If it didn't happen to me - I wouldn't believe it....crazy ramp story

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wingmastr23

Petty Officer 1st Class
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Oct 26, 2009
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Well - here it goes.

Our family just finished a great day on the lake (Silverwood Lake) and I pulled my boat up to the dock to begin loading.

Upon arrival, my wife (who parked the truck/trailer) realizes she doesn't have the keys. She begins a frantic search of her purse, storage compartments, coolers, etc - NO DICE!

So - she jumps out of the boat and starts retracing her steps back to the truck. She comes back a few minutes later and she can't find them. So I jump out and do the same thing, just making sure she didn't miss something.....Of course the level of steam that is coming out my ears is increasing every minute. I don't find them.

I am sure I said a few things to my sweetheart of a wife that chased her away - but after a few minutes I am back in the boat with my kids - and my wife is "looking" again (probably just trying to stay away from me...:facepalm:)

I start ransacking the boat - while I am down in the floor on my hands and knees something bangs into the port side of my boat - I look up and there is some idiot on a jetski that obviously hasn't ever driven one.....I said "What the hell man!" and he didn't even apologize - he just tried to motor away as fast as he could.....Now I am REALLY annoyed!

I put my head back down and start looking again and WHAM! Something bangs into the aft....HARD! I look up and there is an asian family in their new sea ray. The father is trying to guide the boat/dock boat while mom and 4 kids sit and watch. I growl something and shove his boat away from my boat.

I swear, I hadn't had my head down for 30 seconds and WHAM! The same friggin family is banging into my boat again! This time I yelled at them and I shoved their boat as hard as I possibly could...and if looks could do damage, I probably would have sunk their boat.

I continued digging for the keys and BINGO - I found them! I flagged down my wife - had her get back in the boat with our kids while I ran to get in line at the ramp. After waiting for about 10-15 minutes for an opening, I finally back down the ramp. (Of course since my wife cannot back a trailer, or load the boat, I have to do everything...usually no biggie.)

I back the trailer down, and jump out of the truck, and jog over to the dock - as I get to the dock I see another jetski - it is lodged between the bow of my boat and the dock, with my mooring line somehow draped over the guy....AND - the friggin jetski is at WOT!!!!!! My boat is rocking back and forth, etc. I run down the dock ready to start drowning people.

As I arrive, I see this guy with a panicked look on his face, his buddies are wrestling with the jetski, and they finally got the thing shut down. Come to find out, they tried to put a cooler in the guys lap for him to putt across the lake - in doing so, the cooler pushed the throttle down and when the guy started up the jetski - wham! Right into my boat.

By this time, I am freaking out, yelling, etc. All the while the guy is saying in broken English "I pay, I pay!!" I was like - HELL YEA YOU PAY!! Look at scratches all over my boat!

All the while this is going on, my truck is running with the trailer in the water, taking up a coveted ramp slot. So, I send my wife to the truck, and I pull the boat around and load it. While I am doing that, the jetskier's brother walks over to our truck/boat and begins talking to me while I am loading. I am so ticked off at this point, I am ready to chew nails.....I get the boat cranked down, and signal to the wife to start pulling up - in about 10 seconds I hear a dreadful sound - my skeg dragging on the freaking ramp....in all the crap, I forgot to trim up the outboard. I scream STOP!!!! Thankfully, my wife heard me, and that mistake was caught before it did any damage!

We pulled up to a parking slot and I jumped out to assess the damage.....all there ended up being was some surface scratches that could be sanded/buffed out. It turned out that the jetskiers were good guys....They asked me how much damage I thought there was, I told them that I could probably buff it out myself - they handed me $500 cash and we parted ways.

Unreal.....
 

df909

Petty Officer 1st Class
Joined
Nov 28, 2009
Messages
333
Re: If it didn't happen to me - I wouldn't believe it....crazy ramp story

Holy crap!!! I go to Silverwood all the time and that place has some idiots for sure. I don't think I could have stayed as calm as you. Heck, people at Lake Gregory would have probably heard me yelling at people. Sorry for your day.
 

