Could have ended in tears

[Crunchy]

Had another cracker family day over at tanga's, all went well except the bloke who ran over my daughter in his tender while we were snorkelling right on the wrecks, she was fine and accidents happen but thought he may have at least said sorry, but there you go.

Got back to the ramp at Pinkemba, wind was up and tide was fair honking in which was making it damn hard to get a good angle to drive onto the trailer. I have been doing this for a long time and pretty good at it but today I was struggling, had about 5 approaches but the wind/tide combimation was not allowing me to get a good angle....was working the steering pretty hard and getting a little shitty about having to come around for yet another approach....turning hard on the steering....OH CRAP, gggrrrraaauuunnnch lost my steering, the gears at the helm part just gave up. Was about 10M from the ramp and heading real fast towards the rock wall at the non-beach side of the ramp, think fast boy....i quickly ran back to the motor and with some effort managed to turn the 90hp 2-st and aim it towards the ramp, thank goodness i dont have 350HP V8 , I slammed the engine into reverse and managed to get back to the sandbags. Phew, that could have been ugly....it was a lot of effort to manoeuvre the boat around the sandbags and onto the trailer, took about 20 mins....Mrs Crunchy outdid herself today, normally shes more of the spectator type of boating buddy but she followed instructions well, she moved the trailer into a better position for manual loading and did a good job cranking the winch, it's a pretty heavy boat. So it worked out OK but I just wonder what could have been, no steering in a fast flowing river with a strong wind and rocks looming

I'm thinking that since I have to replace steering I may as well go hydrolic, will do some research but in the meantime any recommendations on who can come and install a new hydrolic steering system? Dont really have the time to do it myself.

Cheers

[bf90]

Mate give garry (spaniard_king) a call, he hooked up my hydrolic steering, the guy is a bloody wizzard!

[TREVELLY]

The first accident is the scariest one - stuff a duck - man that could bave been terrible - the tender had a motor on the back?

As for number two - yes hydraulic is good - good luck with that one.

[WalrusLike]

Quick thinking with the manual steering while under pressure.... well done Crunchy. Thanks for the experience we all get second hand from you...

Now about that tender....

Seriously??? Did he know he had hit her? How could any bloke hit a kid with his boat and not stop and profusely apologise after checking they are ok?!

Tell me it ain't so....

[Funchy]

Mate you dodged 2 bullets by the sound of it. So happy to hear your daughter is fine. What kind of person doesn't stop and say sorry? Go buy a lotto ticket mate!!! Good luck with the steering

[Richo1]

Very lucky outboard accidents are horrific, trust no one when your snorkeling. It's bad enough on a Sunday when your sitting in the boat let alone in the water.
You will be thrilled with hydraulic steering and probably wonder why you didn't do it years ago.

[MEG-A-BITE]

Glad it turned out for the better,If it was my kid,the person on the tender would have been swimming back home.There is no excuse for not being vigilant to others in the water.And especially at a place like Tang's.

[Crunchy]

Thanks guys, re the bloke in the tender, it was just one of those things that happen, my daughter jumped off the wreck to start swimming back to the boat, the bloke in the tender (A small one with a tiny outboard, hopefully one of those ones with a plastic prop) headed off a few seconds later after droping some snorklers off at the wreck, he couldn't see I guess as he was sitting in the back and the bow was up real high - no vis out front, his kids yelled out "Dad your on top of a little girl"...I saw him panic (I was too by now) and for a second he tried to kill the motor but couldn't so then he fumbled and tilted up the prop, my duaghter, who had her life jacket on, popped out on the otherside looked back and said something like "You ran me over"....she was fine though and no worse for wear. I think the bloke got a bit of a shock, anyway he just drove off while his kids were saying "Wow that could have been really bad"....I just thought yeh OK these things happen but not to acknolwedge it when I was about 2 meters way....dick... They weren't exactly a family that knew much about personal space, they pretty much unloaded on top of us, they even stood on my foot - no big deal really they were just enjoying their day as much as we were. But you do have to be careful around the wrecks when its busy, there was even a jet ski trolling back and forth through the boats and swimmers with lures out the back - shake my head at that one.

Anyway - OK will do some research and get in touch with SK, wasn't sure if he did that kind of thing. I think your right Richo, been thinking to make the change for a while so no excuse now.

Thanks for the replies all....

Cheers
Crunchy

[Fed]

The guy was probably in shock Crunchy, I know I would have been if I thought I'd run over a kid. What a gut wrenching feeling that must have been for him.
Glad she wasn't hurt.

[WalrusLike]

The guy was probably in shock Crunchy, I know I would have been if I thought I'd run over a kid. What a gut wrenching feeling that must have been for him.
Glad she wasn't hurt.

Yeah I agree with that, but no amount of shock could get most of us to just head off without a good check of her condition and enormous apologies.

As far as boat handling goes.... Near snorkellers he should have been idling away with bow flat and him high to get in water vision.

I hope he sees this thread, or at least reflects on the incident, and learns from it.

Glad your family and boat are ok.

[Crunchy]

Here's the culprit...I've seen a few posts where people say that cables don't break...yeh they do. BTW steering wasn't stiff and the boat gets serviced regualrly so its just one of those things. Cable was 5 years old...

Also I decided to break open the helm to see what wat was inside, not an easy task either, photo attached for anyone who like me hasn't seen but interested. Very simple really....

[Fed]

Was the outer sheath of the cable securely fixed to the helm when you started to pull it apart Crunchy?

[MTAQ/BTAQ]

What happened to "Proper Lookout" and "Safe Speed" the two biggies when driving a boat!

[Crunchy]

Was the outer sheath of the cable securely fixed to the helm when you started to pull it apart Crunchy?

Yep, actually that was the tail end, the steering end looked the same...sheeth was fine and screwed into the helm. Ummm yeh it was you I was referring to about cables not breaking

What happened to "Proper Lookout" and "Safe Speed" the two biggies when driving a boat!

Not sure what you mean?

[johncar]

Sorry to hear both incidences but someone looking over you on both accounts and a bit of quick thinking. Either situation could have been much nastier.
I seem to remember being a bit heckled a bit when I recommended replacement of suspect or aging steering cables, only because I have experienced a break at cruising speed without warning which was quite scary at the time so I have had less faith in them since. Wouldn't have wanted small children aboard when it happened.
Like all things marine, there are things to do than can extend a steering cables life but it's hard to know what's going on inside that sheath so I lean towards hydraulic for sure.