Confession Time?
 

What is the stupidest, kick yourself in the ass, thing you have ever done TO your boat? (Stupidest thing done IN your boat is a different thread :D )

I picked up a switchplate to replace one on a 47 yr old boat where a true replacement was not an option. The replacement switchplate required I increase the size of the hole in my dash. Once installed and looking good, I come to realize the unit is non functional. Now I have a hole in the dash larger than my old switchplate will fit back into, and I don't really want to futz around trying to repair the unit at a cost less than I paid for it (it was on the free side of cheap). Arrgh, and this was easily testable. The dash is teak so patching the hole will not result in a "blended in" repair, so I am cutting a faceplate to cover the hole and provide an opening for the old switchplate....then I need to go shopping for a new faceplate that works.

You think thats bad.......nah.

I installed a timing chain wrong once. Had a total brain fart. Broke 8 rockers and bent 8 intake valves on a fresh set of heads.

I can come close. Removed heads to do gaskets,placed rags into cylinders not to get any crap in there while cleaning. Left rags in cylinders. Yup,installed heads,intake and everything else. Luckily remembered the rags where still in the cylinders.

Ha! I removed the drives and gimbal bearings on a Friday night, started back up on sunday to re-install everything... forgot to put both gimbal bearings in. Got the drives, tie bar and steering installed. Looked on my bench and there were two white boxes... DOH!!! Pulled everything back apart again... I will never do that.. EVER again! :)

Had a leaking seawater pump on a 3208T. Cat many years ago. Located the problem as it spraying saltwater into the engine room. Thought I'd save money and do it myself, just unbolt and send away for reconditioning. Bit awkward getting access to it but managed ok. Got the re-cond pump back and installed, everything great. 6 Months later, minor oil leak and temperamental starter motor on the same engine.

Oil was coming from near the sump plug. Sump was corroded, starter motor corroded, alternator corroded and a few other small things 'cos I never cleaned off the saltwater spray from the leaky pump!!!!!

Engine had to be pulled. Slip the boat, remove the fixed fibreglass targa to get a gantry over the engine, replace sump, alternator, starter and a few other corroded parts, repaint some Caterpillar Gold, reinstall engine, reinstall targa and pay a heavy bill, too big of a job for me to attempt.

Lesson learned, I always boat in salt water but I'm pretty OCD with cleaning now.....

RR

Many stories,but only 1 boat related.

Washing boat, friend stops by. I don't have trigger nozzle on hose, I have one of those the end twists open/closed.

We get talking, I leave strong stream pointed at boat. Many minutes go by, I turn and look at boat, I have the strong stream pointed right in the gas tank vent Perko fitting which is wide open hole.no deflector. Fuk me !!!!! Good thing I noticed though. Damn it !

Stupidist thing i ever did was own boats

Getting ready for a poker run. Ran motor on the hose at home before I left. Forgot to put the cap on the sea strainer. Launch boat, start motor, FRY impellor. NO poker run for me that day.

Sold my baja with bravo drives and picked up my cig with ssm drives and just assumed the procedure for filling the drives with oil was the same. Fried the starboard upper within a mile of the dock 2qts low on oil. Luckily I had enough in the port. Drives where fresh with less than 10hrs on them. Or maybe the dumbest thing was that time I wanted a professional paint job and said to myself "I got this" and grabbed a rattle can. Well after paying an extra 15hrs of labor to have that sh!t stripped I got my awesome paint job.

If everyone on here is honest this should be a long entertaining thread

Tried to grease the coupler with a Harbor Freight grease fitting -- it got stuck on the zerk fitting and I couldn't get this off to save my soul. Finally, I removed all of the "stuffs" around the engine so that I could get access. I was able to get a large screw driver in and was able to pry the fitting off -- NEVER again will I mess with that Harbor Freight stuff.


3pointstar

Couple:

Went to ramp at beginning of season without testing. Couldn't get it to start. Spent hours screwing with it only to look down and realize I hadn't put the safety switches back in.

Guy across the street from me bought a knock off "Cigar Boat" off Ebay for 6k. Problem was the cabin kept filling with water. He came over and noticed I had two drain holes in the cabin of my Cafe so figured he'd replicate it. I looked over just in time to see his spade bit break through the bottom of the boat!!!

Put the drives on Backwards once and only realized it when I went to hook up the tie-bar.

Got to the ramp once and put it in Reverse, went to shift back to neutral and it was stuck in reverse. Turns out I had missed the clasp when I installed the drive so it pushed it into reverse but then obviously wouldn't pull it out.

