One of the worst I’ve seen happened out on tonka few years back. A guy was messing around with his winch on a steep grade at the launch. And pop goes the winch and the handle is spinning uncontrollably, said guy tries to stop it and gets tangled in it, seriously messing up his arm and face. Boat falls onto concrete and the guy was rushed to the hospital. Good reminder to keep your safety chains on until your boat is backed up in the water.
Whoa
This happened just last summer – a lot of first-time boat owners during Covid. My Buddy and I were gonna go out for a few hours to kill a Sunday evening and fish a small lake near Faribault. Only one other trailer in the parking lot when we get there. We prep my buddy’s boat and I jump in to handle the boat at the dock while my buddy begins to back in. Suddenly, my buddy stops backing, puts it back in drive and pulls out. I asked him if he forgot the plug and he said “No, I saw the guy in the boat pulling up in my mirror. His boats leaning to one side and his bilge is shooting out water like a fire hydrant.” I turned around to see a man, his wife and early teenager son limping to the dock in an early 90’s Sea Nymph. My buddy pulled out to give him dock priority as he was clearly in-trouble. The guy thanks us and runs up to get his truck while his wife holds the boat. I got talking to the wife and she explains they just bought this used boat and it’s the first time they ever had it out. She asked me if I knew what would cause it to take on water. I just assumed they knew about the plug and would’ve already put it back in if that was the problem. I suggested that maybe it had some bad rivets. Anyway, the guy felt pressure to get his boat out of the way (even though we told him to take his time) plus his wife was kinda giving him the business the whole time and he was growing frustrated. So he was moving WAY to fast trying to get his boat out and not thinking. He gets it hooked up, jumps back in his truck without trimming the motor up and proceeds to drag his skeg up the concrete ramp – pretty sure he cracked it. This really sets the wife off and she starts yelling every word in the book at her poor husband. He gets out, drenched in sweat, and sternly tells her to pipe down. To make it more of a circus, his bow mount trolling motor was still in the upright position and the commotion of pulling the boat out must’ve been enough to trip the switch and the prop starts spinning. The kid innocently interrupts the fight between the husband and wife and says “Dad the trolling motor’s still on!” The guy just wants to crawl under a rock at this point. Anyway we did all we could to help and he ended up getting his situation under control. We backed in and I fired up the motor, got snugged up to the dock and waited for my buddy to park the trailer. He spent a few minutes helping the guy asses his problem in the parking lot. Turns out he never put the plug in, nor did he even know there was such a thing. Poor guy learned about boat anatomy the REALLY hard way.
Not a boat landing story exactly, but back in 2009 I was fishing in my dad’s boat, which was an 18′ Tracker Tundra formed aluminum model. It was November and I had been fishing muskies all day. The dock was out, so I pulled the boat up on shore after dark. Before I knew what was happening, there was water coming in over the back transom. I went for the bilge switch just as it started listing … and I bailed into sub-40 degree water just before the boat flipped completely upside down. I spent most of the next day first trying to flip it, and eventually loading it upside down onto the trailer. Thank God I was able to get the truck and trailer down there. Some guy motored by us while we were doing that and complained that the (upside down) boat was leaking gas into the lake. Right, thanks. It was a total loss.
Insurance adjuster said there was a cracked livewell drain, which presumably let water into the hull and caused the transom to go under when I put the nose on shore. All I really know is that it’s scary as hell to watch 2,000# of boat, motors, and gear flip over in the lake. But I had that boat on LOTWs and in other situations where it could have been a lot worse.
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Some of these stories are triggering some PTSD 
I’ll plead the 5th, and leave it to Weedis if he wants to share some of our blunders over the years…
I forgot the plug a couple of times and the straps on the transom once.
Some young kids came in with Dad’s brand new Lund. Unhooked the boat and started backing down the steep ramp. The boat rolled off the trailer onto the ramp. After I calmed the young boy down I helped him get it back onto the trailer. Lucky there didn’t look to be any damage to the transom.
Had a guy and girl show up to the ramp. They were obviously wasted. I told them that the water was low and they won’t be able to launch their pontoon at this landing and should go to the other landing. They told me to mind my own business, they know what they are doing. He backed the pontoon in. I suggested he stop since the trailer went into the wash out power load area and back up. He yelled at me to shut up and mind my own. The truck hit the wash out area and went under. The water was about 3″ below his mirror. The motor died and he open his door to flood the cab full of water.
My biggest personal blunder is likely forgetting a transom strap once every few years. I have always been able to reach over the edge of the boat and simply undo it.
The worst I’ve seen personally is probably a guy dropping a brand new jetski on the ramp. He came in pretty hot towards his trailer with a cooler strapped to the back. It was easy to assume he was drinking as he wasn’t making a ton of sense yelling at his girlfriend who was backing in the trailer. He slid onto the trailer clearly off-center and at an angle. All I said is, “let me grab a corner and help straighten you out” to which he instantly got pissed and shouted “That little bit won’t matter” and also didn’t connect a tow strap. The second his girlfriend started to pull forward, the ski dumped onto the cement. He then promptly blamed the girlfriend for how she pulled out instead of him not connecting the tow strap or landing the ski correctly. My fishing buddy wanted to rub it in a bit, but we left it at that and pulled away when he refused our help and flipped us the bird for no reason.
