Worst ride while in a boat?

[TooReel]

Last Saturday. I was running in from the Gulf with 100 other boats out enjoying the holiday weekend. Got a little impatient passing a pontoon (last red before Hell's gate) and it put me on a bad line on a turn in the river. Made a bad decision and came off the throttles a little. When I did it put me in a bow steer situation and I almost spun out in the middle of the channel with lots of boats around me. I have no idea how I saved it but we did not spin or worse. My wife was thrown off the leaning post into the gunnel hard. She was laying on the floor not moving or speaking for quite a while and I could not go to her as I had to keep the boat in the channel and out of other boats ways. It was the most helpless feeling I have ever experienced. When she got up she called me lots of things I can't repeat here. Thank God she was not thrown over. Boat went back on the trailer. Now I remember why I don't go out on holiday weekends.

[FishingAddictFla]

Worst ride in a boat...hmmm..let me think. God I have so many which one would qualify as the worst!

Ok I think I have it narrowed down.

Me and a friend of mine were drunk and stoned and decided it would be fun to take his 21ft storm bass boat with a 300 Merc on it, out in the ocean for some fun. It was dead calm, no wind, very light chop in the water, when we got out there. Well we raised hell out there for a good 2 hours, then had to go get more fuel. On the way to get more fuel, we noticed the wind started to stir a little bit, and some pretty dark clouds moving east from the west. But we decided to ignore it and continue. So we get fuel go back out, and about ohh I guess 45 minutes later, god bless america, it went from being 1-2ft seas (which isnt much in a center console, or the like) but in a BASS BOAT...thats brutal...to being 3-5ft with a good NE swell, and we are down by Hollywood Blvd out in the ocean. I'm gonna say this, there IS a god out there, because someone surely had their hand over our dumbasses that day. We cracked the hull, cracked the transom, broke 2 bolts on the jack plate, and in the process of porpousing through the waves, tore the trolling motor off the bow of the boat.

I have to say, if there wasnt a god out there, I wouldnt be alive. God keeps his hand on the stupid ones, let me tell ya.

[WMalloy382]

17 foot whaler

[mrrobalo]

My old neighbor from Orlando wanted to take his new boat out of Stuart. I lived in Port St Lucie at the time and said yea just let me know. Well a week later he calls on a Thursday night and says he's coming down Friday night and staying at a friends house and wanted me to go with them. I said he needed to check the weather as it didn't look good . No problem we would just fish in the inlet if not. Cool and told him I'd meet him at the Jensen ramp at 6AM. Get there and there a wind blowing and a small chop on our way to the inlet from Jensen Beach. Meet his 2 buddy's and on the way down he tells me he's going to get his Captains license. WoW,that one took me by surprise, as all his other boats were runabouts. His reasoning was that way I can write the boat off. Mind you it was a new 23 Pro-line walkaround with a hardtop and a 225 on a bracket. He then informed me this is the offshore shakedown trip as all the others were on the St.Johns River. She seemed fine running down the river . As we got near the Inlet I told him it is shallow and there dredging it so let's wait for a little more lite to navigate our way out. Actually I was stalling for time as I could see the breakers crashing the jetty's hard. By now I can see how bad and said to him it looks bad and I think we should scrub the offshore,run back in and get some bait to fish the inlet. NO It fine and he nails it and I'm knocked back towards the transom. I said no but too late we are IN THE INLET passing the rocks. Well we hit a BIG wave crashing through it and slide down the other side and bump the bottom,when he said $%^5 we are turning around , NO WAY AS I grabbed him jerked him out from the wheel and tried to throttle down keeping our heading and as the motor starts bogging down. I managed to straitened her out and Slowly plowing into the waves as the motor is missing. After what seemed like a eternity (probably only 4-5 minutes I have her in the ocean and the waves are big but running 6-7 seconds apart. He asks me what the hell are you doing? As I responded trying to save our lives as well as your boat. The motor starts running better and we are near the buoy now . I time the waves for my turn and luckily I'm able to surf the wave back in. Once in and safe I slowed down and said here take over. Immediately he said no man please just take us back to the trailer I have had all I need today. Well we slowly made our way back as they were pounding away the beers and he says thank you and I said I'm sorry for snatching you out of the helm but you never turn around in a inlet. We actually ended up hanging around the river the rest of the day and talking about him getting his captains license (which he never did as he didn't have the water hours to even try). The wife and friend came and picked up my truck and I drove his rig to his buddy's house as I don't drink BUT almost did after that ride.

[FishingAddictFla]

