OT: My boat sank!!

[MRB]

So my tournament ski boat (Mastercraft) is sitting on sand / gravel in about 8" of water. It needs about 12" to float. The bottom of the boat is decorated with expensive jewelry like a brass dagger / keel, a brass rudder, a stainless steel shaft connected to a stainless steel propeller. The boat can not be drug out of the shallows because of the hardware on the bottom.

So tomorrow I get to take my scrawny cyclist body and shovel a bunch-load of gravel out of the way to solve the problem, or hire a boom truck to lift it to deeper waters where I can then trailer it and tuck it in the garage for the winter.

Damn boats... I should just stick to riding my bike around the lake, and forget the boating /skiing /wakeboarding stuff.

Just tellin' ya it was a bad day. Very very bad day. Oh... my boat is not insured either.

Stuff happens I guess.

[Ginger]

Always insure the expensive jewelry.

Water's warm in your neck of the woods these days, no?

[Steve Hampsten]

No tide coming in to raise it, I'm guessing?

Being Montana and all...

Bummer, dude.

[saab2000]

Bikes seem expensive until you look at all the other hobbies.

Cars don't even start where Meivicis end. Neither do boats.

Tell that to the next clown who complains that you spent a few grand on a bicycle.

[Z3c]

Yea, sold the lake house and the Nautique with it this spring and I have not missed it one bit. Boats are a lot of worrying for relatively little time of use typically.
What caused it to sink? Drain plug problems? Hey, look at the bright side, you don't need to hire a recovery diver!

Good Luck!

Scott

[vandeda]

Yea, sold the lake house and the Nautique with it this spring and I have not missed it one bit. Boats are a lot of worrying for relatively little time of use typically.
What caused it to sink? Drain plug problems? Hey, look at the bright side, you don't need to hire a recovery diver!

Good Luck!

Scott

Scott, if you look back again, you'll see that the boat didnt actually sink. Its sounds like the water level dropped and its too shallow where the boat currently is now because its 8" deep whereas the boat requires 12" to float. So not sunk, but perched atop the shallows.

I hope you get it worked out MRB! I assume that the level of the lake(?) dropped, perching the boat on the bottom. If so, likely no damage because those parts are pretty darn sturdy. If you ran it onto ground (gravel/rocks .... not sand/mud which are pretty soft) then that would be a different story. But slowly resting it on the ground as the water level dropped probably did nothing beyond causing you a headache!

[Steelhead]

That sounds like a tough situation - and depending on the details I can't think of a covered peril that insurance would respond to. Sounds like not a bad problem to have. :)

[Michael Maddox]

Yep, sold my Mastercraft and my runabout some years back, and haven't missed either. I harbored some dreams of tournament-level waterskiing in my youth, and ran a pretty good slalom run (into 35-off) and a fair jump. Crappy tricks though (just too tall and clumsy), so I was never in danger of being a triple-threat. Ended up on the barefoot side of things, which seems more conducive to beer drinking.

Cycling, as expensive as I tend to make it, will NEVER equal the cost of boats, lakehouses, and fuel. Here's to two wheels over two skis.

[csm]

I was at the sailboat show in annapolis yesterday. gave me a new appreciation for how inexpensive cycling really is.
I do want a boat now tho.

[Too Tall]

You could float it out. Buy 10,000 rubber duckie and 8 gallons of superglue.

Kidding. Good luck be careful.

[DarrenCT]

ya boats are crazy expensive. u have to pay all these docking fees for a toy you use like 12 times a year.

a good reason to buy another bike. who has a 56cm c50? :)

[MRB]

Hi everyone. THanks for your concerns, wishes, and words of wisdom. I appreciate them. My boat is now safe for the winter, but not in the garage where I would like it to be.

With the help of a friend, I was able to dig some gravel out and get it into a boat slip that has a roof over it, I used the roof trusses and come-alongs and straps to lift it and get it onto a broken shore-station. Then I used come-alongs to lift both the boat and the shore station cradle up out of the water.

Yes... the water level of the lake dropped rapidly, and left my boat in to shallow of water to get it out. I move it around in the same depth of water, which was a shorter distance than moving to deep water.

If I had 100 serotta pals in the lake to help me we could have lifted it to heavy waters at a mere 20 pounds per pal. The water was cold, so you'd have to me tough.

bottom line... boats dock, bikes rock.

Come visit me in Montana and I can take you cycling and water skiing. (maybe):rolleyes:

[Ginger]

On the rubber ducky bent...I've heard of boat owners buying big old tractor tire innertubes, snaking them under the boat, and inflating them equally to float the boat off the bottom enough to ease it out into deeper water....but I think that's a tall tale...or a small boat.

Congratulations on getting yours moved!

[Dekonick]

why did the water level drop? Is it on a reservoir?

I remember when I lived in Orlando there were LOTS of Mastercrafts and Skinautiques(sp?)

I had to waterski behind a crummy 16' with a 70 horse outboard... nothing like an inboard motor with a ski pole...

Hopefully your prop and shaft are undamaged... :beer:

[t. swartz]

at least it ain't in a national park where you get fined for scraping the bottom and leaving the boat unattended...good luck

[Too Tall]

MRB - funny you should say that...about 20 yrs. ago I was racing a vintage boat belonging to the St. Michaels Maritime Museum..we had the boat on shore in a wood cradle and needed to flip it so we could re-work the skeg and worm board. The guys were talking about hiring a big arse crane, slings, ropes blah blah and me just back from college and a summer of "new games" said "no prob." the museum was crawling with hundreds of tourists. Using the principle you mentioned (20 lbs/person) I rounded up as many people as would fit around the boat shoulder to shoulder and talked them thru flipping the boat by hand ;) Hehe...this was before lawyers and liability of course :rolleyes: It really is amazing the listing power 100 people have.