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13-06-2016, 01:48
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#16
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Moderator
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: aboard, cruising in Australia
Boat: Sayer 46' Solent rig sloop
Posts: 28,400
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Re: Dumb Mistakes
Dumb mistake?
Well, of course.
King tide. Boat aground on a coral head. Jim wanted me to hoist the mainsail so we could heel the boat to reduce it's draft. What I actually did, was put the snap shackle on the head of the sail, and yank like hell. Had I secured the snap shackle, well, no.
Now halyard's halfway to the top of the mast, and I'm crawling out on the boom.
Sigh.
Ann
__________________
Who scorns the calm has forgotten the storm.
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13-06-2016, 03:41
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#17
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Registered User
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Hobart
Boat: Alloy Peterson 40
Posts: 3,919
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Re: Dumb Mistakes
Ha, ever put half a jerrycan of diesel down the water tank mid ocean? Dumb idea putting water and fuel fillers next to each other...
Sent from my SM-G930F using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app
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13-06-2016, 04:52
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#18
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Registered User
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Elmvale, Ontario
Boat: Ontario32
Posts: 160
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Re: Dumb Mistakes
We have a three way switch on our bilge pump switch assembly and here it comes...I left the switch in the auto position AFTER we lifted out for the winter, When I returned in the spring here is what I discovered. The bilge pump tried to move out ice during the winter and burned out and blew the fuse at the same time. Thanks fuse, as we could have lost the boat to a fire. I felt pretty non mensa after that. Winter in Ontario makes hard water.
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13-06-2016, 05:19
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#19
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Registered User
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: Tasmania, Australia
Boat: Bieroc 36 foot Ketch
Posts: 4,952
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Re: Dumb Mistakes
I put my underpants on backwards in the dark one morning last week. Didn't want to wake my wife by turning the light on. 😳 Very uncomfortable. When I went into the bathroom to swap them around i realised I was wearing my wife's 😟
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13-06-2016, 05:21
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#20
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Registered User
Join Date: Sep 2014
Location: Fiji Airways/ Lake Ontario
Boat: Legend 37.5, 1968 Alcort Sunfish, Avon 310
Posts: 2,749
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Re: Dumb Mistakes
Installed the new chart plotter yesterday.
This required disassembly of part of the binnacle and feeding the comm cable down through the sole.
Upon re-assembly of the binnacle, I used Life Caulk to ensure water could not follow the cable into the binnacle or through the sole. Completed assembly.
Cable too short on the device end. I was sure I'd left enough. I did not.
Quickly disassembled everything again. Life Caulk had set up quickly, so cable would only budge a few inches even pulling with pliers.
Gave up for the day.
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13-06-2016, 05:28
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#21
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Registered User
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: Belgium
Boat: Trintella 1 & 28ft
Posts: 78
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Re: Dumb Mistakes
Quote:
Originally Posted by Calif.Ted
I replaced the bilge pump float switch on a new to me boat before discovering that there was a three way switch for the pump on the panel with an "OFF" position, who would want to turn the bilge pump off ?
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I wired my bilge pump like this. 2 reasons:
I have a very deep bilge. Thus I mounted the bilgepump and floater on a piece of stainless with a long handle going straight up.
1) Thus for cleaning and checking I turn the pump off and pull the whole assembly up using the long handle.
2) I also turn my bilge pump off when doing engine maintenance. I could leak some oil and prefer not pumping that over the side.
More important, I also put a loud alarm on my bilgepump so that I and any boat next to me in the marina knows the bilgepump is running.
Better to get a call from a neighbour or the harbour master about an alarm going off then coming back to a sunken boat.
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13-06-2016, 05:41
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#22
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Registered User
Join Date: May 2011
Location: Lake Ont
Posts: 8,547
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Re: Dumb Mistakes
Getting to the age where we do too much by rote and don't always pay attention.
Anyways i made a grandaddy of a dumb mistake a few years ago. Went to my usual banking machine, took out my usual weekly amount, and left it there sticking out of the machine. Didn't clue in until I went to buy something later. of course gone by the time I checked the machine again... I sure made somebody's day.
After that whopper... just about any other of my mistakes fade to insignificance. I've also had colossal good luck for some reason; perhaps my cash donation found favour with the gods. Lost my glasses off the boat (or windsurfing) three times in the last 10 years, and found them again by skin-diving. Lost my cell-phone, and someone turned it in. Left my wallet on my bicycle seat when I went into a store... and it was still there when I came back.
Ok, one boating mistake - last year while crewing for a race, I raised the spinnaker halyard and then winched it (I'm a spinnaker n00b), which of course jammed it into the block. Someone had to go aloft, on a bumpy, windy day, to rectify that.
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13-06-2016, 05:50
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#23
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Registered User
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: Tasmania, Australia
Boat: Bieroc 36 foot Ketch
Posts: 4,952
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Re: Dumb Mistakes
oh, 😳 Is it meant to have boat stuff in it
Now I really feel dumb
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13-06-2016, 06:38
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#24
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S/V rubber ducky
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: heading "south"
Boat: Hunter 410
Posts: 20,362
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Re: Dumb Mistakes
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rustic Charm
oh, 😳 Is it meant to have boat stuff in it
Now I really feel dumb
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I bet a lacy bra would make you feel better.
__________________
Don't ask a bunch of unknown forum people if it is OK to do something on YOUR boat. It is your boat, do what you want!
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13-06-2016, 06:57
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#25
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Registered User
Join Date: Aug 2013
Location: Warwick RI
Boat: Catalina 30
Posts: 1,873
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Re: Dumb Mistakes
So this happened when I was 12 but pretty dumb none the less.
