TOPIC: Tried to sink the boat today.

Well it was bound to happen sooner or later this year. Thats right, launch the boat and forget to put in the drain plug. Normally this would not be to much of a problem, just put in the plug and turn on the pump. Well I had the wife with me today, so it made it kinda interesting. Now this is the first year my wife has done alot of boating. Turns out she really likes it.So thats on the plus side. So today I says lets go boating for a couple of hours ,she says ok and so off to the lake we go. Its only 15 min away. Get there and the ramp is empty , great. Goes through my prelaunch list. Well I guess I had a "CRAFT" moment. Every thing went ok, or so I thought.I backs down the ramp, she is holding lines so boat doesn't float away and into the water goes boat. Perfect launch. I goes and parks the truck and take my time getting back to the dock. Wife is standing there holding lines and just looking around. I steps into the boat and is gonna lower the engine down by hand and I notice the stern is just alittle lower than useual. Then it hits me ,crap I forgot the plug.I see it lying right there and graps it, reaches over the stern and shoves it in the drain tube.While I and doing this the wife jumps in the boat and says is anything wrong? I looked at her and replied, yea were sinking, do me a favor and turn on the pump. Just hit the red switch on the dash. She says which one, I says there is only one red switch turn it on.She hits the switch and everything is good in the world again.I have got about 6 inches of water in the back of the boat and she askes me if that is bad. I says yea, we could have sank. She looks at me and asks me " How far would we have sunk".I looked at her and said what? She says well I have never been in a boat that sunk before so ,I don't know. You know you just gotta love them somedays. We made it thought the next 4 hrs without any more problems. Skip.

Good thing that is all that happened Skip. Glad to hear the rest of the day was fine.

roflmao,did it test your reflexes like in the poll?
im sorry skip if it wouldnt have turned out ok,i wouldnt have found it funny.
i had to read this to my wife,lol,john

Well it could have been worst. I did it, I was by myself and stopped to talk to a friend for ten minutes before going back to the boat. The plus that day was that it could not go down far enough to actually sink. My boat has no flotation, so when it sinks, it sinks.

to ALL,

CONFESSION TIME: When i was a college student, 40+ years ago, i owned a long/slim ELDOCRAFT aluminum jonboat (that was about the same width on each end).

i got into the habit of paddling it from whichever end happened to be closest to the bank. - one morning, i went out to run the trotlines, pushed the boat into the water, got aboard the stem, paddled out to the trotline, took off the fish & put them in the livewell, rebaited the line & returned to our cabin to fix breakfast.
when i finished breakfast i went down to the boat to start cleaning fish & found the johnboat sumerged to the gunnels, as i had been out in the boat for over an hour w/o the plug!

talk about embarrassing!

yours, satx

skipthescrounger wrote:

" How far would we have sunk".

Simple- You sink 'till the bottom stops ya!

EVERYONE has done that. If they haven't, or tell you they haven't, they are either a liar or haven't been boating more than a handful of times... My drain plugs 'reside' in the little tray right in front of the E-Brake in my jeep, RIGHT in my line of sight- When I back down the ramp, I put on the brake before I get out to launch the boat, and the plugs are right there if I happened to forget to put them in the boat. Since I've made it a habit of keeping them there, I've never had a mishap. Of course, that whole system is reliant on my remembering to put them back every time

-Andrew

I remember the day well Skip, and I was SO glad I was alone when I did it! I also remember the rush of feelings I had right after it happened, after the panic mode kicked out. Mad that I did that to my boat, disappointed in myself for letting it happen (I call myself taking pride in being very careful and meticulous when it come to boating safety, etc...). Hopefully those humbling feelings will keep it fresh in my memory for a long time.

It's hard to look cool while bailing out a boat. I know from experience.