]

Originally Posted by schoonerdog

When I was fifteen I went out with my best friend Greg and his family up to northern Michigan. Greg and I were looking for something fun to do so we rented two small 10 ft power boats with huge outboards meant for racing around a water based track. I'd never driven a boat before and didn't understand the delay between turning a boat and actually having it turn. Actually I didn't know anything about boats. I did notice that the faster the boat went, the bigger it's rooster tail. So I had a plan to use that rooster tail to swamp my best friend by hitting the gas and cutting in front of his boat at the same time. I didn't see two things, the underwater fence post and the small boat in front of him being driven by a very well endowed woman. I hit the underwater fence post at full speed, went airborn, flew past Greg and skipped once on the water in front of the woman, sent a huge wave of water down on her instead and flew off toward the river bank where I ended up sticking like a dart with the boat hanging in the air and the outboard screaming and smoking. Even over all of the noise of the outboard I could hear the rental guy who saw the entire thing yelling well deserved obscenities from across the river. Between calls about my birth and sanity he told me how to shutdown the engine. It ended up that I had broken a steering coupling and had to be towed back to where my friend and his entire family were laughing and waiting at the dock.

I was hoping to hear more details about the well endowed woman.

[JiffyLube]

The worst thing that we hit was coming into our slip. I didn't know that we had lost reverse (broken tranmission cable, and we crashed into the dock at about three knots...good thing the hull is tough!

[neckyzips]

I hit a truck once.... yes i was in a boat...
i had traded for this very cool 1950's alu. boat looked like an old wooden crist craft, two seating places divided, beautiful lines. after several nights of tinkering with the engine, installing a new starter switch, with(this is important) a seperate kill switch... we headed off to the lake, put the boat in the water, tied off to the end of the dock, gf in the drivers seat, (now we had gone over in detail how to start and STOP the engine.... aparently it didnt take. the engine wouldnt start, no automatic choke so i went to the engine, held the choke it fired right up. she went to pull the throttle down but instead put it in fwd. the boat lurched and strained aginst the dock lines. me asking her to kill the engine, so she turned off the switch.... remember the kill switch... no kill it i said. i did she said. no the kill switch! what? i turned it off... well i couldnt do anything from the engine, tried to pull the choke out just made it run faster. back and forth screaming kill it kill it... it finaly broke free of the lines and litteraly leaped into the back of this guys pick up in between the jet ski he was unloading and the dock... very embarased and hoping no one was hurt, he was very unhappy and between threating to kill us both made a bad situation even worse. we finaly got out of the dock, no damage to the truck ski or guy. he called the fish police on us and made a big deal out of it after buzing us, cusing and then being nice then cusing, and being nice... then he tired to sue me for damage to his 1975 work truck saying the tailgate wouldnt close... there was no part of the truck which didnt have a dent or rust on it.

accurate communication is key!

[senormechanico]

This isn't a boat story and I didn't actually make contact, but I almost ran over one of our 2 US Senators. (She has a cabin in our neighborhood and was out for her morning walk.)

I was making a run for the steep hill out of our neighborhood 1.0 liter 3 cyl engine in my "toy car" and she must have been walking down the hill.
I didn't see her until she stepped out into the road behind a blind curve at the bottom of the hill. It happened very fast and I missed her by inches.

I'll bet she doesn't cross the road at that spot ever again.

Steve B.