Murphy's Law

[Dreamtime]

Well fellow Raiders,

Most people would be too embarrassed to post the debarcle which I experienced on Saturday, but "what the heck" I've got thick skin, and managed a laugh as well.

Friday night at the usual haunt, two hundred beers later, thought I'd better get home and catch some zzzz's before the 6.30 departure time. Get home around 2.00am and prepare and load the car for a quick exit, hit the sack around 3.30am.

Don't have an alarm clock, but the magic body clock woke me at 6.18am, shit, better hurry. Take the drinks and ice load them into the car and get to the ramp at 6.45am, not bad going. Anyway, my two mates are waiting for me, and tranfer of gear from car to boat happens in a matter of minutes, and boat and trailer on the ramp within another 5 minutes. (boat is parked in the Yacht Club boatpark).

OK, newly purchased 2nd hand boat so the plan was to familiarise myself with the operation and handling, and hopefully wet a line or 2. Launch the boat by 7.00am and tie up to a mooring bouy some 20 metres from the ramp.

Try with earnest to start the engine but to no avail. Engine turns over with ease but wont kick, so change fuel filter, check fuel lines (plenty of fuel as I refilled 400 litres the day before) and they seem to be okay. Next, take off the engine cowling and "have a look" for any visible reason as to the reluctance to start. About 2 hours had passed by this stage when I noticed a broken fuel line to No. 3 carby, cut the end off and re-connected. Give another kick but nothing.

At this point I noticed the stern beginning to submerge, F##k, don't panic but jump over the side into the water and "swim" the boat back to the beach before it sinks.

Fortunately we had tied to the bouy and were in about 4 metres of water only. Managed that without too much trouble, however when I jumped into the water my prescription glasses fell off and sank to the bottom. Get some diving goggles and 15 minutes later recover my specs - "phew", no optometrist here so would have to buy new ones from Australia if lost.

Get the boat back on the trailer, drain out the water and collect my outboard mechanic from his house. The mechanic inspects the carburetors and amazingly they are full of 2 stroke oil. Only reason that I could think of was that the engine had been full tilted up for some 3 months prior to me purchasing it - maybe Huey may have a better clue for this. Cleaned the carbys and engine fires up first crank.

Okay, now the sinking problem - in front of the narrow engine well are 3 x 6" inspection ports, these are located under a fold down panel - low and behold one cover is missing and whilst we were down the stern of the boat fiddling with the engine, unbeknows to us the sea was lapping over the engine well and draining into the inspection port and salt water was filling up the under floor compartment. In hindsight we were fortunate that the engine didn't start or this situation could of occured out at sea!

My mechanic cut a piece of plywood, and silicone was applied to both sides and used for a replacement "lid" for the missing inspection port cover. (I was going to get that damned boat in the water one way or another).

T'was now 1.00pm and after a lunch at the Yacht Club we were ready to launch the boat for a second time. Got my mate to hitch back up the trailer and I pulled out from my boat space and proceeded to reverse back down the ramp. All is well as I look out the rear window whilst approaching a small hump in the ramp and then f##k me dead, the boat and trailer have come unhitched from my 4x4 and heading off down the ramp at a great rate of knots on their own. Luckily it is a duel axle trailer and it it did not veer sideways, however the bung had not been put in yet as the plan was to drain the last water from the hull whilst the boat and trailer rested on the incline of the ramp. My mate who hitched up the trailer failed to lock back down the ball - unusual for him as he is a very experienced boatie and fisho - has fished Kona, PNG, etc.

Get the tow rope from the 4x4 and pull the boat up again to drain the water, considerably more had come in again due to the bung not in.

All right, this 3rd time around everything is sweet, boat launched, car and trailer parked, off we go.

Tentatively at first to get a feel of the handling and power of this 3 litre V6 225Hp beast. Sit on 30 knots for the first 15 minutes or so then give it stick to max 40 knots. Not bad for a hull that is 1,000 kg plus 500 kg fuel, probably 200 to 300 kg engine, 4 big blokes (we now had the outboard mechanic with us) and a couple of eskies and all the gear. All up I'd say around 2.5 tons. At least the weather was on our side, no wind and a slight swell the whole day.

We'd lost the best part of the day but "what the heck" put out some skirted and hard bodied lures after coming up on some birds. The bonito were small, very small and it appeared nothing else with them. Pulled in the lures after an hour or so and decided to do some bottom bashing. After a half a bagfull of average size reef fish we decided to call it a day (5 coral trout, 3 coral cod, 2 sweetlip and 4 big eye nanny's). Couldn't prevent the temptation of trolling a couple of hard bodied lures across the reef before we headed home. Small reward, a spaniard of around 50cm (I said small reward) was boated before lines in.

On the way back I noticed the water temperature drop from 29.5 deg to 28 degrees, so put out a couple of cockroaches. Not more than 5 minutes and a good strike and hook-up on the 10kg. Nice sailfish around 10 to 12 kg tailwalked once, then you guessed it, threw the lure. I think it was never meant to be for that day, never mind, a nice take home feed of reef fish and the thought of a couple of coldies back at the ramp retained some semblance of sanity for the day.

At least the retrieval of the boat went smoothly at the ramp.

Finished off a carton with the boys, while sitting in the boat in the boat park. Topped off with a couple of scotches then off home.

Trust next week will go much smoother. Did not take photos of fish as there were nothing of any size to brag about.

Have you ever had "one of those days"?

Cheers

Mariner

P.S. Forgot to mention that the first tube of silicone purchased from the hardware and brought to the boat ramp was already solid. Sh#t, had to go back and exchange it for another one - made it 10 minutes before hardware store closed.

Edited June 2, 2008 by Mariner 31

[Josh88]

Great story Mariner.

What a day of mishaps!

Good you got it all working though

[james7]

What a saga Mariner. It really was one of those days for you.

At least it ended up okay - no one hurt, the boat didn't sink and you still got a feed!

Good story

Cheers

Peter

[trungie]

Top story!

[double pluggers]

Surely that is end of your ordinary luck. Now its time for some fishing.

[james1990]

I beleive Kevin bloody wilson has a song titled had an absolute #### of a day....mate i don't think your's was far off it.

Atleast it all went good for you in the end...got some fishing time and and got a nice feed to.

cheers james

[slinkymalinky]

G'day Mariner,

I shouldn't laugh but

You had me in stitches mate. Glad you've got a sense of humour about the whole thing but I bet you weren't laughing at the time. They say "that which does not kill me only serves to make me stronger". You must be Superman after that effort.

Hope the next run gets you some fantastic fish to make up for it.

Cheers, Slinky

[mr magoo]

SELL IT !!!!

lol

glad it come good in the long run,think now you can put sh it on your mate for years to come

cheers arman