Didn't properly stabilize the Gantry Crane in April 2015, dropped an engine with my father in the boat. It landed on him, broke his leg, sliced all the way through his leg and out the other side and put him in the hospital for a week. To make matters worse he had started blood thinners three days before.....

Last summer was trying to diagnose a water flow problem on the lift when I finally realized the tide had gone out faster than I expected and the pickups weren't in the water.


Man, reading through that list, I sound like an idiot.....

Sounds like "close to disaster" counts too.

This weekend I decided to replace rollers on my trailer with home made bunks. I figured I could do this with the boat still on the trailer. Not knowing what I was doing nor having the proper jack/stands to do the job, or a definite plan, I came really close to dumping the boat off the side of the trailer when the blocks stacked on my jack to make it taller collapsed like a Jinga tower. Thankfully In the end, it seems to have lined up great (& didn't have the boat bounce off concrete). I guess I won't know for sure until I dump it in the water and level out the boat :D

Had a different boat with twin 454 clunker 330hp motors with the check ball for water flow in the top hoses at thermostat...pulled one of the hoses off while boat was in water at the dock because one of the check balls got stuck...water started gushing everywhere :-)

On way back from ShootOut thought I would top off Cig in MO w 93 since cant get in OK..
Park in shop for week. Show up Friday to hook up and take back to lake house-Fuel leaked out vent holes- I guess all week- looked like paint stripper down both sides. Damnit man- Vincent fixed up perfectly.

years ago I started up my 21 footer in the morning on the hose prior to heading to the ramp. I was in the boat and had my buddy turn the water on and off. All was good.

I asked him to disconnect everything while I loaded up the coolers and out of the corner of my eye I saw him run the hose back to the reel, and was sure all was well.

When we got to the ramp I jumped into the drivers seat from the sidestep and he backed me in. I fired up and idled around to the dock to to pick him up after he parked.

After he jumped in I checked all the gauges temp , oil, all good- we idled out to the end of the no wake zone and took off- right about the time the boat should have nosed over onto plane it would rev up like it slipped out of gear?!??

Forward/ reverse - both clunked satisfyingly each way and after a dozen attempts to get onto plane I gave up and we decided to float all morning in the water and just enjoy the day as best we could.

When we ran out of food and drinks we decided to pull the boat out and I told my buddy to stop half way up the ramp so I could pull the plugs (it was a tunnel) I noticed the hose adaptor was still on the outdrive.

Buddy removed the hose- but not the adaptor - I didnt check it I "assumed".

UD

10 meter; First run after an off season repower, added about 200hp per side. Cant believe how well the boat runs now , so much faster , big midrange improvement , Hill even got the props right first try. Psyched! Put about 10 miles on and headed out to race rock light to have a cold one with my bud that helped with all the work. finished our beer , time to fire her back up. Always start the starboard engine first , some kind of superstitious thing for me I guess. Turning it over and hearing this clunking / scraping noise . Stop cranking before it fires and really f's something up. Short version , never torqued the starboard flywheel bolts and they were backing out, thank God it didn't light off. If I fired up the port side first I never would have heard it. Long, slow ride back to the truck.
35 Lightning; This one is hard to admit. 25 plus years with twin engine sport boats. Head to the ramp to drop her in for the season and bring it to the lift. Fire it up , let it warm up , shove away from the dock , slap both sides in reverse and proceed to drive straight up the concrete ramp. Put props on the wrong direction , reverse = forward now , not a good feeling. no damage tho , not sure how.

Put the boat in last weekend for the first time this year, had two dead cylinders. Took me 30 minutes and backing it in the water twice to test it before I realized I had two plug wires swapped.

Did some engine mods on the Stinger which included cams, lifters, push rods, roller rockers, intakes, carbs, 10QT oil pans, new oil pumps & pick ups, polished cranks, new bearings. Ran engines on hose, everything is all good. Get it on Lake Michigan for a poker run and find the port engine oil pressure coming down, and a heavy oil smell in the bilge. Put 8 qts in port engine that day, and couldn't run it over 2500 rpm without blowing oil out. Took it home pulled the engine & oil pan, found the effing seal was in backward so that the spring seal lip was out not in. Every time the crankcase pressure was up, she blew the oil right on by the seal. Oh shiiiiiiiiiit. I've built lots of engines before and after and never done anything so effin dumb!

Hmm. Launched dads 230 sea Ray with no plug. Played with the carb to get it to shift when it was actually a shift linkage issue, ended up burning a piston. Once couldn't get it to plane off after a heavy rain. Turns out the auto bilge switch was bad and I should have flipped the switch to pump out gallons of water.