Not really a blunder but falling for a trick from an old dog. About 10 years ago my dad and I are taking out our boat for the winter out of the St. Croix. This is are first year owning this 27 foot formula boat. I back the truck and trailer in the water and he loads it on. I get out to hook up the winch and safety chain from the trailer to the boat.
I’m like ok were good to go and ask him if he has the prop trimmed up? He goes no I don’t think the trim is working so you better get in the water and make sure its up. Me being young and dumb and not realizing he is messing with me, I go right into the water and granted its in October and the water is not warm at all. I get half way in the water and all I hear is how gullible are you… I storm out of the water and hop in the truck without saying a word.
Now every time we take the boat out he always says hey the trim isnt working but I just give him the bird. Someday I swear he is gonna forget to trim it up and I wont feel bad one bit haha
I think the common theme here is have your own routine, don’t let anyone rush you and don’t let anyone help you that can alter your routine.
Saying that, one late fall the walleyes where really biting on Pool 2 but couldn’t decide if I should try musky fishing instead so I had put booth sets of poles in the vehicle in the morning.
I always launch myself and carry a 20′ length of rope with a snap on each end. One attaches to the boat other attaches to the trailer. Back it down, boat floats off.
put er in gear pull boat to shore just out disconnect rope park vehicle.
As I was watching the boat float off notice it was floating a long ways out. got out, looked, both lines hooked to trailer. by now boat was in the middle of mississippi floating down river.
thankfully my musky rod had a big surface plug tied on, Loong cast caught my bow mount motor and reeled my V-14 to shore…
I think the common theme here is have your own routine, don’t let anyone rush you and don’t let anyone help you that can alter your routine.
Anyone else get pissed off when you get your rig out of the water and an AIS inspector comes over and interrupts your routine? Drives me nuts. Just give me 5 minutes, pal!
I agree Luttes every time they rush up I almost forget something. Like you say just a couple of minutes or after you tilt your motor down get ready to go and wait for them they ask you to lower the motor again Drives me nuts
Having owned a boat for 40+ years, I have done most of the simple blunders more than once including straps, plugs, and transom light at both abridge and a lift.
But the worst!! For 30+ years our families do a Baker Park/Lake Independence camp out. About 10 years ago, my college age son couldn’t find his car keys so the next option was for him to take my truck home to get replacement keys. He unhooks the trailer in the parking lot and away he goes. A few minutes later I find his keys and he comes back. My brother is always there and we help each other by backing in each other’s trailers. As mentioned by someone else it can be quite the poop show at Independence when the 4-wide access is backed up with folks ready to call it a day.
Well when it becomes my turn, being the pro that I am, I am going to show all those struggling how it is done. While my brother is backing, I am getting perfectly into position to hit the trailer just as the back fender top will hit the water, when to my horror the trailer comes off the hitch and down the ramp it comes. I can not believe my eyes, this can’t be happening to me the pro loader. Short story is my son did not lock down the trailer hitch when he came back and my brother didn’t notice it. I now always check my trailer hitch before backing, just in case someone was to play a not so practical joke.
Last year at Medicine, boats are leaving late afternoon while others down with work for the day are showing up and a guy with pregnant wife, young son, and grand parents pulls up to the dock on East side and all get out and grandpa is left holding the rope at the dock. Young guy with bass boat pulls into the east side lane and starts to back up but realizes he can’t unload the boat my himself and tie up because grandpa is holding the boat. He gets out of the truck and tells grandma that grandpa needs to move the boat. That is not happening as grandma doesn’t understand why grandpa needs to move the boat and grandpa is in over his head and dad is now back a ways in line. So it is a standoff. I have my son drop me off at the dock and I figure I might be able to help get things moving and I walk up to the guy and give him my take on the situation with grandpa and grandma and he goes “don’t you know proper ramp protocol, they need to move their boat for me.” To which I say pretty much and I have been dealing with ramps before you were even in diapers so will you give grandpa and grandma a break. He is still holding to his “proper” ramp protocol and by this time the West lane has opened up and those in line are not moving because my guess is they figure the guy will just back down the West side but he won’t. Finally after a few more unpleasantries are said, he finally agrees to use the west lane.
So while it is somewhat comical to see others have problems, we have pretty much all been there, done that. My dad even dropped his boat along Highway 60 on the way to Madison Lake. He also slipped on his boat trailer at the age of about 80 and his much younger neighbor who had recently had open heart surgery couldn’t help him get untangled from the trailer and almost drowned. He needed a box of screws to put his leg back together but that didn’t stop him from fishing.
Remember the old days of getting off Mille Lacs at 10:00 PM?
Last year at Medicine
I am pretty sure I witnessed this exchange you speak of last year at Medicine. I was in line a few vehicles back. For as busy of a lake as that is, they only have one dock situated between 2 ramps there which creates issues. They need more dock space. No matter which side of the dock a boat ties up, it’s literally in the access point. There’s nowhere to put a boat so it’s not in the way. And they just remodeled that whole area the year before last but didn’t address this problem.
