Reminder to check gear before towing.

[MikeSchinlaub]

I was driving behind a truck towing a boat the other day, and these caught the wind and flew out of his boat.



Luckily, there were no other vehicles nearby, and I was pretty far behind. I stopped to pick them up. I was heading home, and he wasn't in town when I got there, so he didn't get them back.

So just remember to stow everything securely where the wind can't get to it.

 

[cyclops222]

Some pickup truck guys are the worst people. Tailgate down or removed. Loose crap piled up in the bed. Hope they injure themselves. Enough following people have been killed or badly injured by the

 

[Scott Danforth]

I got most of my life vests and flotation cushions from people that do not stow gear.

also got a 105 qt cooler, and could have gotten a riding lawn mower if it would have fit in the convertible.

 

[MikeSchinlaub]

could have gotten a riding lawn mower if it would have fit in the convertible.

How do you lose a mower on the road?

 

[Jeff J]

I got an old Mercury motor running for a buddy a while back. It belonged to his grandfather. His plan was to use it on a small boat to push docks and slips around. On the first job, his crew pulled the motor, carried the boat to the trailer and loaded it then set the motor unsecured on the transom. The motor could not be found when they retraced their steps.

I see a lot of unsecured items on trailers. I watched a set of ramps fall off a trailer. I knew the owner so I picked them up and chased him down. He could not fathom how unsecured ramps could just slide off the deck. They fell off a block from his house.

Riding lawn mowers and small tractors with nothing more than the brakes holding them are a common sight.

Why on earth would the average boat owner think coolers, life jackets and seat cushions can’t be sucked out of a boat going down the highway? They must not see all the stuff laying along the road and in the ditch after every weekend.

 

[airshot]

Learned my lesson in my early days of boating. Just had new canvass made for my center console, thought it was folded and stored away and would not blow out. Boy was I wrong.....back then it was well over 500 bucks gone in the wind....actually !! Now everything is stored in lockers or have some type of hold down ( bungee straps etc) or, in the back of my SUV. Nothing loose in my boat !!

 

[matt167]

My boat doesn’t have any storage onboard that won’t blow out, so I keep all that stuff in the truck. I don’t worry about the anchor. That stays, and the Bimini stays in the down position, strapped down

 

[airshot]

My boat doesn’t have any storage onboard that won’t blow out, so I keep all that stuff in the truck. I don’t worry about the anchor. That stays, and the Bimini stays in the down position, strapped down

Years back, I had an open skiff with no storage either. Picked up a couple old coolers at garage sales, added a couple vents and bungee corded them to the bench seats. Kept stuff in place while boat was underway and nothing flew out on the highway. Could easily be moved into another position if needed.

 

[Scott Danforth]

How do you lose a mower on the road?

Don't tie down the load on a flat bed trailer.

 

[Grub54891]

Found a lid for a cooler, picked it up, a mile down the road was the cooler. Still have it 35 years later! Buddy got a fairly new chainsaw out of a snowbank. Another guy had an electric beer cooler that held kegs he got out of a bar, put a wheeled chassis under it and we used it for family reunions and other get togethers. His sister was towing it home and when she got home it wasn’t behind the car. Went looking for it and it had come off the hitch and rolled in the ditch. Totaled out the cooler. Sad day…..
I lost a Buick v-8 out of my flatbed truck, it was sitting on a tire, slid right out when I turned the corner to my house. A car stopped and four guys got out and lifted it back into my truck. It was a scrap Motor anyway……
on a side note, a guy was bringing his boat home and after cooking on his grill at the picnic area he had hot charcoal that he figured would be good when he got home so he put the grill in the boat. By the time he saw the fire it was to late, the entire boat burned on the side of the road before the fire dept got there.

 

[Renken2000Classic]

I lost a couple of pipe insulation foams that I had on top of the side windows to protect the cover/tarp... and a padded trip piece off of the top of the engine housing... and a couple of other things years ago, unrelated to boating that I don't want to admit to, but got both back.

I wonder how smart it is to leave the rear seat cushions in place, but so far so good; usually have a toolbox on one of them.

I've picked up a $100+ aluminum handled pipe wrench and a really nice big screwdriver in recent years. When I'm on my bike, I'm very wary about being anywhere near (behind) a utility type truck or any other load that looks like it might have loose stuff.

 

[JonBoat55]

Found a beat up cooler upside down on the side of the road right off the highway in update NY where we camp. Just got into town and saw it, pulled over, full of PBR, ice was still cold. Ive been trying to duplicate that kind of luck every since

 

[Mc Tool]

I have found a few spanners and sockets , a big crow bar and snig chain , I have lost a washing machine off a well side truck , rally driving the work truck away from the customers house , it bounced once and cleared the fence and landed in the field . I was in a truck that was passed by the range that was on the back as we slowed for an intersection . and I have seen a 22cubic foot freezer grow wings and fly off the trailer in front of use . I followed a guy all the way from Invercargill to Riverton ( I was going that way ) and watched him loose about a ton of sand as it slipped out thru the gaps in the trailer . I saw a guy in the rear view mirror lose a ton of coal when his trailer got a bad dose of the speed wobbles ( we had both just been at the coal mine getting a load ). I nearly got taken out by a boat on a trailer that had broken loose from the tow vehicle coming towards me on my Ducati .

 

[FLATHEAD]

There was a plumber where I worked that habitually left the rear doors open on his utility body truck. It was a pig pen inside with loose tools laying all around. He lost a bunch of tools over the years.
Cruising down a four lane highway on my motorcycle I had to dodge a shovel that flew off a truck. Missed my head by inches.

 

[Ifishmuskie2]

My boat engine didn’t have a tilt pin so I was looking online to find one. I was pondering what one to get and I see they are about $30.
I decided to go for a walk up the road and I spot a piece of SS rod. I put it in the hole and it’s a perfect dia. And already has a bend on one end. I drilled a hole for a cotter pin and now I have a tilt pin.

 

[flashback]

I got most of my life vests and flotation cushions from people that do not stow gear.

also got a 105 qt cooler, and could have gotten a riding lawn mower if it would have fit in the convertible.

And fenders.

 

[dwco5051]

I am from the generation where the kids piled in the bed of the pickup with the only safety warning "don't lean against the tailgate, you know the latches are rusted and it pops open."

 

[Jeff J]

When I was in my early twenties a bunch of us went tubing on a river one day. We had a pickup bed loaded with inflated inner tubes and 2 people. The driver liked to go fast and when he hit a hump one of the passengers in the back got launched. Fortunately for me, my leg got hung up in a tube and one hand caught the tailgate. Hanging head down with my nose a few inches from the pavement at highway speeds was probably the scariest couple of minutes of my life. Seemed like forever. The other passenger was banging on the cab trying to get the driver to stop. No, I wasn’t laying on top of the tubes. I was sitting on one of the bottom ones. Sitting on the tube seemed like a good idea after riding back there for 2 hours on the unpadded floor.

I almost blew out of a pickup that didn’t have a tailgate when I was a teenager. I stood up to wave at someone and the blast of air knocked me down. I believe grabbing metal whip CB antenna is what kept me from doing a backwards somersault out the back.

 

[dingbat]

In all my years of trailering, the only thing I lost was a very expensive snap-on seat cushion.

Found a box with two, 40MB Seagate SCSI hard drives that fell off a UPS truck back in the day.

Last year, a laptop flew off the roof of the car in front of me going 70 mph. Hit on the passenger’s side right where the windshield mets the roof.

Yesterday, traveling the same section of the road, a stop sign flew off a county maintenance truck. Did a double flip before landing in-between two cars.