Gashed the bow of the mark twain we had putting it on a trailer backed in to far. All to save a few bucks on fuel.

Many failures to start due to kill switches and shifters.
I keep trying to plane off with my dive ladder down. Messed up my brand new one on its first use this year.

I once spent 95% of my boats current value to 'restore' it, only to recognize a 5% overall increase in my boats resale value. :picard1:

I installed trim tabs on my boat. Had a total brain fart and mounted them ~4" further inboard then they're supposed to be mounted!! Luckily they don't interfere with the drive and they still work fine!

With another boat, put the boat on the trailer and proceeded to drive up the ramp until the guy next to me is screaming at me. I hadn't properly secured the winch strap and safety chain, strap came off, boat slid 1/2 way off the trailer but thankfully didn't hit the concrete

Ramp story - my rollers had become a bit rusty and did not spin properly leaving black streaks on my white hull when launching and driving up on to the trailer. I threw some WD40 on the rollers so they would spin properly and not leave those black marks. First time after doing this, when backing down a ramp and releasing the tow strap, the boat immediately slid off the trailer and bounced the back end on concrete. Thankfully the drive was fine and the hull just needed a bit of glass work on the left corner. It's bad enough to feel guilty/bad about doing something stupid, but when you do it in front of a crowd the embarrasment is the worst :-(

Being new to boating years ago I did not realize the importance of changing oil more often than you would in a car. I ran the boat (89 Eclipse Merc 305) in fresh water for two seasons without doing an oil change. Well about a half dozen runs in during the third season the boat seemed sluggish and was lacking power so I backed off after about 10 seconds and looked down at my guages and noticed I had ZERO oil pressure. I opened the sunpad and some smoke was coming out of the compartment. The risers were hot as hell so I figured the water pump that I had just replaced had failed (at this point "warranty" was running through my head) as I climbed in and out of the engine compartment I dropped a socket into the bilge in front of the engine. I reached into the water that had collected in there (my bilge is filthy so the water appeared blackish) and when I did I found 2-3" of oil!! Turns out a hole had rotted through my oil filter so I pissed out all the oil in the engine! Spun the main bearings and engine was shot, ooops!

When I first bought my own boat no longer needed dad's I Had a 17' Silverline Outboard boat no automatic bildge pump thought what do I need that for I am always around,..................... guess what went away for a few days and a few days of rain it just rolled over out on the moorning.

Boy do I have a bunch.. lol. :) Forgot the plug? of course we all did it at least once. Never again. But the stupidest, silliest a few years ago. Out on the boat, near Clearwater. Usually always checking chit after a stop, make sure water coming out of the tails etc. SO we stop for something, just to get some drinks, whatever. Start engines. One, no problem. the other, turns over fine, no ignition, no start. OK, sip on a beer, start checking for trouble. A few hours later with no luck, everything looks ok, no clue about the vessel view codes, there was a note on the damn thing. I figure I just put put back home. 1/2 hour of put putting, I see my lanyard switch. I did not put on while put putting, and it is off the switch. I puled off the lanyard at some time, put the switch on safe mode, no starting with that thing like this. Put lanyard on, switch to the ignition, motor stars right up. I pretty much felt like a boat newbie. :)

I think my worst ever was unhooking the bow from trailer winch and asking girlfriend to back into water at ramp.
Knowing it was a roller trailer, told her "no brakes until boat is deep in the water".
Yell to her that all looks ok and ...
She stops short.
Transom could not have been in a foot of water as it rolled off the trailer onto the ramp.
I scream and yell.
Somehow, not a scratch, but sure taught me a lesson.
SCARED me to death.

Ok, I'll play. Several weeks ago I noticed that the friction on my throttles had gotten a little loose and the they would ease back if I didn't hold them up. No problem, I had adjusted them before and it is just a screw under the rubber gaskets. I was tied up in a cove with several others and thought, hey this would be a great time to just adjust them (I didn't have to though). NOT! I ended up tightening them up too much and when I pushed them forward (one at a time of course), the wire that should slide doesn't, it BENDS!! ON BOTH! Oh great, now I'm miles from the launch, with no throttles! I end up (very carefully) disassembling both and remove the wire. Moral of story, don't work on ANYTHING if you A don't have to, B don't have the proper tools, C don't have a backup plan.....

I thought that was you.:picard1:.:party-smiley-004:

https://youtu.be/pg8lFzeKgEM

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! :D

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