What Have You Dropped Overboard?

[Jeff Lebowski]

A whole mess of tiny Yamaha parts, perhaps as many as 6. I don't have fresh water and if I need to work on the engine while it's running, I need to back down the ramp. Deep water, fast current. But the worst was an oil dipstick right before I was going fishing.

So I pulled the other stick to check the oil and Rube'd up a suitable plug and off we went.

Expensive sunglasses. But an expensive fishing rod and reel combo was the most heinous of my losses.

I love the YouTube videos where someone is screwing around in a small skiff and they lose the outboard off the transom.

My buddy dropped his iPhone off his dock. He went inside and got his scuba gear. He came back and suited up. The phone was only in about 5 feet of water. Just before he went down he said, "text me". He swore that it was lit up when he got to it.

 

[SteveK]

We were tasked to go look for an overdue party who went out to check crab pots in the dingy. After midnight of course. No problem finding the man who was securely anchored having used the failed outboard as the anchor.

 

[boathealer]

A *LOT*!!

We did almost a year's worth of boat work in New Bern before shoving off. I was forced to work on a wobbly floating finger pier next to the boat - you know what that means.....

I lost so much stuff that I posted a "shoaling" hazard on Active Captain for under my slip !! Some of the items lost are in the review comments.

 

[slowgoesit]

Lets see, over the years I can recall:

• Camera (inexpensive instamatic, many years ago)
• AM/FM radio
• 12" Crescent wrench at marina, Dove down and recovered . . . along with two winch handles, one outboard motor, one marina cart, a boat hook, and wait for it . . . a wheel chair . . . I left the last one down there, don't like to think about how it got there!
• Craftsman multi bit screw driver) using to test for spark on outboard . . . yes it had a HELLUVA spark, right up my arm, etc . . . "Blooush" as it hit the water, after I let go, still remember it hanging there from the spark plug wire for about two seconds before two people lunged for it . . . and it dropped just before we reached it . . . .
• Hawaiian pole spear in 100' of water, recovered
• Weight belt off of swim step (not mine, but another divers), recovered
• Part of bow railing on our GB 36 when the guy on the bow just HAD to hang on to the mooring line when attempting to snag a buoy, windy day, single engine, no bow thruster. I yelled at him that he'd better hang on to that piece, or he wasn't coming aboard! He did, and we let him aboard, and piece was repaired better than new . . .
• Several hats.
• Several pair of sunglasses.
• 8' Walker Bay dingy, off of Kaneohe Bay, Oahu, when the tow line broke . . recovered.
• Dive flashlight, turned on, in Pearl Harbor Channel . . . 0300, January 1 2000 . . . . long story there, this is not the time . . . Maybe in another 20 years or so . . .

So, overall, I've recovered LOTS more stuff diving that other people lost than I've lost myself. Wallets, tools, car keys, wedding ring (on beach metal detecting, not in the water).

Not really the thread for it, but I found a Motorola (expensive) flip phone metal detecting on the beach in Pensacola Beach, Florida. Buried about 20" down in the sand. "Moisture dot" under battery was still white, charge it up, no password, opened address book and found "Mom". I called her. Turns out "Mom's" sort of son lived in Missouri, vacationing in Florida three weeks before and lost it on the beach! Still worked fine, I mailed back to him for free. It's a Karma thing!

 

[catalinajack]

Two cell phones, I, one, my wife, hers, two weeks later. Guess she didn't learn the lesson. Also, two boat hooks, wife twice but I recently dropped another in our slip.

 

[Lollygag1]

While replacing the anchor roller I dropped it, where it promptly hit the floor of the dinghy and bounced straight up and into the water. In hindsight I should not have been lazy and just gone into the slip bow first.

 

[nussbda]

A couple of winch handles in my sailing days, three pairs of prescription glasses (two within days of each other, my wife had to drive me around for a few days), dishes, a few small tools and once, myself. That time I broke my leg and lost half a season. The 60 mile solo drive home from the boat with a broken leg in a standard shift car was "entertaining". If it ever happens again, I won't wait to go to the ER.

 

[Comodave]

It's funny, I used to be a commercial diver in college (mostly shallow/coastal stuff, not glamorous deep-sea) and the company made a lot of money on recovery jobs. Lots of vehicles rolling down boat launching ramps but that was usually shallow enough they didn't need to hire divers and it was just a tow-truck recovery. No, I was always surprised by the number of vehicles that drove or tipped off elevated docks or piers, straight down off the edge, ka-splash. Had a standard routine for those -- two big nylon slings, front bumper, back bumper, open the doors to drain, hand signals to the crane operator, take 'er up!. Pretty quick and easy if they landed on the wheels, took much longer if they were on the side or upside down. Those usually took one or two flips, re-rigging each time. (We never did body recovery, left that to the police divers -- have to admire the steady nerves of those guys.)

