Anyone up for a horror story?

[Despacio]

I probably shouldn't tell this story, but here goes . . .

I single handed to the pump out dock, as I've done many times before. Approaching the dock I had the wheel hard to port and gave the throttle a little blast in reverse to stop the boat. I felt the cable let go from the bottom of the Morse control. The boat was in neutral, sitting against the dock. I always have left the engine running so that I could use the lower station for any needed adjustment, then get off and tie up the stern line first. There is a lot of surge so a little adjusting is necessary sometimes.

I missed the cleat. Between the surge and the wind ( port aft quarter, maybe 10 knots) it seemed to be perfectly normal for the boat to move. I then went for the second cleat, I missed it too. By then it was obvious the boat was in gear, moving very slowly. There was one more cleat at the end of the dock. I had plenty of line but decided to not tie the line to it because it would spin the boat toward the rocks and probably tear the cleat from the dock. The starboard aft corner was just past my reach. There are rocks in front of the dock, 40 feet away at a slight angle. Had no time to do anything except jump in holding the stern line.

The boat slowly moved toward the rocks but turned a bit paralleling them. I was now standing on the rocks, holding the swim step, expecting to hear the inevitable crunch, climbing higher on the rocks, thinking I'd be able to get to the swim step just about as the boat hit. It could have not been closer. No crunch, the boat was turning away, so slowly I could have swum a circle around it, but it was picking up speed pretty quickly.

My plan always was to use the telescoping ladder on the swim step if I ever went over the side. The ladder was partially extended, laying flat on the swim step. It has been that way for a while so it would not slide in, and it hit the dinghy so it wouldn't unfold. Meanwhile the boat had done a circle and was headed back for the rocks. It didn't hit this time either, and headed out again. I didn't want a third pass, I was spending too much time on the ladder.

I tied the stern line through the the swim step and used the loop as a foot hold to get back on the boat. I then steered the boat away from the rocks and back to the slip from the lower station.

Lessons learned:
Check the connections on the cables to make sure they haven't come loose.
Make sure your plan to get back aboard if you fall off, both at the slip and underway, actually works. Test it. I had, but got tripped up on the interference with the dinghy.
Shut off the engine before getting off. Everyone I've ever seen leaves it running at the pump out station. I won't from now on.

Because the cable had come loose, it was left too close to being in forward. It slipped in by itself. If the wheel hadn't been hard over this story probably would have turned out much different.

[jleonard]

You are a luck SOB. I hope you bought som elottery tickets!!

Secure the boat before getting off. That is a cardinal rule.
A friend of mine uses a grappling hook kind of thing for that if he has to. That's a "little" extreme but it works.
We use a line with a 4 foot diameter eye splice. Rarely misses. Like using a shot gun.

That said, I broke the shift lever off in my ex boat. Just as we were docking. That's always fun. I was able to get to the lower station before we hit anything major. I was lucky too.

[bccanucker]

Ahhhh Gee
While reading, my chest tightened up

[jcollins]

Despecio,
I have to agree with others that you should never leave the boat until you have at least one line tied. I also understand that when you single-hand and there is no one on the dock sometimes you have to. I'm just happy to hear that you and boat are o.k. This reminds me of the time . . .
I guess, over the years, we all have at least one horror story.

[jleonard]

I guess, over the years, we all have at least one horror story.

We all start out with a bag full of "luck" and an empty bag labelled "experience". The goal in life is to fill the bag with experience before the bag of luck empties out.

[Veebyes2]

Feeling a lever, throttle or gear, go slack is never a good thing.

Our raftup boating crowd is a pretty experienced group of boaters. We sometimes move a short distance from one anchorage to another without breaking the raftup. We will do this 4 or 5 boats wide. Easy. Use engines of the 2 outside boats & you have one very wide boat.

I'll spare the details but this works well until one day somebody (single engined boat) rang down for reverse as we were approaching a mooring & the handle came right off in his hand. No damage done but we did have an exciting few moments.

[Despacio]

Spent the day today under the dash replacing all of the fasteners on the Morse control. The old bronze screws got replaced by new SS screws and lock nuts.

[RicM]

Yikes! My rule is, under no circumstances, leave the boat with engine running until the fire is about burn your feet!

[Boatmon]

We all start out with a bag full of "luck" and an empty bag labelled "experience". The goal in life is to fill the bag with experience before the bag of luck empties out.

Jay I like that, very in-sightful

Despacio, you are very, extremely, unbelievably lucky my friend!! we had the cable come off just as we were backing out of our slip on a windy day. managed to locate it and repair fairly quickly, but I was planing to run the controls by hand at the engine if I had to. good place for loctite!