Lets talk about being STUPID again

I opened a thread a few years ago asking members to recall, for our amusement, the most stupid thing they had ever done on, or to their boat. I searched for the thread but couldn't find it so I'll start again with one or two of my own stupid mistakes.

While working on my genny, it would start and run fine but self shut down after about three or four minutes. It felt warm so I checked the coolant level. Low, of course. I grabbed the antifreeze jug and started pouring. It looked awfully clear. I thought it might have been pure water so stopped pouring after about a quart. I checked the jug, paint thinner! Damn! It was time to drain the system, the antifreeze was pretty old and dirty anyway but good lesson learned. Read the jug!

Also:

I was spray painting a small piece of something, a dark brown. Of course I got a tiny amount of paint on my finger. I keep a small spray bottle of alcohol in the galley. It is great for cleaning, sanitizing and cleaning my glasses with a soft cloth. I grabbed it to get the paint off my finger and gave a quick squirt. Damn again. It was the brown spray paint! Now instead of a tiny spot on my finger I had half my hand painted brown. Again, slow down, read the can!

In my own defense, I am not a drinker but am on some fairly potent medications which cause me to have a condition referred to as "Chemo Brain". I don't have cancer but the drug is very similar to chemotherapy. Just makes you a little stupid. Guilty as charged..

Anybody else care to fess up to being stupid or doing something less than smart? If we can't laugh at ourselves, who can we laugh at?

pete

Pete, went up to WA to move my boat to a new marina two weeks ago . . . did something REAL stupid which damaged the boat . . . not expensive to repair, but a little involved . . . Maybe in 6 months to a year I'll be willing to talk about it . . .

A looong time ago I had a 1982 Hunter 33' sailboat. It was my first cabin boat. I traced a small leak to a crack in the hull leading to the shaft orifice.

I wriggled back into the lazarette space and carefully ground out the crack, drilled both ends and epoxied them. Space was very tight in there and I had to work one handed most of the time. Finally I was finished and tried to move back to admire my work and go home. Alas I had epoxied my hair and part of my scalp to the hull of the boat!

I wont describe the pain it took to unstick myself. The next owner must have wondered who was scalped down there!

~A

Found your stupid old thread!...

https://www.trawlerforum.com/forums...thing-you-have-ever-done-your-boat-45446.html

I launched my RIB without the plug in.

I mounted the 2.5 horse Suzuki outboard (for our dingy) outside the cockpit. I have a block mounted on the cockpit railing, port side. It "always" goes inside the cockpit. Almost always, anyway. We then towed about 25 miles to a marina ramp. Unbeknownst to me, as I towed at freeway speeds the prop on the 2.5 spun in the air flow (duh)...enough to put a 2" long gouge about 1/4" deep into our hull gelcoat. Looks like someone took an angle grinder to it. To make it worse, it's in the black trim color, not the more easily matched white.

I over drilled a hole to mount some instruments on the side wall of my cabin. Turns out that the total wall thickness was less than 5/16" in that one spot. Oops. Successfully filled the holes with gelcoat, and no lasting harm done.

I bought a boat…

Giggitoni said:

I bought a boat…

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PHUNNY! Heck, I bought another one after selling the first!

I think I mentioned this elsewhere, but recently, I decided to remove the useless (and potential cause of serious engine damage if allowed to corrode) air heater coils in the intercooler. They come on after start up of my 315HP Yanmar and were just a sop to the environmentalists to halt a couple of seconds worth of light smoke. I didn't clue into the fact that the heavy 12-volt power cable to the heater coil solenoid was connected to the same lug on the starter as the heavy cable from the start bank. Soooo, when I got to that part, I merrily disconnected the cable at the heater solenoid without any sparky incident and just let it loose to fall back. It did indeed fall back... to make sparky contact with the engine-mounted fuel filter where it promptly burned a hole in the thin metal casing resulting in the filter peeing a stream of diesel into the bilge. Can you imagine what would have eventuated had I been working on a gas-powered boat?

You wouldn’t be here to tell the story.

This was on my flats boat, not the big boat but still dumb.


About 6 years ago over the winter either a rat or a squirrel got in our carport and set up shop inside my flats boat. Chewed up a few cushions, three of my commercial pfds and quite a bit of other stuff.


