I remember when I was around 11 years old in Florida my dad and I were eating a early dinner when all of a sudden we heard a nasty (good) sounding boat coming toward us. We were outside right by the docks at our table when we saw this brand new gourgous cigarette pull up. He yelled at the restraunt that he wanted to eat there. He then started to come in and was coming way hot he then realized this and pulled them back in to nutural. He noticed that he was still coming in hot and then revved the motors up and slamed them into reverse with the wheel turned for some reason. After that with the throttles still up a bit he started slamming the drives forward reverse untill he slammed the dock ripping off some of the boards and exposing some nails. This is when he really started spazzin and really working those drives in and out of gear. The whole docking experience took about 5 minutes untill finally he just got close and shut them off. I was sooo pissed that that beautiful boat was now in need of a lot of gel work and probablly new drives.


I know that there are many stories of this kind of stuff out there. Lets hear some of them.

Hunter

I was leaving johnny fins on lake travis, my friend was piss drunk walking toward the boat, i yelled at him for something, as he turned around, he kept walking, straight off the end of the dock, fully clothes. that was some funny chit.

I saw one guy who was tied up in the middle of about 4 boats. he released the one closest to the dock but didnt untie the others. he started driving off when the boat owner started coming after him. it was pretty funny watching the guy drive off with a couple of extra boats tied up.

One thing about these boats is when you come in to dock, use extreme caution, and park as well as you can.

Because most save the whale types are just waiting for you to mess-up to justify to their girlfriend why they don't have one.

If your not sure... practice, practice, practice. Because someone will remember you messing up and will tell everyone they know or even post about it...

My Dad always said:

"Never approach a dock faster than you want to hit it".....

I always dock my boat on the first try. Always. If I don't I go back out and come in again for another first try!

It's all about patience!!!!! ........and I'm not a very patient person.

Its not the dock thats the problem its that wind and tide thing.

My favorite was the first time I took my then girlfriend (now wife) out on my boat. It was april, and she told me she needed to go to the bathroom bad. Being the gentleman, and only a couple of dates into this relationship, I decided to take her to the dock, instead of telling her to get in the cold april water (no way was she using my toilet!). Anyway, i pull up, dock, and instead of throwing lines out, I jump out and decided to just hold the boat. Well the current and wind was stronger than I thought, and as i'm holding the boat, the thing is drifting away. I try my best to do the splitz to hold the boat, but my need to overwax everything I own, got me and I slipped and fell in. So i swim around to the back, and get out, totally soaked and freezing, and she is laughing so hard she is peeing all over the floor of the boat......

needless to say, we put it back on the trailer for the day, and went back to my place and got cleaned up.....

still makes us laugh whenever we think about it...

dock lines are meant to be used.!

Almost dark, dead calm I parked my 24' boat between two boats that had about a 35' gap between them. I left my G-friend to hold the boat and backed the trailer. I got back to the boat and the drunk owner of one of the boats is giving my g-friend sh*t about hitting his boat and those "big boats" being hard to drive. The guy shut up as soon as I got there and he figured out I was the driver. I didn't find out he was talking sh*t until after he was gone. If I didn't know I could park there without hitting anything, I wouldn't have tried.

I won't say I always dock on the first time but I will say I have never damaged my boat trying. Might have caused my Wife a few stitches once but still no scratches on the boat. You know your wife takes care of the boat when she needs stitches keeping the boat off the dock in bad conditions.

cuts and scraps will heal for free..... gel coat and paint cost money...