Running aground

[jayderwin1]

does anyone have stories about running aground or hitting things like logs and such

[east tx skier]

I hit a broken off channel marker (wooden post) doing about 28 miles per hour. I didn't run aground, but the post was attached to it. I was in my father-in-law's 98 Prostar 205. Bent one of the blades a good 45 degrees aft. Bent the shaft up so far that the prop took out some of the glass. Took a few months to get the various folks that worked on the boat/supplied parts paid off. The boat now runs more smoothly than it did prior to the accident. It was a long, slow trip back to the launch. That vibration was terrifying.

[bradamerry]

does anyone have stories about running aground or hitting things like logs and such
Somebody go buy Farmer some shampoo ;) !

[OhioProstar]

Who has the link from the MBO site were the guy has running with the Wedge down and had the whole stern split apart.

[jsonova99]

I got my prop caught on the ramp once, not pretty, but minimal damage, although not for the poor prop :cry:

[André]

Somebody go buy Farmer some shampoo ;) !
LOLROTF!!!

[Holtrodj]

When I was 19 my parents let me take their IO out to the river for the first time. I ran it into a sand bar while pulling some friend tubing and the drain plug fell out. I thought I had cracked the transom until I pulled it out of the water and found that the plug was missing and the trim rams wouldn't hold the lower unit up anymore.

Moral of the story - keep an eye on your depth finder.

[bradamerry]

I have had some scary moments on the Red River (north of Plain Dealing Farmer) duck hunting. The worst, it was still dark and I was running about 25mph in the duck boat and hit a floating TREE. Stopped the boat in it's tracks and through me and the guy with me into the front deck. Lucky nobody was thrown from the boat and I had the kill switch hooked to my lifejacket, but we did have some big bruises from the accident :noface: ! I thought the transom had to be cracked or the motor was on bottom, but the Triton held up well ;) .

[AirJunky]

Last spring I moved from Seattle to the Spokane area. In April we were looking at houses & on a nice day decided to drop the 205 in Lake Coeur d'Alene to just booze cruze a bit & check out houses. Cruising up the Spokane River into Post Falls, ID. we were carefully navigating around the various log booms & only doing like 5 mph. At one point we discovered we were pinned in the logs & had to turn around & try another route. So I idled back up river & turned down another path.... and hit bottom. I shut the boat down pretty quickly, stripped my jeans off & jumped in...... to about 12" of water. I idled out of there & back to the ramp where we pulled the boat out & looked over the damage. We heard & felt metal on rocks all thru the boat. But got lucky & only dinged the 3 blade brass prop. Luckily I had pulled the 4 blade stainless off a few months prior to have it reworked after eating a mooring line.
Anyway, it was sure a crappy feeling to hit bottom like that but I got lucky & didn't have much damage at all.

A few days later I called the local utility company to ask what was up with the water level so low & unmarked. The guy told me that they built a shelf in the river bottom so that when/if the dam breaks, the lake will only drain down to that point. He also said there are no signs because "everyone knows there isn't enough water to navigate the river that time of year".

Friggin hillbilly........ everyone knows the speed limit too.

[boatwake]

I hit an under water stump a few years ago while pulling a wakeboarder. :eek: It was during a drought and the end of the summer. The lake was about 12' below full pool. I knew the area pretty well from a depth perspective, but I had no idea there were still stumps down there.

I instantly shut down and dove down to see what had happened. One blade on the prop was really bent (it still had a chunk of the stump on it). Fortunately, that was the only damage. We had to idle back to the ramp ending the day, but I still felt lucky.

[jimmer2880]

A buddy who had just bought his brand-new Moomba last year jumped in to take it out for it's first ski ride. Boat was docked. They jumped in and started it up. Then the Thunk happened before even getting out of the dock. A 4x4 (not log, but a piece of 4x4) had floated down the river & got pinned between the prop & the hull. Really messed up the prop.

This guy is beyond anal with his boats, etc. Retired state trooper, hard as nails. Pretty sure he was crying - at least on the inside anyway.

I've hit my share of logs. Even the bottom a couple of times. Even if you're careful, it's going to happen where I boat. That's why I have a spare prop.