LippCJ7

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Re: If it didn't happen to me - I wouldn't believe it....crazy ramp story

Wingmaster I feel for you bud but if I were you I would get the wife trained to load the boat ASAP!! we learned very quickly that the best place to get your boat damaged was at the ramp so the least amount of time spent there the better!! Of course this wouldn't have helped during the lost truck keys portion of the incident but I would also add this, I have four full sets of keys, one for the wife, one for me, one for the boat and one for the truck, all four sets have all keys associated with the truck trailer and boat(4 total keys) and a floaty thingy, the irony to this is I have never lost a set of "summer" keys, I swear I am not OCD I figure I would just kick Murphy in the junk if you know what I mean!!

Hope your boating gets better I know I would have flipped too if another boat bounced of my baby!!
 

silverfox441

Seaman
Joined
Apr 3, 2011
Messages
60
Re: If it didn't happen to me - I wouldn't believe it....crazy ramp story

Holly smoke batman! Adventure at the ramp! I have a magnetic box with a spare key hidden under my van... Shhhhhhhhh.
 

reddogg

Petty Officer 1st Class
Joined
Jun 3, 2011
Messages
379
Re: If it didn't happen to me - I wouldn't believe it....crazy ramp story

Wow, sorry to hear about your day. When I go out I have a specific storage box I put my keys, wallet, etc in, havent lost them yet:) I feel your pain with reguards to the jetfleas, I really can't stand those things since to many of their owners are complete idiots.

Red
 

chriswh86

Cadet
Joined
Jun 24, 2011
Messages
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Re: If it didn't happen to me - I wouldn't believe it....crazy ramp story

* Quickly sells his recently purchased boat to stay at home where it is quiet *

That is nuts, Ive got something to look forward to when i get my boat on the water :) good thing i live in a town of 2000 people!
 

fishrdan

Admiral
Joined
Jan 25, 2008
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Re: If it didn't happen to me - I wouldn't believe it....crazy ramp story

WOW, simply unbelievable!

I think you need a new hobby, something less stressful like bull fighting, diving with great white sharks, maybe wrestling alligators.
 

haley

Petty Officer 2nd Class
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Jan 20, 2011
Messages
134
Re: If it didn't happen to me - I wouldn't believe it....crazy ramp story

Here it is a beautiful Saturday, and I am not so interested in boating. Just because I know the ramps will be a zoo. And I too am a one man band when it comes to driving truck with trailer or driving the boat. Much prefer a quiet weeknight. I may try some commercial ramps. Sometimes the higher fee is worth it.

Sooo... Jet skiers regularly have $500 in cash on them? What's the season and is there a bag limit?
 

drivadesl

Cadet
Joined
Apr 13, 2011
Messages
29
Re: If it didn't happen to me - I wouldn't believe it....crazy ramp story

Man that is a horrible experience. I can't imagine the stress that caused, thats the worse part for me, all that going on at once, and feeling helpless the whole time. Actually you're real lucky the jetskiers ponied up the cash, who carries that kind of money when out on the water, and on top of it actually takes responsibility for their actions. Sorry for the bad day, but at least no one was hurt. So on the positive side, you walk away with a great story to tell that not many people can top....
 

southkogs

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14,979
Re: If it didn't happen to me - I wouldn't believe it....crazy ramp story

sooo... Jet skiers regularly have $500 in cash on them? What's the season and is there a bag limit?

lol!!
 

dingbat

Supreme Mariner
Joined
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Messages
16,342
Re: If it didn't happen to me - I wouldn't believe it....crazy ramp story

And they wonder why I don't boat on weekends ;)
 

MAXXIE

Chief Petty Officer
Joined
Feb 26, 2009
Messages
556
Re: If it didn't happen to me - I wouldn't believe it....crazy ramp story

I feel your pain, I've had a few of those kind of day's myself. As far as the key's go, I do both of the suggestions mentioned above - extra sets of key's for everything I own in the boat, truck, under a rock outside my house, everywhere I think I may need them (I used to have a problem loosing my key's all the time). Anyway, your lucky the jet ski guy's weren't buttheads & just took off, that's usually the case. Look at the up side here: You said you can repair the damage yourself & now you have an extra $500 for gas or whatever you need.
 

