Offshoreonly.com - Lake Travis Labor Day weekend

Sunday it was rough. I had an experience Sunday that I don't care to repeat. I wasn't going to post anything about it but perhaps others can learn from my ignorance. I can't chalk it up to inexperience. I've been driving twin engine performance boats for 18 years now and this was a first for me. I feel really bad about it. So, go ahead and tell me that I am a bad, bad boy and also how lucky I am:

Sunday I left Devil's Cove and it was rough. For reasons that don't matter we were in a huge hurry to get back to the house. The wife even told me to get back there right away and she usually doesn't like to go fast. Anyway, we left at dusk and there were a lot of other boats leaving so it was rough. The wife and one of her friends were in the cabin and I had two other people in the cockpit. I let everyone know I was going to haul ass back and no one said not to. In fact, I was being encouraged to go fast. So, I did. My 357 is over 9,000 lbs and I don't air it out much. It's a heavy wave crusher. But, with nearly 1100 HP it will move if you want it to. We were zooming along and I must have caught a pretty good roller. It didn't seem that big but we were trimmed out and moving pretty good and caught a little air. It wasn't even enough to get the props out but we hit hard and it actually knocked one of the girls unconscious. I shut it down and her sister thought she was just kidding. But, she wasn't. She was out cold. My wife started freaking out. I'm worried that I've killed the woman. My wife slapped her a couple of times and within about a minute or so she woke up. It was a long minute or so. Turns out she is fine. No concussion, just a headache. But, I was really worried.

I was there with one of my buddies and three of my wife's friends. All weekend my buddy was telling me what a puss I was for not hauling ass. I didn't let that bother me since I knew I was doing the right thing playing it cool with the girls on board. 90% of the time I just try to watch the boost gauges to keep them at 0. We can cruise a good 45-50 without the boost and it's not using too much gas that way. Once everyone knew we were going to be hauling ass I thought they'd be prepared and we'd be fine. But, I was wrong. I've learned a lesson this weekend and I'm thankful that everyone is okay.