posted 10-15-2008 02:26 AM ET (US)        

Now usually when I go out the big question marks are: Are the 1985 Johnson's gonna fire up? Or: Are the batteries up to snuff? Everything else is solid. Usually.

I throw my 2-yr old boy and the older nephew in the back seat and go to the storage yard. Hooked up and ready to go in less than 5. Pulling out results in a huge lurch and I see the bow of the boat coming down in the rear view mirror. I know I had thrown the coupler lock, but I guess it didn't engage right. No problem, safety chains are on, chock the wheels, inch her up and have back on after a few minutes. Securely this time. OK boys, back to the house!

Half a mile down the road I get a terrible vibration in the whole rig. Fearing a transmission problem, I slow down and the sensation lessens. That's when I'm starting to get an idea of what's really happening. A passing truck flags me a tells me I have a flat on the trailer. Great. I HAVE to get off the road as it's a two-laner. I pull into a residential area and get stares from all as I'm dragging my rig with a chewed up tire down the road wit nowhere to stop. Aftera couple of blocks I find a quiet side street with no driveways. Hey look guys, we know the people that live in that house. What luck!

I let the boys play with the kids there while my friend and I grab a floor jack and make easy work of getting the spare on. We had to air it up quite a bit, too. A spare tire is useless if IT is flat, too. It takes a while with everything going on to get back to the house. It's lunch time, then nap time, and next thing you know our mid-morning outing has been pushed back to 3 in the afternoon.

Not a breath of wind at the house all day, but 3 miles away at the ramp we have 1.5 ft rollers coming in the opposite direction than normal. Weather usually comes out of the south or west here, but with Ike to the east of us, we have a strong northeast wind today. No biggie, we're out of the house, right? Everything primes and fires beautifully. Warmed up, off the trailer, everyone in the boat and life jackets on, we go off south to see a new bridge being built and other stuff. After about 45 minutes an engine quits while at idle. No biggie, but she won't restart. I'm thinking that heading back into this wind on one engine will take a while and start to turn around. That's when #2 has had enough. Totally dead. Check the fuel filter real quick and see nothing. Try to prime the bulbs: flat. Out of fuel. Really? Unbelievable. I probably had less than 10 gallons in the tank.

I've been meaning to replace the sender for a long time, but it never seems to be a priority (to me). I subscribe to the same philosophy as my bank account: put more in than you take out. I estimated that I had between 40-60 gallons after my last run. I had put 30 gal in on top of what was already in there before my last outing and only ran for an hour then. Some bat rastard siphoned me. Well, I have insurance that includes towing, so no problem. Just get the card to make the call. Problem is, I received my new cards but had NOT put them in the document box. But I DID have the foresight to remove the old ones ahead of time. Brilliant. I remembered exactly where the cards were. On my desk at home where I would always see them and not forget to put them on the boat. Sigh. Call home, my wife can read me my member number, etc. Except she's not home, she's out making a supply run to feed the refugee mass at the house. And they must all be outside playing as no one is answering the phone. I have a VHF, but I have to admit that I NEVER use it for anything more than the WX alerts, so I'm not sure of the procedure.

Now I'm also getting nervous as this wind is really pushing us along and there's an unfriendly (rocky) beach ahead. I throw out the drift sock, call 411, get in touch with my insurance and the towing capt and sit and wait. The boys are having a ball as they can run around while the engines aren't running and us two adults can actually sit and hear something other than the din of 10 people all at once inside a house. It pays to be a glass half-full kinda guy once in awhile. The tow arrives, great guy, gets us to the closest marina which is less than 10 minutes from where he caught up with us. I fuel up with 20 gal's while the tow waits in case it's NOT being out of fuel. Dump the oil in halfway thru fueling and $110 later we are back in business. Back to the ramp and loaded on the trailer within 45 minutes.

My lessons are as follows:
Grease your coupler lock regularly. Which I will do now.
Check your tires BEFORE pulling out. Which I will do now.
Check your spare regularly to ensure it's fully inflated. Which I will do now.
If at all possible, have a working fuel gauge or fix the one you have. Which I will do now.
Have your current insurance documents on the boat at all times. Which I will do now.
Know what to do if you have to call for help and your cell phone is not an option. Which I will do now.

Are we seeing a theme here?

posted 10-15-2008 08:15 PM ET (US)            

Great tale, and thanks for sharing. Thanks also for helping out with the hurricane evacuees. Pretty low of someone to have stolen your fuel, but let's just hope he/she took it for their car or truck, and the two stroke mix really screwed it up. That's karma too ;-)

posted 10-16-2008 11:50 AM ET (US)            

Bottom line is that you are a good egg for hosting the refugees and even kinder to take some of them out for a boat ride.

I have had some towing nightmares. The 1st boat that I purchased was a new 1999 Proline 22 CC. At the time, I owned a Chevy Blazer with a V-6. I rented a trailer and towed the boat from Melbourne FL to Naples FL in July (as in 98 degrees in the shade). Bottom line, the truck didnt have the power to haul that rig. It sucked down the gas and overheated most of the trip. It was like you could watch the speedometer go up on one guage and the fuel went down on the other guage. It took 3 fill ups to make a 250 mile trip. I had the windows down and the heater on to try and cool the engine off, I thought it was going to blow.