paultjohnson

Lieutenant Commander
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Jul 29, 2010
Messages
1,560
Re: If it didn't happen to me - I wouldn't believe it....crazy ramp story

They gave you $500 cash? Kudos to them for doing the the responsible thing... Who the heck carries that kind of cash on a jet ski anyhow. The silver silver lining on your cloudy ramp experience i guess.
 

jigngrub

Fleet Admiral
Joined
Mar 19, 2011
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8,155
Re: If it didn't happen to me - I wouldn't believe it....crazy ramp story

My wife is the same as yours, never puts anything important in the same place twice. She's always running around the house looking for her keys, phone, and purse before she leaves.:rolleyes:

I prefer to do the whole launch and retrieve thing myself. That way the keys stay in my pocket and I have no one to blame but myself if anything goes wrong.

I also try to avoid the busy hours at the ramp to launch and load, but if I have to do either at busy time... I'll sit back and watch until there's a lull in the action. Your fiasco would've made for some good watching and a video!;)

Maybe you should consider taking a Prozac a couple hours before loading time?:p
 

swallman

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Jul 15, 2011
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Re: If it didn't happen to me - I wouldn't believe it....crazy ramp story

This story makes me so glad that I finally got a slip to keep the boat in the water. Always hated going to the ramp. We've used our boat more in the past 2 weeks than we did all last year just by having it always in the water and ready to go.
 

airdvr1227

Lieutenant Commander
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Jul 15, 2009
Messages
1,666
Re: If it didn't happen to me - I wouldn't believe it....crazy ramp story

Although I feel your pain it seems the correct thing to do would have been to move your rig to the side if possible and allow others the use of the ramp while you were trying to figure out where the keys were. Takes the pressure off the situation.
 

wingmastr23

Petty Officer 1st Class
Joined
Oct 26, 2009
Messages
211
Re: If it didn't happen to me - I wouldn't believe it....crazy ramp story

They gave you $500 cash? Kudos to them for doing the the responsible thing... Who the heck carries that kind of cash on a jet ski anyhow. The silver silver lining on your cloudy ramp experience i guess.

Yea....the guys brother actually did. He said something to his girlfriend/wife in spanish - she jumped into their pimped out rig and pulled out a ROLL of cash - he peeled 5 hundies right off the top and handed it to me - was very apologetic about it. Maybe they just didn't want me calling the cops - or maybe they were upstanding citizens doing the right thing. Either way, they made it right.

As far as the other jetskier and the knucklehead family in the boat....I just hope they don't kill someone on the water in the future....
 

wingmastr23

Petty Officer 1st Class
Joined
Oct 26, 2009
Messages
211
Re: If it didn't happen to me - I wouldn't believe it....crazy ramp story

Although I feel your pain it seems the correct thing to do would have been to move your rig to the side if possible and allow others the use of the ramp while you were trying to figure out where the keys were. Takes the pressure off the situation.

I didn't have my truck/trailer on the ramp while looking for the keys.....I couldn't FIND the keys.
 

airdvr1227

Lieutenant Commander
Joined
Jul 15, 2009
Messages
1,666
Re: If it didn't happen to me - I wouldn't believe it....crazy ramp story

Not talking about the truck. I'm talking about your boat. Was it in the way of others trying to use the ramp while you searched for your keys?
 

blifsey

Senior Chief Petty Officer
Joined
Jan 17, 2002
Messages
769
Re: If it didn't happen to me - I wouldn't believe it....crazy ramp story

Sounds like a very aggravating end to what I hope was a good day on the water. I'm thankful that our favorite lake doesn't have a lot of crazy activity like that going on even during a busy holiday. When we pulled into ramp area on Sunday of the 4th weekend at 11:00am, parking was only about 1/2 full. A couple of the smaller, more crowded lakes do get a little crazy but never seen anything like you describe but I usually don't go to those when they might be like that.

I do agree with airdvr1227, letting wife off boat to look on shore and moving away from dock (idle out to quiet area of a cove if possible) might have helped. But, in heat of moment I can see not thinking to do that. 'Course, not knowing the area you were at, there might not have been a quiet, out of the way place.

Glad you did find the keys and nothing major damaged.
 
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