After saililng all day we pulled into dock around 4pm to re-supply and get ready for dinner. My dad goes to take a nap on the settee in the main salon while my mom and sister go to the market. I decide to take the initiative and fill the water tanks. I first shut off all the switches on the panel including the "Master" switch. (hey my dad told me to turn everything off, so I did )
I then climb up on the foredeck, open the water fill and start filling, and filling, and filling.........................and filling.I had assumed that like a gas tank the water would flow back up the fill pipe and I would know when it was full. I didn't realize that the vent overflows ontop of the tank and into the bilge.
Fast forward 45 minutes and I take a peek through one of the hatches and see a wave of water travel across the salon as the boat rocked. I throw the hose go running down below wake up my dad (not so gently) and he sits up and spins around immediately putting his legs in knee deep water.
Luckily our slip was very shallow and we only sunk until the keel rested on the bottom, even luckier was I noticed the water when it was only a few inches below the air intake before it entered the engine.
That was 20 years ago and I still hear about it to this day
__________________
-Si Vis Pacem Parabellum
-Molon Labe
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13-06-2016, 07:23
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#26
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Registered User
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: Palm Coast Florida
Boat: 2018 Seadoo GTX 230
Posts: 1,059
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Re: Dumb Mistakes
Even if it was not a boating mistake trying to break into an unlocked car makes me fill better...thanks.
Runabout boats - twice, being excited to be on the water and with guest to throw me off my game, I forgot to put the drain plug in the boat. Once I dropped a screw driver into the water. Once I put my cell phone to close to the edge and plop into the water it eventually went...and gone. Once in a storm I tried to put a piece of canvas on wrong. I was soaked and cold by the time I figured it out...took about 3 to 5 minutes in a downpour. One time I let the boat drift outside the channel markers and of couse hit hard bottom trying to get back inside the markers. Oh oh...one time in the wind I was wearing a staw hat. Lauched the boat at a busy boat ramp. The boat blows away from the dock. I am in the boat so I reach a dock cleat...splash, over the side I went...only a straw hat floating on the water for a short while. Had to swim as fast as I could to catch and climb back on the boat...did I mention it was a busy boat launch?
Sent from my SM-G360V using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app
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13-06-2016, 07:25
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#27
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Marine Service Provider
Join Date: May 2012
Location: New Orleans
Boat: We have a problem... A serious addiction issue.
Posts: 3,974
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Re: Dumb Mistakes
I refuse to talk about this because some of the stuff I have pulled was really, really dumb...
I once spent all day trying to figure out why our outboard wouldn't fire... This was just a few days after getting it back from the shop and I was getting pissed. Water flow was fine, carb was clean, gas was full, put in new plugs, checked the timing, everything I could think of, but nothing worked.
I was seriously considering throwing it away and buying a new one when my now wife demanded it go back to those crooks who hadn't fixed it the last ^#% time...
Apparently I never attached the safety lanyard, so of course it wouldn't start...
__________________
Greg
- If animals weren't meant to be eaten then they wouldn't be made of food.
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13-06-2016, 13:27
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#28
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Registered User
Join Date: Aug 2003
Boat: Dragonfly 1000 trimaran
Posts: 7,141
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Re: Dumb Mistakes
When I was ten years old, my grandfather took my dad and his two brothers and me out fishing for salmon in the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
When we returned to the dock in Sekeiu, my grandfather asked me to take all the flashers and lures up the dock to rinse off the saltwater.
I didn't see any place to do that, but there was a big rusty looking 55 gallon steel drum full of water so even though the water looked grungy, it had to be the place right?
I dipped all the gear into the drum, but I accidentally let go and all the gear went to the bottom of the barrel.
ONLY THEN did I notice the fresh water spigot which had magically appeared right next to the barrel and a small sign which said to use the barrel for rinsing out outboard motors !
I had to tell grandpa where all his gear was, and they had to dump out the barrel to retrieve it. The marina was not happy about all the greasy, oily water running out on the dirt path. At least that happened in 1955 so the EPA hadn't yet been invented!
__________________
The question is not, "Who will let me?"
The question is,"Who is going to stop me?"
Ayn Rand
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13-06-2016, 14:13
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#29
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Registered User
Join Date: Sep 2015
Location: Whoo! Finally made it back to Mexico!
Boat: Cheoy Lee Offshore 38
Posts: 1,458
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Re: Dumb Mistakes
Quote:
Originally Posted by ontherocks83
So this happened when I was 12 but pretty dumb none the less.
After saililng all day we pulled into dock around 4pm to re-supply and get ready for dinner. My dad goes to take a nap on the settee in the main salon while my mom and sister go to the market. I decide to take the initiative and fill the water tanks. I first shut off all the switches on the panel including the "Master" switch. (hey my dad told me to turn everything off, so I did )
I then climb up on the foredeck, open the water fill and start filling, and filling, and filling.........................and filling.I had assumed that like a gas tank the water would flow back up the fill pipe and I would know when it was full. I didn't realize that the vent overflows ontop of the tank and into the bilge.
Fast forward 45 minutes and I take a peek through one of the hatches and see a wave of water travel across the salon as the boat rocked. I throw the hose go running down below wake up my dad (not so gently) and he sits up and spins around immediately putting his legs in knee deep water.
Luckily our slip was very shallow and we only sunk until the keel rested on the bottom, even luckier was I noticed the water when it was only a few inches below the air intake before it entered the engine.
That was 20 years ago and I still hear about it to this day
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I had a good laugh over this one!
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13-06-2016, 14:16
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#30
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Registered User
Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: colorado, westerly r.i.
Boat: 85 dickerson 37 ketch
Posts: 44
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Re: Dumb Mistakes
I just want to make the right mistake!
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