Who has stuffed a boat?
 

I'm looking for information that may be valuable to anyone who has never done it and may in the future. Type of boat (i.e., Vee/cat, length,), water conditions and speed, describe the experience, tips to minimize danger to driver and passengers. Please be thorough and help others learn from your experience. Thanks.

Don’t know if stuffing counts on a river. Not the same as an ocean wave. I have stuffed my Force 235 three times on a barge wake. Some of the barges have rollers that can be about 4to 5 feet and if you catch them just right you are stuck. Three to four is not that large but they are nearly vertical and the last ones are 3 to 4 apart where previous waves were 10 to 12. First one or two get started and then wham! Nose goes through it like a wood splitter. Wave goes clean over the bow and windshield, if you look up all you can see is water over the cockpit about a foot thick. I have seen a boat sunk by these. Most tows leave a similar wake that extends rearward, some will throw more to side depending upon load, speed, draft, currents etc. The large wake is created by combining of bow wake and a 60” prop turned by 14,000 hp. Typical scenario would be about 40 to 45 mph. Bounce through a couple and then see the monster wall. It is too late to slow down much because then you will slam it midsection as you are skipping off the previous waves. Chop the throttle and trim down, back into the gas as the bow enters the wave.

When this happens the boats attitude is somewhat level. Hang on and don’t back out of the throttle or else that wall will land right on top of you. Firm grip on the helm and throttle, warn passengers to duck and hang on. If you power through the wall the water will go over top and you will emerge on the other side. Once clear of the water overhead pick a direction and turn away slightly while slowing to avoid a rinse and repeat. I have considered adding a brace to the center section of the windshield as that is what deflects the water over and not into the cockpit. Not exactly the situation you are asking about but if you ever catch yourself slamming a huge cruiser wake or such shutting down while in the middle of it can be bad if the bow has already entered it and washing over. Powering on raises the bow somewhat and keeps forward motion. You are looking to accelerate through it (from a reduced speed) and not let it stop you.

Tim T.

[ 11-13-2001: Message edited by: cpqtim ]

November 1996, Key West, Pro-Stock Class. We were chasing down KAMIKAZE, a 32 Skater from Puerto Rico, it was Wednesday and the first day of the Worlds. We were battling for the lead on the final lap. Heading out of Mallory Square out toward turn one, we had the inside and Kamikaze had the outside. We turn in to the "WALL" (anyone who has ever raced Key West knows what I am talking about), as we head down the back striaght away which is always the roughest part of that race we launched, tripped and stuffed. We took the deck completely off and ruined the structural integrity of the boat. I was driving. It was a 30 foot Shadow Cat that actually had no trimming capabilities but it was VERY FAST for it's age and ran really well in the rough. We were light years ahead of the third place boat, and ironically Kamikaze was DISQUALIFIED for illegal engines! Hmmmmm. Makes you wonder if we would have slowed down how would things have been changed? Anyway, I have never stuffed a vee nor my 24 Skater and quite frankly I hope I never stuff again! If you run a cat one of the primary things to remember in avoiding a stuff is that you do not want to back off the throttles too early when coming off a wave. This will cause the bow to drop quickly and from there all bets are off. Trim angle is extremely important in any boat, cat or vee. However, there is no rule of thumb as to how far you can trim. Each boat is unique in its set up, design, weight distribution, whether or not you have a ballast tank, trim planes, prop selection, x-dimension etc. All of these factors will have an effect on how the boat will react coming off a wave and hence the likelihood of stuffing. The best advice I can give is to get some seat time at slow speeds and see how your particular boat handles, flies and lands. There is no standard from which you can fine tune, you really need to run your boat and if you are unsure ask someone with more experience to go out with you. After some time you will get to "feel" how the boat is running and whether you need more or less trim, more or less tab etc. I hope this helps. Good luck!