I did witness a boat roll off the trailer while backing down the ramp at east rush. It stopped about 3 concrete slabs short of the water. The guys got out of the truck, assessed the situation, and dragged the newer 17′ lund across the jagged ramp into the water. It was obvious that the owner of that boat was not involved. I also watched a guy back his trailer up until the tires just touched the water. Then hooked the strap up and cranked it on. I asked why he didn’t back it farther in to make it easier. He said this is the way he does it and it works good. I’ll take his word for it lol!
For as busy of a lake as that is, they only have one dock situated between 2 ramps there which creates issues. They need more dock space. No matter which side of the dock a boat ties up, it’s literally in the access point. There’s nowhere to put a boat so it’s not in the way.
Agreed. Last year, I just dropped the wife and kids in with the boat, parked the truck, and had them pick me up on the off-limits sailboat dock (shhhh, don’t tell anyone). I did have to wade through a lot of seagull poop, but it was way less stressful on my wife.
about 5-6 years ago I was fishing a bass tournament, I was just getting ready to step on the front deck of my boat and I heard a hell of a crash behind me.as I spun around to see what it was, the boat that was backing down the ramp hit the end of his safety chains with another bang. seems the guy forgot to put the pin in his receiver hitch and drove 20 miles to the landing with no pin! only thing keeping the boat attached to the truck was tongue weight.
Agreed. Last year, I just dropped the wife and kids in with the boat, parked the truck, and had them pick me up on the off-limits sailboat dock (shhhh, don’t tell anyone). I did have to wade through a lot of seagull poop, but it was way less stressful on my wife.
I thought about doing that too but there’s a gate at the sail boat dock and it was locked lol
There’s those barrier-type things on both sides of the access ramps too which prevents anyone from beaching a boat. I tried balancing on one of those and always went in the drink.
I watched a group of guys launch a double decker 30’ish pontoon complete with waterslide in front of me at the ramp. Started backing down the ramp and I glanced away, only to glance back and see a giant spray of water off the back of the boat as it entered the water REALLY fast. I thought wow, they are in a hurry. A few seconds later I realized what happened. The trailer and truck uncoupled at the breakover onto the ramp and they obviously didn’t have chains because the boat and trailer were 30’ into the lake. One of their group went swimming and hooked a tow rope on the trailer and they drug it back up the ramp dragging on the coupler. They honestly got it all off the ramp surprisingly quickly for the situation they were in. Looked like a homemade trailer, so not sure what actually failed to get them where they were. It was a miracle they didn’t take out another boat as it was a 5 lane launch that was busy at the time.
I’ve done many of these over the years, but there’s one I still have trouble laughing at…it was so stupid as to be dangerous, and I was lucky.
February, post 9/11(remember? Every Government owned facility was under tight lockdowns-including the locks and dams) I was walleye fishing on a cold blustery day below L&D 17 and the only ones on the river that day. My buddy and I were starting to freeze up, so I ran into the “walleye hole” on the Iowa side and beached it so we could walk the spillway to stretch and get warmed up a little. We strolled all the way to the Iowa shore and back. On the way back I happened to look up and thought, “Huh. That looks just like my boat out there.” Damn it if it hadn’t floated off and hung up on a snag about 30yds from shore. Water was 32 degrees…we stood there blankly, wondering what to do. We actually got to the point in the conversation that I declared I should be the one to swim to it, I think I can climb in and get it to shore and you can haul ass for the ramp before I freeze up-the idea being that if I was wrong about that, at least I was single and wouldn’t be orphaning and widowing a family like he would be. I know it sounds dramatic, but it was late on a weekday and no one around for miles. In the end, I didn’t have the guts and he talked me out of it…I ended up scaling the fence around the rollers, climbing to the top of the lock and dam and walking across the top of it to the Illinois side. Climbed back down and over the fence on that side, and started testing doors at the locks buildings. Stumbled into one with the lockmaster there-got my a$$ royally chewed and threatened with arrest(post 9/11 remember?), but in the end he lowered their own boat, got it running and hauled me all the way over to my boat. The day was saved, but damn I felt stupid, and not only inconvenienced the hell out of the lockmaster but scared him half to death as well. I could have easily been a reported drowning instead. Not my proudest moment.
Lesson #1: ALWAYS secure your rig and NEVER get careless around/on cold water.
Lesson #2: ALWAYS be nice to the lockmasters-they’re just doing their job, and they saved my butt that day.
Made me laugh.
The funniest part of this entire thread is someone referred to a Chrysler LeBaron as a cool looking car…
Ever leave the transom saver on and wonder why the motor won’t trim down? I would never do something like that….
Ummm.. yes, kind of. Left transom saver on but it pulled out of trailer end (roller) while still strapped around my motor. When I put motor in gear, it made an aweful grinding noise. I scratched my head all the way to park the truck/trailer. Had to tilt the motor up to realize I forgot to unhook the transom saver.
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