The next circle, I was able to position myself close enough to grab the handle on the bow. The first circle, it came by just out of my reach, and it was only going maybe 5-7kts. I kept an eye on the boat, and noticed it was circling around towards me. I started to swim towards the beach nearest me. Now I'm floating in the channel, about 50f water, and probably only 25 yards from shallow enough water to stand. I tried to hang on to the rope handles as I somersaulted over, but it was no use. I slowed down, and some combination of the next wave, the bow dropping as it came off plane, and my weight bouncing off the side tube proceeded to launch me off the tube I was sitting on and over the far side. Nothing I hadn't done before, and nothing particularly worrying. I hit one of these swells and jumped the boat a little. Error number 4.Įven though I was in a protected channel, a little bit of swell wrapped around the jetty and into the channel. I wasn't paying very good attention to the water. ![]() I was really focusing on setting the trim just right, maintaining full throttle, and keeping an eye on the speed on the GPS. Boat came up on plane and I started playing with the trim. I left the boat ramp, and throttled up as soon as I was clear of the no wake zone. I put the life jacket on, clipped the radio to the battery box, and completely forgot to put the kill switch on. I always wear a life jacket, with a waterproof handheld VHF clipped to it, and I ALWAYS use a kil switch. Error number 1.īecause I've seen the results of boating accidents first hand, I take it pretty seriously. All this to say, I was intentionally running the boat trimmed out at full throttle. I decided to drop the motor an inch and see how that worked, and today I took it out to test the results. I also noticed that if I tried to trim the motor up at all, it cavitated pretty bad. Reasonably quick, but not as good as I really expected. The first time I took it out, I was only getting about 24kts. ![]() I installed a jack plate, to lift the engine to the appropriate height. When I got the boat, I quickly realized it had a short transom and a long shaft outboard. I plan on using it for trips to some local islands, and dropping crab pots in the protected bay near where I work. ![]() Recently I picked up a little 16' zodiac F470, with a 40 hp tiller steer outboard. I'm not just your average Joe weekend boater, I do this for real, and in fairly extreme conditions. I've worked on the water professionally, operating small craft, for the last 13 years, and achieved a very high level of certification. Without going into too much detail (and using a throwaway account for anonymity) I'm a very experienced boat operator. I had a terrifying experience today, born completely out of serious and total dumbassery.
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