About a year ago I was replacing the bilge pump float switch and while I had my head (and headlamp) down in the small access hatch inside the bilge I noticed that the little bastard had chewed on the fuel line that runs through there. Damage was isolated to about a 2' section, so I decided to splice in a new piece. Got about halfway through cutting through the fuel line and found out it was not a fuel line. It was the main wiring harness for the engine which is encased in black insulation. Looks just like fuel line.

Sailed a catamaran in over a bar late one night
Was pretty fatigued but had crossed it many times during the day so figured I knew it well enough
At night there was a red light on it, never noticed during the day.

Picked up a wave, surfed her in towards the red and a very sudden stop as we hit the beach.
Jumps off front and the red light was the tail light of a 4x4 parked on the beach with some guys fishing.

Luckily the cat was light enough (30ftr) that we could push the bow around and keep sailing her in.
Could have ended a lot worse.

Years ago, thought I was doing pretty good to dodge a tugboat in the fog off Anacortes.

Then the barge looms out of the fog off the port beam!

I love threads like this. Always makes me feel better.

We used to tow our dinghy until I found out a quick burst in reverse will suck a line with a bunch of floats on it down into the prop.

Our daughter asked, "So why do we tow it anyways?"

"It's convenient" I said in a shrinking, nowhere to hide kind of voice.

I closed my seacock to the engine to replace zincs and forgot to reopen it then my sister and my new brother in law stopped by my slip and I offered to take them for a ride. I was halfway down my fairway before it dawned on me. STUPID. I flew down the flybridge ladder and opened that thru hull in record time.

Gdavid said:

I closed my seacock to the engine to replace zincs and forgot to reopen it then my sister and my new brother in law stopped by my slip and I offered to take them for a ride. I was halfway down my fairway before it dawned on me. STUPID. I flew down the flybridge ladder and opened that thru hull in record time.

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I've got a personal rule on stuff like this: if I'm doing anything that makes an engine not safe to start, I trip the ignition breaker (in the engine room) so that if I forget, I can turn the key all I want and nothing will happen. Then I have to go down to the ER and should notice or remember the concern.

Despite a less-than-ideal forecast, despite an excellent set in a bullet-proof anchorage, I pressured my captain to weigh anchor in order to "keep to the schedule." Major fail. I spent the next three hours on my a** in the saloon, back braced against the icemaker that was trying to fly across the boat and barfing into a salad spinner. The Captain? He was at the helm, whistling the theme to Gilligan's Island. A plaque stating "The Captain's Word is Law" was mounted above the helm shortly after.

I left the dock last week, there was a quick bit of wind, and the boat wasn’t handling well as I left the slip. Reverse was not responding, neither was forward ....

I looked at the shifter, and yes, there was the blinking light indicating it was locked in neutral! I got that undone as fast as I could, and was able to get out without ramming anything. Then the wind really came up, so getting turned around in the fairway wasn’t fun!

I’m not sure that it was me who left the shifter in that condition, but I sure won’t forget to check it from now on!!

I got a brand new one that I nearly forgot. My son, youngest daughter and I went bottom fishing for some perch and spot yesterday. We did a few drifts in an area with a few crab pots (crab traps) and my daughter snagged a crab float line, I couldn't see the float and ignored the golden rule of never putting the boat in gear if you know you are near one but can't see it. I was immediately treated to the thumping sound of a float slapping the hull. I tried reverse and mercifully the float and line came free. You don't get that lucky everyday. I got another free pass playing the game of STUPID.

These are a few pictures of someone else's bad, a broken piling, but I have a few of my own. It seems the owner of a new boat with electronic controls with which he was not familiar, with a spring line still attached to a mid-ship cleat, panicked when the boat responded to his throttle input that was much more responsive than in the previous boat he owned. Panic ensued causing him to apply more throttle in the wrong direction, sort of like hitting the accelerator rather than the brake on a vehicle. As my new dock neighbors tell the story witnessed by them, when that spring line went taught, the 12-inch piling to which it was attached snapped at its midpoint which a crack reminiscent of a cannon. The pictures are of the repair and replacement of the broken piling that supports the roof. What is surprising to me is that (1) the spring line, likely 5/8, did not break, and (2) the the line did not rip the cleat out of the boat. It just goes to show how much kinetic energy a heavy boat has even when moving, in this case, no more than one MPH.

My worst bad was leaving a dock without having removed the 50-amp electric cordset. Fortunately, I caught it just as it was coming taut and I was able to reverse directions before ripping the pedestal out of the dock. No one was witness either so my embarrassment was to me and and wife.

