keelhauled
Petty Officer 2nd Class
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2003
- Messages
- 172
When I was 17, I decided to take my friends out to see the fireworks show at Edgewater Park in Cleveland. It was Dad's 23' Chris Craft Lancer, which I had taken out at least 100 times before, so he decided to trust me out on Lake Erie as long as I had a VHF and stayed close to shore. The lake was very calm that day, so things should have been pretty routine.<br /><br />We packed up the Winnebago with all 8 of us plus goodies for the trip and pulled out headed for east Cleveland. On the way, we got lost in a not-so-nice neighborhood. You know, the kind where you don't want to stop for traffic signals. I stopped to ask directions, and found out we were close and 5 minutes later arrived at the state park ramp. I launched the boat and we piled in and headed for Edgewater, which is on the west side of downtown.<br /><br />It seems much farther by boat than by car to cross downtown Cleveland. However, the lake was like glass and we made short work of getting there at about 3/4 throttle.<br /><br />When we arrived, there were hundreds of boats outside the breakwall. I don't know why we thought we might be among just a few. We ended up anchoring farther from the display than we would have been on land., but that was only the start of the troubles.<br /><br />You see, fireworks occur at dusk. Lake Erie is not always a nice place to be at dusk. When it was time to leave, you could not see your hand in front of your face. I had to rely on the compass and GPS to see us to our ramp. Not a big deal, right?<br /><br />Well, the lake kicked up. We were now riding 3-5 footers, at night, with 8 people in a 23' boat. This is something you would expect to see on Real TV. I could no longer plane off, so it would be a long ride back. Not to mention, we had used nearly 1/3 of a tank of fuel on the way there, leaving us 2/3 for the return. Not a good amount given the load and weather. The fuel gauge stopped bouncing off E while the GPS still said 2 miles to go. The waves were tossing us so badly that I was unsure of our compass heading. I might as well have thrown it overboard. I kept following the waypoint on the GPS and praying that we would make it.<br /><br />In any crisis, there are always more than one expert. Every light we passed convinced my passengers that it was a dock and we must pull in. Of course, most were lights on land and had nothing to do with marine navigation.<br /><br />We made it to our dock and everyone was anxious to feel land under their feet. As I pull into slip, everyone jumps at the dock throwing the boat against the concrete. This gave a nice gash to the gelcoat, but I was fortunate that this vintage Chris has thick fiberglass. It was a hard hit.<br /><br />I contained my anger by thinking about how lucky we were to make it TO the dock and grabbed the camper and trailer. As I backed the trailer into the water, the brake pedal hit the floor and the front wheels started to drag. I tossed it into drive and pulled out. I had blown a rear brake line. I wasn't going to keep this from taking myself home, so I backed the trailer in in 'drive'. A friend that was familiar with boats winched the boat up for me while I used the transmission to hold the rig on the ramp.<br /><br />We packed up and drove 30 miles home at 25 MPH on the freeway shoulder. Luckily, noone was hurt and we all learned a great deal about respect for safety.<br /><br />Someone was watching over us that day...
<br /><br />rgds<br /><br />Franki