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Boating fails


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Talking of locks, although on a river/fenland drain.....

Was on a boat with my Dad, and we were heading for the great ouse relief channel, I brought the boat in to the lock while Dad walked round to the control panel. So, I'm sitting there holding the boat steady using the lock ladder waiting and waiting.... Nothing... Shouts to Dad to find out whats going on and he says he can't get the controls to work. So I tied a hitch to the ladder and climbed up.... Sure enough, controls are unresponsive, turned it all off, reset and tried again, sure enough, starts working, tells Dad to stop it till I get back to the boat.... Nope, didn't happen, so ran back, jumped into the boat and set to trying to undo the rope... All to no avail. With the same creaking and cracking as Headlight mentioned, we started getting a serious list on, by which point, I've thought, fuck this, I'm out of here. Just as I got to the top of the lock as heard an almight crack, looked down to see the cabin/ring deck starting to detatch!!

Runs back to the controls, E stop and everything else not working.... Ran to other end, keyed on and just hit the gates open button (normally you use flapper? valves first then open gates), mad rush of water and water back up on a slack rope. Limped it out of the lock and back to it's mooring before trailering it up to take it home for repair....

Needless to say, some arsehole in a kit car came storming round a corner, lost the back and started coming straight at me.... I swerved, missed him, caught a run off ditch, denred the van roof with my head, recovered just in time to see the trailer do the same.... Pulled over only to find that the side roller had punched through the hull...... And he never stopped... Barstard!!

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15 minutes ago, suzook12 said:

Talking of locks, although on a river/fenland drain.....

Was on a boat with my Dad, and we were heading for the great ouse relief channel, I brought the boat in to the lock while Dad walked round to the control panel. So, I'm sitting there holding the boat steady using the lock ladder waiting and waiting.... Nothing... Shouts to Dad to find out whats going on and he says he can't get the controls to work. So I tied a hitch to the ladder and climbed up.... Sure enough, controls are unresponsive, turned it all off, reset and tried again, sure enough, starts working, tells Dad to stop it till I get back to the boat.... Nope, didn't happen, so ran back, jumped into the boat and set to trying to undo the rope... All to no avail. With the same creaking and cracking as Headlight mentioned, we started getting a serious list on, by which point, I've thought, fuck this, I'm out of here. Just as I got to the top of the lock as heard an almight crack, looked down to see the cabin/ring deck starting to detatch!!

Runs back to the controls, E stop and everything else not working.... Ran to other end, keyed on and just hit the gates open button (normally you use flapper? valves first then open gates), mad rush of water and water back up on a slack rope. Limped it out of the lock and back to it's mooring before trailering it up to take it home for repair....

Needless to say, some arsehole in a kit car came storming round a corner, lost the back and started coming straight at me.... I swerved, missed him, caught a run off ditch, denred the van roof with my head, recovered just in time to see the trailer do the same.... Pulled over only to find that the side roller had punched through the hull...... And he never stopped... Barstard!!

Ouch - sorry to hear all that Steve.

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4 minutes ago, Andy135 said:

Ouch - sorry to hear all that Steve.

If ya gonna do it..... Lol

Was 6 years or more ago now. The shame of it was, we bought the boat for Dad's last summer, he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and no known cure..... That curtailed that summer. We never got to go out fishing again.

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1 minute ago, suzook12 said:

If ya gonna do it..... Lol

Was 6 years or more ago now. The shame of it was, we bought the boat for Dad's last summer, he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and no known cure..... That curtailed that summer. We never got to go out fishing again.

That’s sad. At least you’ve got a good comedy anecdote of it to remember though. 

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