Shane :cool:

[ 11-13-2001: Message edited by: Shane ]

In a Vee racing "SHOCKWAVE" 80+MPH in a Maryland race. Duck as the water rushes the bow, hold on tight because the boat can make a sharp turn left or right which ever side has less water pressure, when props re-enter go to wide open throttle to raise the bow. In the Maryland race we took an unexpected hard left but recovered just in time with turning hard to starboard and just missed from hitting Art Lilly's boat. :eek: :eek: :eek:

Tripped my 25 AT right out in front of Jenkinsons, Pt Pleasant NJ. Was running it with a lunatic friend getting big air. We were with out doubt pushing it. running boat in the 70's in 3-5 foot swells with a 30+ foot span. We were launching off the first wave using the second to land leaving just enough room to charge the third, and repeat. We caught a set of BIG waves and could clear the top. The back of the boat tripped on our intended landing and came to a very abrupt hault when we nosed the next. Didnt actually submerge the nose but the water being thown from the bow was hairy. If the bow was 12" shorter we would have been in trouble.
Not something I would ever want to do again but getting a rythum going like that is a major major rush (run was clean from Barnaget Inlet all the way through Bay Head). So with a little luck and a bunch-o-skills I hope next time isnt more serious. I would also never subject anyone to this type of ride that didnt fully understand the risk.
Be careful, Beware and Be Fast. :eek: :D

I stuffed my 22 Velocity coming in the Manasquan Inlet after the July Offshore Race...the water was real big, especially at the mouth of the Inlet, so there was a mad rush to get in when the race was over...I kinda 'surfed' on the top of one, and it dropped us right into the next!...I knew we were about to eat-it, yelled hold on to my crew and nailed it..

Shot right out the other side into the middle of the inlet!!..no damage..no injuries..laughed our asses-off!!

:D

I came real close towards the end of the season.

I was running (racing) a 38 Cig and a 31 Scarab in following 2-3 footers (with an occasional hole) I had just passed the Cig and was reeling the Scarab in , I was around 77-78mph. Now I have 300 hours of seat time in this boat, and I always run the boat with at least 3/4 full tank of gas. The boat has a low "x" so I need to trim it to the moon to get the top speed. Well at this time the boat had a 1/4 tank and I had it trimmed about 3/4 of the way . Well not having the added weight of gas must really change the cg of the boat because just as i was passing the Scarab I hit a hole , I had seen it coming and yelled to my passenger as I was bringing the trim in.
Well we were going too fast and next thing I know the bow is straight up in the air. I actually had time to say to myself " I screwed up and this is going to hurt " then I felt the transom trip and watched the bow plow into the water. It was a mini-stuff for lack of a better term , the water came over the bow but not over the windshield. We were doing about 60 when it was done, I can't believe how much speed was scrubbed off. Well no one got hurt, (my passenger was stuck under the bolster so i had to help him up) and I learned how quickly things can get out of control.

Was with Bodyshot1 when he did it :eek: Unfortunatley i had my head turned and he didnt yell loud enough! :mad: ;)

ah, c'mon Vin..we needed to cool off anyway!!
:D

Been there done that call for onboard camera footage

Did I mention that I can just about do it on any given day in my 13 footer? I have alot of practice, to the point it has become a way to cool off :D :D :D Yes BodyShot, those waves on race day were huge :eek: :eek: :eek:

i second teh barge wake stuffing incident. I "stuffed" my scarab at low speed this summer 10-15mph Eveyone was fine just soaked!!! Granted if i was goign faster i probably would have gone over it becasue my bow woudl have been riding much higher if i was on plane. But they can come up out of nowhere. Big lumbering thing moving dirt slow with pretty much flat water adn all of a sudden comes a set of small vertical waves. Completely caught off gaurd.

But i must say the barge was actually a mobile dry dock for HUGE ship so it was pretty damn cool to check out, next time i will be looking for wakes instead though.

Not really a stuff, but I submarined. 21' centurty inboard ski boat. 3 1/2' waves from large cruiser. Tried to get air, big mistake :( up first wave at about 30mph down back side and I don't think the bow came back up,I ate the dash :eek: found myself with about 8"to 10" of water in boat. Will never try that again. :p

Does stuffing it in the Point Pleasant Canal count?

Ditto that barge wake. Had a 13' Boston Whaler as a kid. BTW, I can attest that they do not sink when filled with water. I had so much water in the boat, it just poored over the transom when I gave it gas. Pulled the drain plugs and half an hour later we were dry again.