[River Rat]

My first boat was an out board, we went riding in the mouth of the San Bernard river where it dumped into the gulf. (great place to go cus no one else rides there……. my first missed clue) I was riding a skurfer (that tells you how long ago it was) and my buddy was driving. I wish I had a video of this but I got this really confused feeling when the motor busted out of the water and went into full tilt. About the time it dawned on me what happened my skurfer came to a abrupt halt and I did a face plant in 4” of water :eek: . Now this was at the beach so the bottom was sand, so when my hands hit the bottom I got burnt (kind of like rug burn) palms, finger tips, and knee caps. Worst part was when the boat dropped bown it was sitting flat on the bottom. Did I mention that there was nobody else around? 3 to 4 hrs later we got that thing out of there and I have never been back.

[phecksel]

friend was driving my tristar while I was skiing and was forced too close to shore by wally. Hit a stump, and did not do any glass damage. All the metal had to be replaced

[k2mc]

Few years ago I was cruising in my '87 PS190 at 25mph or so on the Columbia River (eastern WA) at dusk looking for a campsite. I heard that tell-tale knock of rocks and pulled back immediately. We were loaded pretty heavy (3 people, 3 retrievers, gear, firewood, & weekend supply of beer) so it took awhile to slow down. Its a deep river and we were a long ways off shore, but I still managed to find the only shallow spot for miles. The boat settled into the sand/rock bar up to the hull and the prop had cut a long trench as we slowed. It took over an hour to move it 30-40 yards to deeper water. In order to get weight out we had to wear our packs, dump the firewood & drinking water and have the dogs swim. I was pretty scared that I had no prop left and being stuck on the sand was a lot more appetizing than being sucked down to the next dam. Once we were floating again I dove do find some very curled blades, but enough to get us back to the launch at idle. There was no damage to anything besides the prop so in the end it was 60 bucks for rework and a bruised ego.

We spent the rest of the weekend sitting in lawn chairs quaffing beverages and watching others enjoy their boats - which is another great story if someone wants to start a lake mayhem thread as a sequel to the launch mayhem.

[k2mc]

gotta share this one too...
There's 3 bouys on our lake that triangulate a shallow area. A neighbor was borrowing a friends older OB and when he approached the bouys he decided that he could go between the bouys and shore cuz certainly the shallow area was just inbetween the bouys.

$2k damage to engine on a $1500 boat. Oops.

[Ric]

We didn't run aground, but a quick close call story for you.

Once on a weekend housboat trip we were out in my 190 in some ROUGH water teaching some newbies how to ski. I wasnt paying attention and we'd drifted a bit. I was idling about to throttle up and I got a weird sense something was wrong.... In a split second reaction went to neutral and killed the motor like a spaz and everyone says. "what?"
I quietly stood up and stepped over the gunwale into about a foot or less of water and a very rocky bottom. pushed the boat to deep water and got back in and went skiing. whew!
to say the least, I was very happy that didnt ruin our day

[AirJunky]

Heres another one..... we're skiing in Pasco, WA on the Columbia river. We've done exhibitions between heats at the hydroplane races there for a few years. So afterwards we head out to ski for a while. Curley is riding Air Chair.... and he's a BIG guy. The driver asks me about the "red right returning" rule. I look ahead & see the red marker. But we can't remember if it's red right returning TO the sea.... or FROM the sea. Plus we're like 400 miles from the ocean so I have no friggin idea which way it is anyway!

About that time Curley goes down. We pull pack around to pick him up & he's livid, completely pissed off..... and then he stands up!!! We look over the side of the boat & we're in like 2' of water! No clue why the boat didn't hit at all. But Curley's foil was wasted & he spent the evening nursing a bottle of Jack!

[AirJunky]

OK, last one.... I think.

Lake Sammamish has a couple of sunken forests...... basically where a big chunk of the hillside slid into the lake a bazillion years ago. Now the trees have been underwater for a long time & are basically petrified. Some of them have been topped years ago & the top will rot when the water level goes down late in the summer.

So my brother is going to this park that is near one of these sunken forests in his '88 PS190. We all know to stay close to the shore & you'll be fine. Well, he doesn't.... and he drives right up on one of the old stumps, a rotten one. Somehow the prop & rudder miss it, but one of the skegs nails it dead on. It's stuck like an ax in a log.... and not goin anywhere!

So we get 2 others boats, one on either side & run a tow strap underneath the stuck boat & basically lift the boat up & off the stump. No damage at all. Skegs are straight, didn't touch the fiberglass, prop or rudder at all. How lucky is that?!