Connected the steering the wrong way round on an outboard once. Took a bit of getting used to.
Seemingly it's quite common and the trick is to drive with your arms crossed

When I bought my first Grand Banks, a 36, we cruised to a port 15 miles from home. After two pleasant nights we prepared to leave for home but the single engine refused to start. After trying everything I knew (remember it was a new to me boat and we had just come from a sailboat), I broke down and called Tow Boat/US. They arrived and tried to jumpstart the batteries with no success. We were towed home at about 3 knots to cover 15 miles. The next day my mechanic stepped aboard, moved the gear lever to neutral and she started right up. Duh!

Was raising the anchor and realized I didn't have any steering. Turned the wheel and nothing happened. Lowered the anchor back down and went into the lazerette to check the fluid level and pressure. Everything was okay..... Back up to the flybridge. Still no response to the wheel. Happened to look down and the autopilot was engaged. When the autopilot is engaged the wheel doesn't move and turning the wheel has no effect. Must have fumbled around and engaged it getting ready to move.

hmason said:

When I bought my first Grand Banks, a 36, we cruised to a port 15 miles from home. After two pleasant nights we prepared to leave for home but the single engine refused to start. After trying everything I knew (remember it was a new to me boat and we had just come from a sailboat), I broke down and called Tow Boat/US. They arrived and tried to jumpstart the batteries with no success. We were towed home at about 3 knots to cover 15 miles. The next day my mechanic stepped aboard, moved the gear lever to neutral and she started right up. Duh!

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Quite a few non members have paid upwards of $250 to have me show up and tell them to move the shift lever, then start. Bet that is now burned in their brain. Not sure which is worse....$250 or enduring 5hr tow when you really don't want a slow ride home.

Imagine how many total in the US if I was only one of many hundreds of assistance tow captains.

I did something really stupid recently. I had spent some time over the winter working on the dc system on my new-to-me boat. I bought a pallet of new batteries and organized four banks with DC-DC charging from house out to 2x thruster and start banks. Installed solar panels and beefier alternator, etc.

One of the last thing I had to do this spring was reconnect the start battery. I had dithered with moving it to a different location, and in the end decided not to move it. I put a new battery in the old space, and inadvertantly hooked.it up in reverse. I saw a tiny arc when I first connected the cables, then nothing on the second touch so I tightened things down.

My first clue something wasn't right was when the motor panel wouldn't power up. Then an OMG when.i realized what I had done. After i reversed my.mistake the panel still wouldn't power up, and I had visions of fried CPUs.

Fortunately the folks at John Deere had protected against this kind of abuse with fuses buried in the wiring harness. I had followed Victron's guidance on on wiring and fusing, and the fusing on the non-isolated chargers blew as well. No harm done, and a few lessons learned.

hmason said:

When I bought my first Grand Banks, a 36, we cruised to a port 15 miles from home. After two pleasant nights we prepared to leave for home but the single engine refused to start. After trying everything I knew (remember it was a new to me boat and we had just come from a sailboat), I broke down and called Tow Boat/US. They arrived and tried to jumpstart the batteries with no success. We were towed home at about 3 knots to cover 15 miles. The next day my mechanic stepped aboard, moved the gear lever to neutral and she started right up. Duh!

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In my case, it wasn’t the mechanic, it was my wife.

Double Duh.

Replaced the oil heat exchanger hose as it was weeping. This is starboard engine starboard side which requires an upside down contortionist performance.
Start up and good pressure, shut down and go inspect for any issue.
Not sure who forgot to tighten one end of new hose as I checked and confirmed my end.

I learned that is a fast way to change oil having put a gallon into the tray below. No harm done, cleanup, tighten, test and add oil.

My 1989 GB36 would start in forward and reverse which I did. Also left the dock with shorepower plugged in. Did not destroy pedestal but pulled the cable out of the plug.

Just remembered another one. Literally the first trip on the boat. Traversing the east side if Whidbey Island on the way to Deception Pass. The channel there is right up against the island and Skagit Bay, to the east, is a huge mud flat. The brand new GPS failed and my brother and I were so fixated on getting it to work, that we drove out of the channel...until the boat came to a stop in the mud. We trimmed the outboard up and it was dripping with black, sticky mud. Looked around and realized...the channel is way over there. Only about 100’ and could’ve been way worse had it been stones or reef. Lesson learned.