Interesting and informative stuff! Keep 'em coming! :) I'm interested in hearing from the 35' and over envelope-pushers too! :cool:

[ 11-14-2001: Message edited by: Cigwillie ]

Well this isn't really a stuff but it was fun. My first boat was a 14' Baja Blast jet boat. Damn riot!! Well, one of the first days that I had the boat out (early april), a buddy and myself were doing about 40 across the lake when he yells to me "what would happen if you hit reverse right now"? Well knowing that there was no transmission to screw up, I thought hey why not :rolleyes:
So we are going 40 and i hit reverse and the boat stands on its bow, dives underwater and all you see is a wall of water coming at you. SPLASH. WOW Now we are sitting in about 14 inches of water (like a big bathtub)
with everything in the boat floating around. We were laughing so hard and couldn't stop. Well it seems like Baja knew some jackasses were going to try something like this and had the cockpit liner with a self bailing tube out the back. So we just started buzzing around and all the water just ran out the back and off we went.
When I sold the boat to a friend of mine, I showed her how to do it so she could continue the "Bathtub trick" :D She has since scared the Sh#t out of many of her friends (and blown 2 stereos) doing that.

Redstripe,

I actually saw a friend of mine do the same trick on a waverunner, they got really brave/fast, and actually went over the handle bars once :D funny as chit. :D

This was a few years back. I was keeping my 24 Baja Outlaw at a dry stack building/ marina in Cleveland. There was a guy that I had talked to a few times with a 35 Fountain that was just getting his boat splashed and he asked me if I wanted to go out with him. Without hesitation hell ya! We cast off and headed east along the lakefront for a few miles staying inside the break wall flying over the chop. I could tell that she was rough on the other side by the waves crashing over the rocks. We exited the channel and did a big left turn and started back towards the west with the waves coming from every direction like a washing machine. He was running pretty good on the tops of this mess when all of a sudden the bows up then the stern slams a wave dropping the bow into a hole. I was holding on for all I was worth as the force of the water was coming over the bow and damn near ripped me out of the stand up bolster. The water ripped a big chunk out of the lexan fairing and their was a couple of inches of water inside the cockpit and v berth. The guy was just happy that we didn't get hurt or have his wife and kid on the boat. I was certainly having fun but I learned just how fast that could have ended even in a boat made for the rough stuff.
Cordell

my brother's friend (i can't remember his name for the life of me) bought an 1100 waver runner engine had it worked and put in a small wave runner. This was the first one he ever owned. He's kind of a moron who lives off his inheritance (grandfather was oneof the founders of pfizer). Well long story short he is tear assing around on this thing aparently it went mid 80s. The first day he has it in the water he sees a 50' sport fishing boat heading out kicking up a HUGE wake. This moron decied to jumpthe wake hits it goign like 50mph launches like 10-15' in the air comes dowm side hard and is hanging on so tightly that the impact force snaps his arm. The sportfish crews has no idea what going on and just keeps headingout and he is siting therefloating for liek 30min beofer a police patrol boat comes by and seems him floating there they towed the waverunner in and sent himalong to the hospital. Clean snap in half. Hasn't gotten onteh waverunner since. Aparently its still sitting in his garage.

Have had a number of mini stuffs, sponson stuffs etc. in a race boat, including skid stuffs enough to roll a 36' Skater, but the post on Manasquan Inlet reminded me of a very memorable one. This, i believe, proves you can stuff anything.
I was coming out of Manasquan on a bad day in a 43' Hatteras and there was one 10 - 12 footer that was essentially a standing hydraulic jump at the mouth of the inlet. This occurs where the water get shallow off of the ocean, frequently with incoming waves and outgoing tide. One wave, no big deal right? The Hat stuffed so badly with so much blue water over the deck it washed right over the windshield and ripped the bimini off of the flybridge! How the widnshield wasn't broken i'll never know. Needless to say i turned around (i was solo) to "play" another day.
Ted Z.

That Inlet sure can be fun!!...the May SBI race always seems to get it the worst (best?)..the boats stand up so straight, you can see what shoes the guys are wearing!!

