F26

Desert Storm 2009

JUPITER PULSARE

Ok..small boat story. Running down the Intercoastal waterway in Palm Beach yeas ago in a Talon 21 with a Mercury Racing 2.5 Carb motor to eat lunch at the Waterway Cafe. At about 80mph my trim button stuck in the up position. There are no trim stops on the Race motors. Not realizing what was happening with the trim...I found myself crabbing towards a concrete seawall and turning the wheel was accomplishing nothing..withing seconds of hitting the wall I figured out what was going on and layed hard on the down button and missed the wall by a few feet!

dsparis

I almost bought a Fountain

4bus

iTrader: (4)

That wasn't a near miss........it was just a miss!

Knot 4 Me

I've had many over the years, but one that keeps getting brought up to me all the time was the time when I drove my first boat with hydraulic steering (first boat with twins as well). LOTO, spring 2001, 32 Dominator, back in the large ski cove by Parkview Bay, making my first 180 degree turn in a somewhat small area, started out on right hand side of cove, turning to port, in the middle of the turn I get to thinking to myself about how weird the steering feels/reacts compared to cable steering, get to paying attention to everything but what I'm doing when the boat's owner standing next to me yells, "Are you going to turn this MF'er or run it up onto the shore!". Look up, shoreline approaching quickly, crank wheel, give it some onion, complete turn, try to hide wet spot in front of shorts. For some reason my buddy just won't let me forget that episode! Amazingly he let me continue to drive the boat that day dodging all sorts of crap in the water from the spring rains. Years later he also let me drive his F-4 and let me make my first turn at speed in a stepped-hull boat. Fool!

IROCDave

I worked at a boat dealer in Sacramento in the late 80's. The shop picked up the Checkmate line and the first 3 boats were a 19' outboard, 27' single 454 HO and a 31' with twin 454 HO's. The owner of the shop was a SoCal guy knew very little about OB's. He hired a guy from a shop in Walnut Grove to rig the CM 19 with a Mariner 275 EFI. The boat was ready in January of 90. The shop owner swore that a 19' Carrera Jet boat with a Hardin Marine stock 454 would smoke it. We took the boats down to the Sacramento river in late January to "water test" them. I road shotgun in the Checkmate. After a couple hours of screwing around the boats were lined up at about 40mph then it was hammer down. The Carrera jet hit 60MPH quickly and the OB Checkmate to a while but gained the lost ground and started pulling slightly. Then we hit a submerged log. I didn't see it until we were almost on it. I remember seeing it and turning my head expecting to see the OB ripped off. We were doing about 65 MPH. When the lower unit hit the log we lost almost all forward momentum. The engine popped up and the log split in two. The driver broke most of his ribs on the wheel and I broke several on my right side on the dash. We made it back to the ramp idling and called it a day.
Learned a good lesson about running on rivers during the winter. Lots of wood debris and some of it you cant see until it's to late.

IROCDave

Later that year we had a couple interested in buying the 27' Checkmate. I took them on a test drive late on a warm Friday afternoon. We launched in Sacramento and headed up river. Next thing you know it's 1:00am and everyone is drunk except me. I'm hauling ass down river to the launch ramp when the Bravo drive seizes up. Were several miles from the ramp, the flow of the river is strong and I don't have a paddle on the boat to keep it off the rocks. I brought another guy with me from the shop, we both hop in the water and keep the boat off the rocks until finally another boat stops to help. We were towed back to the ramp by a drunk guy in a 18' bass boat. It all worked out, sold the boat after replacing the lower unit.

Lesson learned was to keep a paddle in every boat.

Wobble

I know you meant to say, "Keep a paddle and someone to operate it, in the boat"

I couldn't agree more.....

Smarty

I was five or six years old, steering my father's 18' Donzi, in his lap on the Maurice River here in New Jersey. I would get near the buoy and splash it as we drove by by turning the steering wheel away from the buoy as I approached it. This was 1970/1971. Keep in mind at this age I had my own 10' aluminum boat with a 5.5 Evinrude tiller arm outboards (things were different back then), so I knew how to drive a boat.

What I did not anticipate, or realize that in the Donzi when I would turn it would raise that side of the boat near the buoy and when I was too close the very back side right were the boot strip is located, where the side of boat changes to the bottom of the boat, is what hit a buoy and put a hole in the side of the boat. Yeah, I hit the f*cking buoy!

When we were on plane water was coming in but not much, and the bilge pump was keeping up, but once we were off plane we were in trouble. So my father pulled up to a little beach on the River, the other boaters on the beach saw the dilema sat on one side of the boat opposite of the side with whole in it so the side with the hole would be elevated and out of the water. For a five/six year who thinks he ruined his father's new boat by hitting the buoy and creating a potential sinking scenario I was scared to death. But my old man was a pretty, as the adults brained-stormed the situation and drank adult beverages. My father being that he was a sharp character, he was able to get it the dock and loaded on the trailer with any major trouble. Once home in the garage he glassed over the hole, and repainted the damaged area. Good as new.

Close call my ass, I hit that f*cking buoy!

That is the Donzi pictured in 1970, me in the front seat, Mom in the backseat, pregnant with my brother Michael.