ENTERTAINMENT AT THE BOAT RAMP

[redlipper]

Here is something a couple of you married blokes might relate to and probably have thought about doing after a marital tiff but thought better of it. Yes it does relate to unfortunate boat ramp mishaps.
From 1989 to 2000 I was manager of 1770 camping grounds and because of the distance and dirt roads I saw all sorts of trailer/boat misfortune when they finally arrived ready to hit the drink [In more ways than one]
In 1991 Mr X had a blue with Mrs X in Brisbane and about 7pm decided to hitch his beloved 18 footer behind the 4be and P off somewhere he didn't have to listen to her telling him to hitch up and P off.
It was 3 in the morning and my wife and I were woken in our residence near the 1770 campground entrance by an awful scraping noise that was getting louder and louder.
Mr X was approaching the camground entrance with his 18 footer on behind and had blown 2 out of the four tyres on his tandem on the dirt into Agnes/1770 but because of his annebriated state, had just kept driving his 80 series turbo determined to reach 1770. This is no BS!
I quickly got him off the camground road to avoid waking any more campers and told him to sleep it off.
The spring hangers were almost worn to nothing we discovered in daylight from dragging on the road, and what was more astounding was about lunchtime when Mr X had recovered enough he towed the wrecked trailer to the boat ramp and launched the boat where it promptly sank....
Four of the rollers had disintegrated from the jarring on the dirt road and punched holes in the hull.
By the way guys as Agnes Jack will tell you the dirts gone now...blacktop all the way. Used to be 4 trailer boats at 1770 ramp in those days and one was always mine on a good day.

[Needmorerum]

I thought this was funny, nothing went wrong but it still bought a smile to my face.
When I take the boat out with my two young daughters and the wife is working, she helps me launch it in the morning, and then comes back in the arvo to help me retrieve it.
One afternoon, I rang her from the harbour and she came down and backed the trailer down the ramp, when she got it in the water I drove up to the ramp and drove the boat straight onto the trailer, she hopped out and put the winch on it and tightened it up. I jump out and put the chain on, drive up the ramp and prepare to drive home.
A bunch of blokes were sitting up on the balcony of the Yacht Club cheering and wolf whistling at how she had backed the trailer down so straight. All of them yelling out how they wish their wives could do it to. We had a chuckle and drove off.
Little did all these guys know, I was actually sitting just off the ramp with the handheld UHF talking to her in the car, saying... left hand down, right hand down and so on.
Without help she couldn't back a trailer into the side of a house.

Corry

[nonibbles]

Well, not really at the boat ramp but boat retrieval story all the same...
Just got home from hot arvo fishin, tired, tired grumpy etc. Wife & kid wanted to go as soon as the fish turned up. Anyway, they leave in her car and I stay to secure the trailer dump the rubbish all the standard routine but on my own - no big deal. I'll deal with the canopy when I get her home. Back the boat down the driveway and under the carport then crunch one ripped canopy and mangled struts. Not happy Jan!

[GrahamW]

Gunna,
I smiled too when I finally manged to get back into my boat, but I did have a "what a crap way to die" thought before I caught it... which I did not because my real name is Ian Thorpe but because I had knocked the speed down on the electric when I had the first hook up & a belting wind was pushing directly against the boat's direction so even a few minutes of one handed breast stroke got me there. I was also grateful to a local fisho (the only other boat on the water) who came over to my distress wave & not only made sure I was safe back in the boat but also drove off & rounded up my plastic sandals & hat & brought them back to me. He was fishing with his 2 young kids & I think they thought it was the strangest thing they had ever seen. The final good news was that both fish were still 'on' & I was able to bring both in.
Graham

[Romney]

Many years ago a couple of old diggers got a skinful at the Albany Creek Tavern and decided at closing time that a fishing trip to Bribie Island was just what they needed. Once at the ramp they decided they were both too drunk to reverse the trailer so they unhitched it and wheeled it down the ramp. After they had travelled a few K's up the passage they started wondering why the boat was so slow.

Yep, you guessed it, they'd fogotten to take the boat off the trailer and it was still under the boat!

[hercules]

Have done many stupid things at the ramp as well on the water . As we all like to have a laugh at others it still brings a smile to my face recalling some friends stuper human achievements
A mate rebuilt an old merc himself , tried it at home , then off to the ramp . Left the muffs on and cooked the motor . same bloke used to have an auxiliary motor, dropped that in the broadwater , never to be seen again
Another mate dropped his cairns custom craft on the kennedy drv ramp a few years back ,its funny how the brain isn't quite in gear at 4am
I use kennedy drv also and can testify to the usual bungs out scenario, although i remembered 5 mile out and hastily replaced them . The old vc didn't plane to well that day
Also reversed into one of those green cca posts in the dark mangling trailer light , driven up the ramp with motor down (the skeg needed sharpening on the conc ) , and last summer , i pulled up on the sand and went to get the trailer , as often is the case the dive boat pulls up and blocks the ramp for 15 minutes . Finally reverse down only to find the incoming tide has taken my trusty vc up stream . Run up the bank , slice my feet on some oysters and then swim for it. The annoying thing about it was people were standing next to it on the beach and just watched it drift away Iguess it was my turn to entertain the crowd

By the way i've also lost three winch handles between tweed and palmy, so if you find one its probably mine

Craig

[bungie]

Had two mistakes I can think of other than the time I left bungs out, but that was only the once

1/ I had spent a week in Noosa on the river, had a great time, using the western ramp on Gympie terrace. Each time I came back to the ramp I would cruise in, kill the motor, trim it up and then as the boat approached the sand I would jump off the bow and drag it up the beach. Well I had been doing this for 5 or 6 days when the wife wanted to come for a trip. Had a nice afternoon, set the crap pots and had a good time fishing when on the horizon a huge black cloud was forming, so I went to retrieve the pots as the storm hit. It absolutely p!$$ed down. Having no cover on the boat I screamed back to the boat ramp to get the Mrs in the car out of the rain. Rain ? that's a joke it came down so hard I couldn't even see the bank of the river, looking, looking, looking, finally I see the ramp in the deluge, I come flying in, kill the motor, trim it, Get on the bow and jump off as we near the beach. My wife lets out an almighty scream as she sees me disappear out of sight. I had come in at the eastern ramp that has four feet of water right up to the beach and I found the bottom . In the short time that it rained, I had some much water in the hull i needed to bring it up onto the trailer to drain the boat

2/ I spent the day at the Pin on my own as usual, came back in to Horizon Shores and worked my way around to the ramp. As I approached the Jetty I killed the motor and let the boat drift as I moved on to the bow (hmmmm sounds like a common mistake) looped the rope around the cleat, then I stepped onto the jetty, reached down and tied her off to the bollard. Stood up and turned around to see the first loop over the cleat on the boat had slipped off, and there drifted off my pride and joy into the marina. Stripped off to my jocks and took a swim to get her back

[Burley_Boy]

Why is it quicker to fill the boat with no bungs than to drain it????
My passesngers asked what the sound was once I'd parked the trailer....blub blub blub..

Also I must be a local because I've walked every bloody sandbank in the broadwater, and usually with the boat full of camping gear and kids...!