:eek:

The inlet story sounds like my experience this summer. It wasn't really me stuffing the boat, but a wave engulfing me.

It happend as I was coming home after dinner at nice little place down off the bay (read we were all decently dressed up). Anyhow, we were motoring out of a shallow channel into the Bay proper when a ship wake just stands up in front of us and curls over. I yell 'DUCK!!!' just as time slows down and everything goes into slow motion. About 10 minutes later, about a million gallons of green water crashes over the windshield creating a small wet t-shirt contest in my cockpit. I took it that my guests were not a happy bunch during the ride back to my home marina as their searing glances dried the back of my shirt 30 minutes before the rest of me. :D

Sean

I watched a 47' Apache dissappear in Gov't Cut inlet in Miami

I stuffed a 34' Magic right into a cliff @ 60 mph at Lake Havasu a little over 3 years ago. Does that count. It was at night, I fell asleep behind the wheel. Only blew a .04, so it was not alcohol. Very luck to be alive.

Dytmagic,

I saw pictures of that, pretty amazing to see a 34' boat sitting on the side of a bank completely out of the water.

OK, here's my Stuff story:

Me and some other boats were running to the Chesapeake Inn for the day. It's about an hour trip to the Canal, then we usually race through the canal. I was by myself in my boat (253 Checkmate) racing a buddy in his 29' Fountain. We came up upon a 50' cruiser and the fountain passed him starboard, and i went port. Meanwhile another 45' had passed going the opposite direction on the side i chose to pass on. Well slowed down and hit the 50 footers' wave doing about 65mph. Great air, but i ended up landing on the 45 footers' wave that had passed. My bow stuffed and threw me out of my bolster into the passangers side windshield/bolster, and i ended up on the floor of the cockpit. I wasn't wearing my saftey tether(sp) cord :( When i stood up the boat was still running at about 45mph straight towards the rocks. I reached for the throttle, but it was not there...i ended up bending it down on a 90* angle when i was thrown. I quick turned the wheel and turned the key off. Luckily no one was hurt (except myself...bruised ribs and minor cuts) and the boat wasn't damaged (the throttle bent back). If someone would have been in the passengers bolster i may have put them through the windshield. Anyway valuble lesson learned: i now always wear my saftey kill switch. ;)

Damn - you guys are scaring the hell out of me.......thanks!

Hey Jeffrey, how about a section where members tell their scary stories and we can all learn from them. If I remember correctly, Flying magazine has (or had) a monthly column called "I learned about flying from that time..."

LOTO at the 14 mm on a Saturday afternoon in a 29 Scarab w/ 502efi.
Went flying off a cluster of crossing cruiser wakes at about 60mph. Got out of sync and stuffed hard. I ducked down just in time for the sky to turn blue/green for a moment from the sudden rush of water over the fairing. Then sunshine, quickly followed by a buttload of water rushing into the boat. Bilge pump ran for a few minutes, but no damage. Good thing I was alone.

18 Donzi Classic, Lake George (Forida) on a very windy day. Running parallel to the waves when a Boston whaler passed me. Nope, can't have that!! Running at approx 60 when a steering bolt broke just as I lauched off a wave. Full left in the air; nosed in hitting hard on the starboad side. Lots of water in the boat, lost a seat and a few heart beats, but otherwise no damage.

A few running in the gulf when the waves were higher than I could keep the nose. Brace hard and crash through with full throttle with a wall of water coming over the dash. Now I know why fairings are popular....

Stuffing is nothing to joke about, in the mid 90's I ran a prospective client out in a triple bridgport 33' Powerplay. In the winter the winds shift to the south and just off the beach the ocean is like a pond. However, out on the horizon in the Gulfstream the elephants were marching. I played for over an hour showing off what the boat could handle !! Yahoo, what a time we had launching off the huge roller's.
I starded back in and the buyer asked if he could run the boat. I let him, and he quickly brought the boat up to 70mph in a following sea.
We came up the backside of a huge roller and I was waiting for the end acceleration to launch us to the next swell, it never came. The bow dipped and stuffed into the back of the next huge roller and I hit the dirt as 3' of green seawater came rushing up the deck.
Fortunatly although his throttle timing sucked he knew enough to throttle up and power out from under the wave. Everyone was soaked but me, 2 pairs of sunglasses were gone and a couple of cell phones got destroid.
Thankfully nobody was injured, except his pride.
:eek: :eek:

Stuffed my Canopied Phantom at slow speed coming into an unfamiliar inlet after a race in Florida. It was like being in a fish bowl looking out the canopy.