Years ago on a lake in Arizona the Sheriffs office requested that we go and search for a truck that had driven down one of the remote launch ramps. In Arizona the ramps can be very long since the lake levels go up and down each year. We went and found the truck fairly quick. The dive team asked us to transport their lift equipment out to the place we dropped the marker. The divers went out and put float bags on the truck and then tied one to our bow eye. We towed the truck back up the ramp backwards until the truck grounded on the ramp. Then we took out the end of a 200’ long tow cable from one of the trucks. The truck had turned on it’s side during the floating with the lift bags. So they dragged it up the ramp 200’ on it’s side. I asked if there was alcohol involved in the incident, the driver said absolutely not. But when we got the truck turned upright and opened the door about 40 beer cans came rushing out with the water. This lake was up in the mountains and so there were no lights and being drunk they just drove down the ramp thinking they were on the road. Fortunately no one was seriously injured.

 

[rgano]

My most recent goof was my $400 trifocals falling off my face and into the wawa at my pier. It was late, so I took a ten-foot length of PVC and set it into the mud right down where the glasses had splashed. Because I knew if I disturbed the area, the muck would quickly obscure everything, I opted to go full weight belt, mask, fins, and air compressor with a second stage mouth piece which would allow me to get on the bottom on my belly about ten feet from the drop site. Slowly creeping up on the site to where I could see the PVC pole, I quickly spotted to glasses resting on the ooze. Score!

My best all-time find was not on the bottom but in a sump I was sorting out in my best friends' boat. They we a bit elderly and unable to get to some places in their trawler that I could. I came up into the salon with a gold wedding ring thinking some previous owner had lost it, but Ruth's eyes lit up when she saw it, and we read off their initials and the 1945 wedding date on the inner side. Seems Hank had lost it a few years earlier, but did not recall how. SCORE! Ruth wore it on a chain around her neck for the rest of their lives. I miss them a lot, and I was so happy to be a part of this magical find.

 

[kthoennes]

...when we got the truck turned upright and opened the door about 40 beer cans came rushing out with the water...

Ha! I'm sure he was just recycling empties, doing his part to reduce his carbon footprint. Dragged that vehicle all the way up the ramp on its side? Ouch, that's not going to buff out. I wonder how many vehicles take a swim every year, say nationwide. A Google result says 1,200 to 1,500. That's a lot of wet cars.

https://saferide4kids.com/blog/car-fires-vehicle-submersion/

 

[MNdiver]

Peggie - I had laughter tears in my eyes by 1/2 way through! Thanks! - Art

+1 Hilarious

 

[Lou_tribal]

My wife, well she dropped herself in fact but I could have done it if she would have asked kindly [emoji1]

L

 

[Sabre602]

Years ago while working on a boat in the Galapagos Islands, one of our passengers...we had a group from the Audubon Society...lost a very expensive pair of binoculars over the side. I think they were Leica or Zeiss. about $2,000 or so! We were in about 50 feet of water and, lacking SCUBA gear, none of us could free dive long enough to search for it on the bottom.

One time on my sailboat I was furling the jib and the lens popped out of my glasses. The bowsprit that I was straddling was 8 feet long and about 4 inches wide where I was sitting. The lens bounced once and came to rest a couple of feet in front of me, perched perfectly on the narrow bowsprit! I have always remembered the gift that I received from Neptune that day, and am always mindful of the risk. I usually tie a lanyard onto tools or parts that I'm working on. So far I've only lost a tape measure.

 

[BruceK]

While sailboat racing I had a contact lens washed out of one eye by some green water which came onboard. Vision was a bit out of whack that afternoon.

 

[Spinner]

2 pairs of prescription glasses, a titanium bike lock, a hat I knitted out of my own homespun wool, a keeper for a latch on a dinghy motor, a boat hook (which a kindly fellow occupant of the bay retrieved and rowed over to me), and one of those really small keys for opening the cap on the waste pumpout port.

My dad, rest his soul, routinely hurled used coffee grounds overboard without first removing the top of the percolator basket....

 

[Inbreaker]

Beyond counting, but invariably small, light and expensive things directly overboard: heavy, sharp things with one bounce off the paintwork.
Three phones as I recall. Last one I got back because the boat was on the hard stand, a drop of 12 or 14 feet onto concrete.

Most memorably, a frozen tuna head. I was going to set Cray pots, and I was short on bait. Dropped my last tuna head while loading things into the dinghy. It was only nine or ten feet of water, so I grabbed the mask and fins, and duck dived. Halfway down and a ray about five feet across swooped in and hoovered the tuna head. I don't think he even bothered to swap.
I gave up Cray fishing not long after that.

