Funny Boating Stories
 

Thought this would be fun:

There is a cove in Spring Lake MI called hanky panky cove. There is about 50 boats anchored and a husband wife and two kids idle in to anchor with the bunch of us.

You needed to pay out a lot of scope and a little back down power to get the anchor to bite then you could shorten up the line.

This gentleman is in a performance boat and is know to several of us as a local engine builder. Clean professional shop his boat is clean clean.

His really good looking and in shape wife goes to the bow and drops the anchor and he tries to set it no luck. This happens over and over and he is getting a little frustrated and churping at his wife. People are now starting to notice and a couple more tries and more instructions to the wife that makes it clear she is screwing this up.

Now just about everyone has a beer in their hand and watching.

He now gives her very loud commands and tells her to wait while he backs up and then to tie the anchor line off so he backs backs backs and she is letting the line out and he is really pissed and she is taking the brunt of it.

She pays out the anchor line and when she gets to the bitter end she turns looks at him square in the eye and drops it over board.

There was cheering and horns and mostly laughter. She stayed right at the bow he said nothing but very carefully turned the boat and left.

I was sure the wife was gonna end up in the drink. Nice little story.
Go get 'em girl!

P.S. Just another reason to have the end of your anchor line secured,

What's the funny part- you thinking he was really good looking or him losing the anchor?? J/K ��

Aren't hanky panky coves a little more secluded than 50 boats ��?

Couple years ago witnessed a similar drunk hot head screaming at the wife, she tried telling him that he was starting the wrong motor (without flush muffs and water supply) and got screamed at more. She crossed her arms and watched him run it without any water. nobody watching his ****show bothered to tell him either. Sometimes Karma does work out.

another funny story
 

Dry Land Marina Grand Rapids MI. Used to be a very high volume boat dealer.

We took a newer Bayliner in on trade I do not think it was three months old.

One of the techs came into my office to ask a question. He said when they came in this morning it was running, key off but it was running.

I said I do not know how that could happen but I would call the local Bayliner dealer and see if he had any insight.

So I call the Bayliner dealer and explain this new Bayliner started on it's own. He says I do not know but if we figure it out could we call him back as he said he is looking out the window at a rack of New Bayliners and several of them are starting and stopping on there own.

One time out on the lake boat a lady friend took it on herself to toss the anchor into the water when we stopped. I told her that I usually clamp it to the boat first . . .

I dropped anchor in my new 270 SLX Sea Ray on a maiden run, sat for a little while with a coldie then noticed we were adrift. Pulled the anchor up but no anchor on the end of the rope/chain! Dealer's fault, obviously not shackled on tight.

We'd anchored close to a roped off swimming zone in about 10' of water so I motored back there and dived down to look for the anchor. After 3-4 dives, I found it! Down one more time and managed to bring it to the surface, treading water furiously with a heavy anchor in hand and trying to get my 'non-boating' mate to lean over the side and bring it in but he was clapping and smiling because I'd found it. Never crossed his mind it was heavy and pulling me under. Had to drop it, take a few breaths and explain to him "take the damn thing from me!" Dived down once more, brought it up and he leaned over and lifted it aboard.

Stupid mates!

RR

Cruising the Illinois river several years ago I came across a small runabout that is completely out of the water up on the bank with the bow facing towards the water. WTF?! OK, I have to pull up and find out how this happened. I pull up close to the bank and inquire about their situation. Appears they had just launched upstream a bit and a short distance into their ride figured out their boat was taking on water as they forgot to install the drain plug. Fearing they were going to sink, the driver gunned it towards the bank and at the last second trimmed up and cranked the wheel over hard and the boat slid up sideways onto the bank and then hooked and turned bow out to the water. Gave them easy access to install the drain plug! Being it was a small, light runabout, we hooked up a tow rope from my two rear cleats to his bow eye and had a couple of their party pushing the boat from behind and we were able to get it back off the bank and they were on their way. This was pre-cell phone camera days or I would of snapped a few pics. I usually had a camera on me for river runs for eagle pics but did not have it on me that day,

Man that reminds me of getting the ski boat wrapped up in the cable slalom course at the university of Alabama. We were doing maintenance on the course and got the cable wrapped in the prop on the inboard ski boat. Luckily I had a prop wrench in the truck. So swam to shore, get wrench. Swim back and start removing prop. Now lake is about 40-50 ft deep so anything dropped is gone. We got it all taken apart and off the shaft. I also was treading like a mad man to keep my head above water. I made it to the surface once. Other ski team member in the boat saw I wasn't going to be able to swim with the damn prop in my hand and thankfully pulled me up. When then swam the boat back to shore and reinstalled the prop and all was well with the world again. What a fiasco though.

Good old funny anchor stories...love'm.

Old Chris Craft cruiser coming in to our dock. Person driving starts yelling at his wife that the steering rudder broke and go throw the anchor...we have lots of rocks nearby....our lake is very rocky.....she runs up to the bow, grabs the anchor, and throws it...both she and he immediately go from super stressed to smiling and relaxed until they notice boat is still going towards rocks and I yell out to them "There was no line tied to the anchor." His face goes to embarrassed and stressed again, she turn to him with hands on hips (as guys we all know what this means when a women does this) . Yeh, I jumped in and stopped the boat luckily. Funny as heck......no anchor line on the boat at all, and she did exactly what she was supposed to...threw the anchor. :)

At the launch ramp at Austin Lake just south of Kalamazoo.

