Help a fellow boater out will ya....

[Gomer Pyle]

Sunday, Oct 18th...Lake Fork Texas. Berkley Tournament going on. Little bro and I are out fishing in his older boat that he had just purchased. Bass boats...maybe 100+ all over the place. Ruh Roh...the Chrysler main motor seizes ....wont start....cant even turn the flywheel on top : Good thing we have a 45lb thrust trolling motor to push our 18ft boat in 12-15k winds on a light chop. Nope, no emergency radio, no flares, no way of contacting help other than a cell phone which wasn't receiving a good signal anyway. There must of been 50+ boats pass us without one stopping and seeing if we needed help...maybe the hood being removed from the motor gave us away? :-? It took us 2 hrs to go maybe 3 miles to the dock with the battery dying as soon as we hit the protected dock area. Thank God! Day before we were at Lake Lewisville running the boat in preparation for our trip to Fork. We met a fellow boater there who had broke down and towed him into the launch and was glad to be able to help....but NO....not at Fork. All these $50K bass boats flying all over and not one offered to stop. Am I wrong to be upset? :

[SportMN]

Not wrong to be upset at all.. I have not broke down yet.. but I continue to pay it forward every chance I get.  Last year I towed 5 boats back to the landing/home. One was an hour tow during a tournament.  Needless to say I didnt do too well, but felt good about what I had done.

[WRB]

Both federal and state maritime boating law, on navigable waterways, requires a boat under distress to be assisted by other boaters in the area. Inland coastguard should have been called for assistance.

WRB

[Grey Wolf]

You have a very good reason to be upset. Sometimes people are just a**holes.

[J Francho]

Glad you made it back without incident, and are safe, but....

Nope, no emergency radio, no flares, no way of contacting help other than a cell phone which wasn't receiving a good signal anyway.

Nice....you should have gotten a ticket from the CG. No distress signal, no help. Perhaps next time you'll rethink your safety strategy.

:

[Glenn]

I think you could have stated that better without coming down on the guy.  Educate, not demoralize.

[J Francho]

Perhaps it was too strong, Glenn. But I feel pretty strongly about this stuff.

Educate?

OK. Take a look at last year's boating accident statistics: http://www.uscgboating.org/assets/1/Publications/Boating_Statistics_2008.pdf.

Check the bottom of p. 7, line 6.

Here is a great resource on what you should have: http://www.safetyseal.net/what_is_vsc.asp

[Wayne P.]

Is a vessel considered in distress if it has multiple motors of any type and only one of them is non-functioning? Example: a bass boat with an outboard and electric motor or a boat with more than one electric or gas motor with one non-functioning. I know of a case recently where a requested tow-in was refused when a bass boat had a gearcase failure on the gas motor. The statement made by the other boat driver was "You have an electric motor, use it." This occurred on a large Southern lake (Guntersville)with lots of bass boat traffic and it was on a Wednesday with no tournaments in progress.

[Dan:]

Did you try to yell at any passing boats?

[Grey Wolf]

And I thought I was an a** hole. Lighten up guys.

[Gomer Pyle]

Unfortunately, we could not stay in the boat lanes. Those who are familiar with Lake Fork know that there has been much rain there lately, lots of loose timber and logs dislodged during this period. It is imperative that one follow the buoys very closely or you could become impaled on a hidden stump. Needless to say, we weren't going to stay within the confines of the designated boat lane with bass boats flying by at 60+ mph. The closest distance between 2 points is a straight line. We headed straight away for the launch, well out of the boat lane. The closest any boat came to us was maybe 200 yds or so. As J Francho correctly stated, we should have been better prepared. Next time we will be fully prepared. Live and learn right? Nonetheless, I'm still blown away by the fact that out of hundreds of boats going by and seeing a lone boat apparently disabled, navigating in part of the Lake that you would normally not be in, not one thought that maybe those guys are in trouble. Moral of the story....expect the best but be prepared for the worst...and....Never get in the way of a man and his tournament....

[fish-fighting-illini]

  Once you decided you had a problem then you should have done the wave your hands for help.