My old neighbor from Orlando wanted to take his new boat out of Stuart. I lived in Port St Lucie at the time and said yea just let me know. Well a week later he calls on a Thursday night and says he's coming down Friday night and staying at a friends house and wanted me to go with them. I said he needed to check the weather as it didn't look good . No problem we would just fish in the inlet if not. Cool and told him I'd meet him at the Jensen ramp at 6AM. Get there and there a wind blowing and a small chop on our way to the inlet from Jensen Beach. Meet his 2 buddy's and on the way down he tells me he's going to get his Captains license. WoW,that one took me by surprise, as all his other boats were runabouts. His reasoning was that way I can write the boat off. Mind you it was a new 23 Pro-line walkaround with a hardtop and a 225 on a bracket. He then informed me this is the offshore shakedown trip as all the others were on the St.Johns River. She seemed fine running down the river . As we got near the Inlet I told him it is shallow and there dredging it so let's wait for a little more lite to navigate our way out. Actually I was stalling for time as I could see the breakers crashing the jetty's hard. By now I can see how bad and said to him it looks bad and I think we should scrub the offshore,run back in and get some bait to fish the inlet. NO It fine and he nails it and I'm knocked back towards the transom. I said no but too late we are IN THE INLET passing the rocks. Well we hit a BIG wave crashing through it and slide down the other side and bump the bottom,when he said $%^5 we are turning around , NO WAY AS I grabbed him jerked him out from the wheel and tried to throttle down keeping our heading and as the motor starts bogging down. I managed to straitened her out and Slowly plowing into the waves as the motor is missing. After what seemed like a eternity (probably only 4-5 minutes I have her in the ocean and the waves are big but running 6-7 seconds apart. He asks me what the hell are you doing? As I responded trying to save our lives as well as your boat. The motor starts running better and we are near the buoy now . I time the waves for my turn and luckily I'm able to surf the wave back in. Once in and safe I slowed down and said here take over. Immediately he said no man please just take us back to the trailer I have had all I need today. Well we slowly made our way back as they were pounding away the beers and he says thank you and I said I'm sorry for snatching you out of the helm but you never turn around in a inlet. We actually ended up hanging around the river the rest of the day and talking about him getting his captains license (which he never did as he didn't have the water hours to even try). The wife and friend came and picked up my truck and I drove his rig to his buddy's house as I don't drink BUT almost did after that ride.

What goes through peoples heads....the ocean aint no joke...respect it or it will kill you. I learned that the hard way. Now I dont mess with the ocean. And turning around in an inlet, jesus god..you said that guy wanted to get his captains license? Maybe he needs to get some common sense first! :753_hammer_hitting_head: :753_hammer_hitting_head: Turning around in an inlet, with the water acting the way you said it was...what a idiot... :753_hammer_hitting_head: :753_hammer_hitting_head:

[DFreedom]

A 1970, 17' Cobia w/a Johnson 90 in the middle of St. Helena Sound in a horrible, horrible storm. We all literally thought we were dead. If my Dad (a Naval Academy grad) who was a hell of a seaman had not been at the helm I do not believe we would have made it in. As it was, we had to beach it on a small island in the middle of the river and rode out the storm on shore.

[Kamper]

My worst ride was being out with some kids in a thunderstorm. I'd just come out of a small cove when the skys openned up. I only had 2-3 miles in a straight line to get back to the dock but all the wussies in thier bigger boats decided the conditions justified their cutting me off from all directions causing me to stuff my bow a couple times.

Two of the boys were in front thinking it was fun until I moved back while the third was in the rear with me looking towards the stern from a lounge seat. It was almost funny when he looked down at his dangling feet and saw 3 inches of water sloshing around! Fortunatly I'd sprung the few extra bucks for a higher capacity pump,it it was cleared in a couple minutes. I turned around and went to back to that cove where we circled with some other small craft for about 45 minutes until things calmed down.

If it was just myself the situation would not have botherred me but I really would not have wanted a head-line "Man kills 3 kids taking boat into heavy water." After we got back I learned one of the mothers had been anxious but the other two having been around boats settled her down by telling her we'd probably tied up somewhere to ride it out.

My second worst ride was the year my night-vision mostly went away. There are a lot of small islands on my favorite lake and it's easy to confuse them. Things did not look right to me at one point and I cut to idling speed and went to a lighted (numberred for ID) bouy and found I was about a mile away from where I thought I was and had just passed through a small rock field. I gave up night riding until I got a chart-plotter that included that lake.

[FishingAddictFla]

My worst ride was being out with some kids in a thunderstorm. I'd just come out of a small cove when the skys openned up. I only had 2-3 miles in a straight line to get back to the dock but all the wussies in thier bigger boats decided the conditions justified their cutting me off from all directions causing me to stuff my bow a couple times.

Two of the boys were in front thinking it was fun until I moved back while the third was in the rear with me looking towards the stern from a lounge seat. It was almost funny when he looked down at his dangling feet and saw 3 inches of water sloshing around! Fortunatly I'd sprung the few extra bucks for a higher capacity pump,it it was cleared in a couple minutes. I turned around and went to back to that cove where we circled with some other small craft for about 45 minutes until things calmed down.

If it was just myself the situation would not have botherred me but I really would not have wanted a head-line "Man kills 3 kids taking boat into heavy water." After we got back I learned one of the mothers had been anxious but the other two having been around boats settled her down by telling her we'd probably tied up somewhere to ride it out.

My second worst ride was the year my night-vision mostly went away. There are a lot of small islands on my favorite lake and it's easy to confuse them. Things did not look right to me at one point and I cut to idling speed and went to a lighted (numberred for ID) bouy and found I was about a mile away from where I thought I was and had just passed through a small rock field. I gave up night riding until I got a chart-plotter that included that lake.

I have had a similiar experience to both situations. not fun.

[Guitar Picker]

I was a boatswain mate on this . Saw blue water over the gun mount more than once . Took a few rolls That I thought we would go all the way over.

[speckul8r]

RV Advance II Converted PCE 845 185' w/ 33'Beam The only time I have ever been able to look down at the moon.