OK, having lived in Rhode Island for a while (where there are 2.3 boats per capita) I have hundreds of these (and many of them happened to me) but here are a couple of the best:
There is a boat ramp directly under the rt24 bridge from the mainland to Aquidneck island (where Newport is). There were big signs all around the ramp and building stating in very big, red letters; "DO NOT POWER ONTO TRAILER"
I had been out with my boat and actually got it back onto the trailer without incident (a miracle in itself) and was strapping it down when this guy shows up with a really long, tri-axle trailer attached to a really new looking, Ford F350, four-door, Dually-rear-wheel pickup.
As I was looking at the truck backing around and lining up for the ramp, I heard this rumble from behind and, looking around, saw this 40 foot
"Cigarette Boat" rumbling it's way towards the ramp. You may have seen and heard these boats cruising in large harbors or out on the open ocean - HUGE Engines powering them far in excess of 70 mph, bouncing from wave cap to wave cap. Really Macho stuff, to be sure.
Anyway, the boat rumbles into the little ramp area where there is a dock beside the ramp, and another one, perpendicular to the ramp and about 70 feet away at high tide such that you pull straight in but perpendicular to the ramp, then tie up and use dock lines to pull your boat around to the ramp and load onto your trailer.
Needless to say, it was a tight manoeuver to get that 40 footer in there without hitting anything, and I was more than impressed that the boat pilot did it without any help via docklines. He was good.....trouble was, they didn't have enough room to manoever with the trailer in the water, so his buddy pulled it out, then they lined up the boat, and he gradually lowered the trailer back in.
By now the tide was receeding a little, so he had to lower further but, sure enough, not enough to easily float the boat on. "Set the truck brakes and I'll power it on!" shouted the boat pilot, so his buddy did, and the boat slowly moved toward the trailer and he eased the throttles forward, but it wouldn't slide up rollers and load as the boat was too long and the trailer angle too steep.
The pilot then pulled back a bit, but it was slightly stuck on something and when it let go, started to head toward that rear dock. That spooked him, he hit the throttles, the boat launched forward, slid up the trailer, took out the forward stanchion and winch (while punching a hole in the forward hull), kept on going and took out the pickup tailgate before finally coming to rest with the nose about halfway inside the pickup bed.
oops......... |>(
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