I bought a boat, but wait, it gets worse, I bought another boat......

About six yrs ago, putting the Baja 272 502 mag in the water for the first spring time run, I get about 200 feet from the ramp and decide to open the hatch and the bilge is filling up with water, bilge pump trying to keep up, so I haul azz back to the ramp and shut it off...............I forgot to put all the blue plugs back in from the winter storage, in hind site I could of just shut it off and put the plugs in but I panicked.

After reading all the posts so far including mine(leaving rags in the cylinders while doing the gaskets)you have to say no way can any of this be true. It happens. It's a good thing we're not splitting atoms.

I drove my ProCraft fish & ski like it was an off-shore boat until the hull broke up.

Well it all started for me when I bought a used boat from National Marine, a swell fella there named Bill Hionas sold me a great boat with a missing title. Made cash payments to him until he got it all squared away at the bank. I didn't really care because I was building an awesome new boat with Frisina custom marine and I was going to trade the used boat to Oregon Custom Marine in Arizona. They gave me top dollar on trade towards the new boat. The new boat was going to be all custom with lots of parts from Trick Marine, it was going to be one of a kind. Now the money was really going to be rolling in because I invested in Enron and a small marina project in Lake of the Ozarks called "SuckerCat Cove" with a local developer, speed boat aficionado named Jimmy Darr. Now Jimbo was telling me to put special high HP motors in my new boat along with his new patented Poly-Carbonate windshield. It was all top secret stuff and surely I would win the shootout with all the Amish fans watching. Jim was running for student council and working a top secret deal with Amish partners on some new high performance stuff.

Well the project hit a few glitches and I ended up trading a sweet Rolex I got from an NFL player named Big Scotty for some rebuilt Cobra motors. I was told they were the best used parts my fake Rolex would buy!

Watched my brother from the second floor shore house sucking the gas out of his jet ski with a shop vac (last years gas) As I was screaming at him to stop, the shop vac went into flames. He panicked and kicked the shop vac into the water. Now we had a bigger problem. No one got hurt but I still shack my head to this day.

Not a Boat, but I replaced a radiator on a Diesel Forklift, had to remove the air filter to get the radiator out, so I stuffed a rag in the intake to keep crap out, went back three days later with re cored radiator and forgot about the rag. Took a lot of cranking to get it started, finally started and was spitting little chunks of rag out the exhaust and running rough, after 10 minutes it cleared up, got the invoice signed and hightailed it out of there. That little jap diesel was tough!

Ok so i get my 28 powerplay and first time out i back it in the water and drive it around the dock area with my drive up so its still under water so i do not know throttle up and down then my friend after parking truck notices it and ya you can here a u joint nice like ready to go , SO we pull it out no really big damage we replace u jiont a big pain in the ass and a good cost but at least we noticed before we wrecked the drive you know KA BOOM 8000 TO REBUILD Ok it gets better couple years later i kind of hit a little sand in shallow water not bad at all but making sounds and vibrations same as the last time and they kind of came and went away So yup instead of just having my guy pull thee drive right then and check it and probably replace u joint again I just take him for a ride and tell him to give his own opinion SO i go slow threw the moorings and the bring it up to plain ant YUP KA BOOM it was like a bomb went off i thought the back of the boat blew off and YUP YOU SHOULD C THE INSIDE OF DRIVE OVER 8000 OK SO THERE YOU HAVE IT i feel better already

Not a boat, but I left a rag in the intake of a 5.9 cummins pulling motor. Got it fresh back together, went out on the street, spooled it to the moon, and promptly blew the head gasket. FAIL. I got good at wrenching a 5.9

Can't find it now but I recall a thread here (probably 4-5 months ago) about a guy with a Baja 38' I think it was.

He'd pulled his drives off, rebuild, gimbal bearings or something similar then re-installed nicely. Took the boat to the ramp for a test, lined it up on the ramp then jumped on board and had his wife back it in the last few feet. Decent crowd was watching on as he fired the engines, check pressures, water flow exhaust etc, all good. Drop into reverse but the boat didn't move. Checked the winch strap, a few more revs and nothing. Tried shifting again, checked cables and gave up.

Crowd looking on, he pulled her out, and. towed her back home.
After getting home he walked behind the boat........... No props!

Apologies to the guy who's story this is but you did post it elsewhere so I figure you're fair game!

RR