Ouch!!

I was having lunch with a few friends last week and somehow we got around to telling stories about funny mishaps we had on our boats.  I remember sitting there laughing and thinking to myself, “Boy, I’m sure glad I don’t have stuff like that go on anymore, I mean I’m pretty dialed, a real pro”.  Well, as you probably know already, that kind of attitude will cost you.

You see, instead of sitting here writing this blog right now, I am supposed to be 40 miles off the coast of Washington reeling in my 20th tuna for the day.  Instead, I have been back and forth to the boat launch three times, had multiple repairs done on my trailer, and I am now sitting and waiting on a call to tell me that the fiberglass repair is done on my boat.

What happened you ask?  Well, as many of you know, I’ve got a fairly big boat to trailer but we generally do a pretty good job with it.  Recently, instead of having my wife or son drive it on, we have walked the boat on and thenpowered it on.  It has worked great and I have noticed a little less nervousness on my wife’s part.  This time however, it didn’t work so well.  I purposely did not back the trailer down as far as normal.  I thought that this would allow the guides to help a bit more and make things even easier.

What I learned though, is that by not backing the trailer down as far, it caused the bow of my boat to split my forward bunks and turn them outward which, of course, exposes metal to fiberglass.  This is not good.  I didn’t realize what had happened until we had the boat out of the water and we were strapping it down.  I couldn’t help but notice the two, long, half inch deep scrapes out of my fiberglass.  I wondered how this had happened and after a little investigation, I noticed that by bunks weren’t even connected to the trailer any longer.  Thankfully we didn’t head down the road before we noticed what had happened.  Who knows what kind of damaged we could have caused.

A special thanks to Tom and the good people at Seattle Boat in Bellevue.  Tom has always looked out for not only me but all everyone that has ever brought a boat in for service there.  They’re getting my trailer and boat repaired and in time for me to fish the Ilwaco OTC event this weekend.