There are two types of stuffs talked about here. A stuff that happens when your going too slow for the water conditions and those that are caused by a transom trip at high speed.

The high speed ones were generally caused by too much trim for the conditions or going too fast. The slow speed ones are cause by not enough speed or hull length.

Stuffed a 28 Apache with Eric Froberg. Awoke in the Avantura Medical Ctr. Bent one of Byngs helms with my head... Not a good day. Eric broke a rib or two.

stuffed a 42 excalibur on lake erie during a storm had to much tab down a rouge wave came rolled over deck shattered windsheild filled cabin with aprox 2 foot of water.Limped back to boblo island with cuts all over wife and myself.all the cruisers in harbor stayed in port that day should of did the same.wife is not much of a boater for good reasons

Stuff my batboat all the time. Usually just a foot or so of water across the bow, but one time submerged big time. Was coming in from outside the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco Bay running around 70 in six footers. Right at about the Bridge (north end has very wierd water most the time) I hit about a ten footer at about four foot below the crest. It was the wierdest feeling as we watched the wave go across the bow and then right past us. Stuffing a batboat doesn't seem so bad, it is flying off a wave and barrol rolling that scares me. Most stuffs in my boat happen when following waves and coming upon the bigger wave in the bunch.

Went out of New Smyrna inlet with strong on shore wind. Tide was going out too. 24' Cigarette running 35-40 mph or so. Nothing real big going out till I made the turn at the lighthouse. Huge steep breaking waves. Came off first wave and dove straight into second one. Two foot of water over the bow hit windshield and filled cockpit with ankle deep water.

Made a u-turn right there between waves before the next set got there. Throttle to wall, both bilge pumps running. Boat wouldn't move because of all the water weight in bilge and the sea building behind us. Suddenly broke loose of the suction and boat started to accelerate. We were out running the waves then.

Never again, very scarey. Thank god for two 900 gph bilge pumps, lots of HP and a Cigarette hull. My 30+ years of running in rough water and nasty inlets I'm sure helped too.

Stuff from Key West a couple of years ago. (Sorry it's such a bad pic)

Any of you guys that know Vic from wells st. well he stuffed his baja 270 force coulple of years ago, blew out bolth sides of the windshield pump ran for about 40 min. he says he still finds glass every now and then, I stuffed my first boat just a little 19 ft. bayliner, what was scary about that was it was a open bow, like draging a pail through the water, made it through ok though,

I stuffed my 33 Donzi about 8 or nine years ago on the Columbia River Gorge. We were running about 45 or so in a following 3 to 5 ft chop. I thought we were through the big stuff, so I started to relax a little and enjoy the scenery. Big mistake. I looked forward in time to yell duck! Stern tripped and stuffed the bow big time.

Tore off the canvas and shattered the windshield. One second we are sweating, next second we are shaking cold with water running out of our noses. The guy standing between the bolsters is washed on his a$$. The canvas gets hung up in one prop and kills the engine. The wind is howling. My engine alarm is going off, I don't know why, (canvas around prop). The boat gets side ways in the chop, can't hardley stand because the boat is rolling back and forth so hard. My other crew member disappears downstairs comes back up wearing a pfd and hands tham out to the rest of us!

All the water that came over the bow ended up washing into the cabin. All of our colthes and stuff were floating in about a foot of water sloshing around downstairs.

Able to get on the back side of a big rock out of the wind, My buddy frees up the prop, we pitch all the broken glass, then proceed on our 300 mile trip to Tri Cities WA for the Unlimited Hydro Races.

wow this is an old thread. My boat was still running when this was first posted........

It will live again this summer!!!!!!!