DNR shows up alone towing a small aluminum boat maybe 14' with a small outboard.

The entire rig looks brand new.

He lines up to put it in and within a few feet it is 90 degrees to the small truck.

Several us are watching but it is so small you could just about pick it up and put it in by hand. So we just watch.

He is very patient but he simply cannot do anything but get it straight then within a few feet it is 90 degrees to the truck on one side or the other.

He tries over and over again but simply cannot get his little boat launched and after too many attempts to count and about 30 minutes he leaves.
.

We boated on one of the fingerlakes many, many years ago, my brother and his wife came for a visit and we all went out to the shallow cove everyone used so you could stand in waste deep water just behind the anchored boats. We also took our new ski as well, a supposedly two person one, the old kind where as soon as the second person gets on you better go or you roll over, which is what my bro did the first time he and his wife tried to ride it. Flooded the engine, had to pull the plugs right there and blow the water out hitting the starter motor. no water got in the fuel or oil tank thank goodness! After that I did get it running and they did eventually get to ride it around.
At the end of the day, I decided to ride the ski back to the house and let him drive the boat. It was smooth water so I was doing about 35 (as fast as that ski would go), and he attempted to keep up with me, trouble was he left the trim tabs fully down and caused the boat to go from 2 MPG to about .25 MPG and burned the more than 1/3 tank of gas that was in the boat. (Had he put the tabs up, he could have made three trips to the cove and back, it was only about 10 miles on that amount of fuel). I had to turn around and then tow the boat back to the dock, the last 3 miles or so. But we did have a good time and stories to tell for years.

Kinda reminds me of the new Subaru commercial, with the kid that everything he touches breaks, falls apart, or explodes.....:-)

Not funny when it happened, but very funny soon afterward.

When a teenager, we stopped at a public dock and got some food. A few friends where roudy and I guess they got noticed as I went to start my boat and it wouldn't. I lifted the cover and noticed my coil wire was missing. WTF ? A few minutes later two marine patrol walked down with my coil wire in their hand.:eek:

After talking with them and them yelling at me for having schitass passengers, they walked back up to the Dairy Bar.....with my coil wire. :banghead

Well, I needed to get back home so I could go to work, I was out of time to wait for them to come back, so I borrowed theirs and got home. :)

I always wondered if they where smart enough to use mine (since they had it and it would fit) so that they could get home too.

Well this one time, not sure if I was drunk, on drugs, had a momentary lapse of reason or what, but I went and bought a boat. True story, life hasn't been the same since.

In 1986 or 87 were at the Al Copland races in New Orleans on a Gibson house boat. A friend of mine with a 18' Taylor jet boat hooked his anchor on the railing on the house boat an tied it close to the house boat. A storm moved in an they cut the races short. He needed to get to the marina quick in the little boat. He grabs the anchor jumps on the deck of his boat an that caused the boat to move out from under him an he falls in the lake with his anchor in hand. He's struggling to swim up with the anchor. We're screaming at him under water to let the anchor go. He comes up with it an I'm laughing my ass off. I tell him you do know you anchors still tied to your boat.

Wow 😀, you don't trust his skills to drive a ski back so throw him the boat keys? Woops

Years ago, changing the oil in my Baja 236 while it is on the trailer....

I had one of those hoses that you screw into the oil drain plug hole and that allows you to pull the hose out of the boats stern drain hole to drain the oil. Anyway, I warm it up then jump out, open the oil drain hose and let the warm oil drain out. I jump back in and swap out the oil filter.

Then I blissfully add the required amount of expensive, super premium oil.

Then I jump out, put the oil drain hose plug back in, drive to the parts store for more expensive, super premium oil and again add the required amount.

On a positive note, nobody was around to see!

I pushed the throttle's open on my 525's to clean and check for wide open , cleaned the filter's put it all back together and got side tracked with something...............came back latter hit the key and got to do some personnel cleanup.

I was trying to anchor in the Detroit river just north of the Ambassador Bridge for the fireworks last year. The new boat didn't have a chain on the anchor rode. Could not get the anchor to set even though I had almost 100' of line out (was in about 40' of water). Pulled the anchor up until I could feel it was no on the bottom by the way the rode was angled back against the hull and had the GF steer the boat forward while I was on the bow ready to drop it again. Dropped the anchor while she kept the boat pointed up river in gear. Eventually after trying this about 5 or 6 times. the port engine would stall when she put it in gear and the electric windlass could not pull the anchor up anymore. Ive lost an anchor on the Detroit river bottom years and years ago, because of all the crap at the bottom and thought the anchor was caught on something. I wanted to figure out why the one engine kept stalling so I raised the outdrive and found out the anchor rode was "flying" under the boat while pointed up river and got caught around the prop. Luckily my buddy was there next to us and I tied off to his boat while I laid on the swim platform cutting the anchor line from the prop. My GF doesnt have the confidence to even try to figure out how to maneuver the boat or what each lever is for. If it wasn't for him I would have been down in lake Erie by the time I got it cut off. Lesson learned: 1:Have as much chain on your anchor line as you can. 2: set you boat up so you can do everything yourself 3: carry a big sharp knife.

Few years ago when Lake Travis was way low, all of the boat ramps were way out of the water and some people would launch off the shore. We are all sitting watching this couple try to launch their boat. The area they took was very flat. He was in the boat while he keep yelling at her to keep backing up. She had backup so far that water was higher then the doors of the truck. After they got the boat off, she pulls up. When she opens up the door you can see water pouring out of the truck.