Better Safe Than Sunk

by Randy Brudnicki, courtesy of Texas Parks & Wildlife Magazine

I don't know if I shouted or just thought it, but I do recall the “thunk” and high-pitched whine as the 220 hp Mercury outboard hit the rock pile. The blow to the lower unit skeg knocked the prop out of the water. The engine RPMs revved up so high, I feared the power head would blow. I don’t remember the engine shutting off, because I was staring at the shore.

No matter how hard I turned the steering wheel, the boat kept heading toward the shore — and still on nearly full plane. The “shore” where we were headed was a rock wall transitioning to mostly chunk rocks scattered on some sand. Right in front of us, however, was a pickup-sized boulder about 10 yards up the bank. “This is going to hurt,” I thought.

It was late winter and although the water temperature was in the upper 40s and the air wasn’t much warmer, it was one of those gotta-get-out-of-the-house kinds of days. The noon sun was bright and inviting, and the lake surface was mirror smooth. As I came down the tributary channel at 70-plus mph, I could barely tell where the bank and water met. The nearby shore was perfectly reflected on the water’s surface.

The channel was nearly 100 yards across and I was about 40 yards from the right bank. “Plenty of room,” I thought. Suddenly, dead ahead a few yards, I saw a 6-inch branch sticking up. We were too close to avoid hitting it. As we got closer, I could see rocks around a bush. The rocks were about a foot or so below the surface. I knew if I pulled back on the throttle, the boat would come off plane and crash on the rocks — hard. So I hit the up-trim button and pushed the throttle all the way down, hoping to skip over the rocks. I could also see that there were fewer rocks on the starboard or bank, side than on the port, or channel, side. Instinctively, I turned the steering wheel slightly.

The boat cleared the rocks, but when the motor’s skeg hit the top of the rocks, the lower unit kicked up and out of the water.In the late 1980s, almost all brands of engines had little levers designed to lock the motor up for trailering. In this instance, the force of the blow not only kicked the motor’s lower unit out of the water, but the spring-loaded lever also kicked up and locked the motor in the trailering position. Without the lower unit in the water, we were in a rudderless boat, on plane, heading straight to certain injury.

Miraculously, we hit the only 10-yard stretch of sand on that bank, but that huge boulder was in our path. At the speed we were going, when the front of the 20-foot bass boat hit the beach, it bounced up high enough to catapult the boat on top of the boulder rather than slamming into it. The boat slid up the boulder and came to rest at a 60-degree angle. I remember staring up at the front deck and seeing it silhouetted against the sky.

Here we were, 50 miles by water from the marina where we had launched, possibly stranded, with no food or blankets for the cold temperatures that were sure to settle in that night. Worse, the bow of the 2,500-pound boat-and-motor rig was on top of a boulder. The boat’s transom was at least 10 yards from the water’s edge. How were we going to survive? That time of year, it could be days or weeks before someone ventured to where we were.

My fishing partner and I slid the boat off the rock and with some effort, turned it towards the water’s edge. We took out the oar and dug a wide channel in the sand to get the water to the boat. We rocked the boat and dug sand until there was enough water for the boat to float. In about 45 minutes, the boat was back on the water. Damage was minimal: a dinged prop, bent prop shaft and scratches on the keel where the boat slid up the boulder.

On the way back to the marina, I could barely get the boat on plane because the prop shaft vibrated terribly, but it was good enough to get us in. (Of course, being diehard fishermen we stopped and fished good looking spots for several more hours all the way back to the marina.)

And I learned a valuable lesson. When it comes to boating, you never know what could happen. For years, I always wore a personal flotation device, or PFD, when I started the main engine, but I usually took it off when I stopped to fish. Since then, I have witnessed many other mishaps when people were fishing that made me realize that wearing a PFD is always a good idea, even when the boat is stopped.

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