 

[skyhawk]

There's a place just off Masonboro Inlet in NC where boats will have (or at least used to) a massive raft up party on holidays....Independence Day, etc... My brother in law used to go diving out there at night just after the party...I went with him a few times when I was in town visiting. I never found much more than unopened beers, but he had amassed a large shoebox full of high dollar sunglasses over a few years of doing it.
I found some old radios, rusted out wrecked fishing gear, and some other junk under a bridge but I never found much. He had an eye for it.

Does anyone ever do that in marinas?

 

[Art]

There's a place just off Masonboro Inlet in NC where boats will have (or at least used to) a massive raft up party on holidays....Independence Day, etc... My brother in law used to go diving out there at night just after the party...I went with him a few times when I was in town visiting. I never found much more than unopened beers, but he had amassed a large shoebox full of high dollar sunglasses over a few years of doing it.
I found some old radios, rusted out wrecked fishing gear, and some other junk under a bridge but I never found much. He had an eye for it.

Does anyone ever do that in marinas?

Must be careful of "Electric Shock Drowning" in the water at marinas with electricity hookups. Especially at freshwater marinas! Not so much so in saltwater... however... ya just never know how much stray electricity may be bleeding out into any electrified dock's surrounding water. In freshwater even bleed off from a boat's incorrectly wired DC batt bank could create a shock hazard.

 

[rgano]

Must be careful of "Electric Shock Drowning" in the water at marinas with electricity hookups. Especially at freshwater marinas! Not so much so in saltwater... however... ya just never know how much stray electricity may be bleeding out into any electrified dock's surrounding water. In freshwater even bleed off from a boat's incorrectly wired DC batt bank could create a shock hazard.

Most marinas will not allow any diving by private parties.

 

[Art]

Most marinas will not allow any diving by private parties.

That's if you are obvious or tell them.

 

[OldDan1943]

Fell off the swim platform while wearing 2 hearing aids. I was in and out of the water so fast I was not sure if I had ruined them. Called locally and was told, chance are very good they are ruined. Sent them back to the place where I bought them, turned out, I was so fast getting my head above the water, no damage. Saved $6,000 by being very quick.
Then there was the hat..... I made no attempt to retrieve it because I didn't like the hat.

 

[AlaskaProf]

Also, two boat hooks, wife twice but I recently dropped another in our slip.

Am I the only one who finds this sentence ambiguous?

I understand the two boat hooks, but just how many wives have you lost?

Pedantically yours,
Prof

 

[AlaskaProf]

Two telephones ...from the same unbuttoned shirt pocket; countless hats.
Oh yeah: one wife. In my defense, anyone handling dock lines on my boat is repeatedly briefed: "STEP to the dock. Jumping is forbidden; we'll just back out and do it right the second time"

 

[HopCar]

In my sixty or so years of boating I can’t remember losing anything important overboard. I’ve done plenty of other stupid things including pulling the prop shaft out of the boat while it was in the water.

In high school I had a 16’ Bahama Dinghy powered by a 1930’s vintage Palmer inboard engine. One day I was towing a string of Optimus Prams back to the yacht club that was hosting an international race. Suddenly the engine screamed and the rudder locked up. I shut the engine down, dove over and found the prop shaft had slipped back and the prop had jammed the rudder. I freed the rudder and then pulled the shaft out. I held it up for my buddy to see and said something to the effect of “Look at this, the shaft broke”. He said something to the effect of “Put it back you idiot, we’re sinking!”

 

[Art]

In my sixty or so years of boating I can’t remember losing anything important overboard. I’ve done plenty of other stupid things including pulling the prop shaft out of the boat while it was in the water.

In high school I had a 16’ Bahama Dinghy powered by a 1930’s vintage Palmer inboard engine. One day I was towing a string of Optimus Prams back to the yacht club that was hosting an international race. Suddenly the engine screamed and the rudder locked up. I shut the engine down, dove over and found the prop shaft had slipped back and the prop had jammed the rudder. I freed the rudder and then pulled the shaft out. I held it up for my buddy to see and said something to the effect of “Look at this, the shaft broke”. He said something to the effect of “Put it back you idiot, we’re sinking!”

Now... that is funny! Thanks for sharing that one Parks. Hope full-on sinking was avoided

 

[HopCar]

Now... that is funny! Thanks for sharing that one Parks. Hope full-on sinking was avoided

Shoved the shaft back in to avoid sinking. Had a kicker on a stern bracket that got us to the yacht club. The shaft had broken deep in the coupling. I was able to borrow a drill and put a hole through the coupling and shaft. Put a nail through the hole, bent it over and headed home. Luckily I had grabbed a handful of nails as the nail broke about every ten minutes on the way home.