  If you did that and no one offered to help then you've got a beef. If you just tried to yell who knows if the other boat could even here you (?)

[Glenn]

I have flares, a whistle, AND and an air horn on my boat at all times.  Not saying I'm better than anyone, just saying it's important to be prepared for anything. 

I've had to use the air horn once already, when my engine died.  I immediately got the attention of two bass anglers who were about 1/2 mile away from me, and they towed me in.  Since their backs were to me when they were fishing, I doubt they would have seen the flares if I used them.

Just a tip.

[done]

It is unlikely but really possible that nobody realized it. They could have been in the zone.

When i had my jon, there was a weekday I took then entire day off to fish Wylie. About 35 minutes straight drive from my launch I was working the shore and just happened to look over my shoulder and suddenly saw a dude on top of his 35 ft pleasure boat waving his arms.

When i saw him before, I really just saw a boat and did not look for detail. Figured he was just drifting (a lot of boats do that on the lake).

Anyway, when i got over to him. He was completely out of gas. Since I have no chance towing a 35 ft glass hulled boat with my 9 hp, I gave one of the dudes a lift to a nearby dock so he could run and get about 10 gals of gas from a gas station and ferried him and the gas back to the boat. He told me he had been jumping and waving and yelling ta me for about 10 minutes before I saw him.

I also reminded him, he should really consider grabbing some flares, an SOS flag and at least a Whistle, probably an airhorn.

Sad as it seems it is possible the fisher dudes were in the zone, and maybe they saw you, did not see a flag or flare and assumed you had it covered. Would have been nice if they would have checked but being in a tourney they may have been more apt to follow that train of though.

Anyway, glad you did get back safe. Like you said, lesson learned. Definitely go out and get the kit. Another way to ruin your day is have the CG stop you for a safety inspection and fail it.

[Fishing Cowgirl]

I am surprised as well, that no one at least slowed down to inquire about your status. We have towed no less than 3 boats to a ramp, one during a tournament and two while we were out practise fishing.

We have been towed once, and twice I had to flag down other competitors to hitch a ride to weigh-in with our fish. I was able to flag down a boat from over 100 yds away by waving my white cap.. or was it my bathing suit top.. I forget. 

[n8sbassin]

Nothin' will bring tournament anglers to a screeching hault, like a lady waving her bikini top!

[senile1]

Unfortunately, we could not stay in the boat lanes. Those who are familiar with Lake Fork know that there has been much rain there lately, lots of loose timber and logs dislodged during this period. It is imperative that one follow the buoys very closely or you could become impaled on a hidden stump. Needless to say, we weren't going to stay within the confines of the designated boat lane with bass boats flying by at 60+ mph. The closest distance between 2 points is a straight line. We headed straight away for the launch, well out of the boat lane. The closest any boat came to us was maybe 200 yds or so. As J Francho correctly stated, we should have been better prepared. Next time we will be fully prepared. Live and learn right? Nonetheless, I'm still blown away by the fact that out of hundreds of boats going by and seeing a lone boat apparently disabled, navigating in part of the Lake that you would normally not be in, not one thought that maybe those guys are in trouble. Moral of the story....expect the best but be prepared for the worst...and....Never get in the way of a man and his tournament....

If you cut across a stump-filled area using a trollling motor I think most of the other boaters using the boat lanes will assume you have a spot that you are scoping out and won't stop, unless you have some other means of indicating that you are in trouble.

[Fishing Cowgirl]

Nothin' will bring tournament anglers to a screeching hault, like a lady waving her bikini top!

LOL, it sure worked! My husband was sitting there fussing that No One would come close enough to see us, and we had a really good bag of fish to weigh in. I said "oh yeah?"  Needless to say, he was laughing with me when we saw a boat make a U turn back our way, helped me load the fish and we came in about 8th out of 70 boats.

[Chaz Hickcox]

Glad you made it back without incident, and are safe, but....

Nope, no emergency radio, no flares, no way of contacting help other than a cell phone which wasn't receiving a good signal anyway.

Nice....you should have gotten a ticket from the CG. No distress signal, no help. Perhaps next time you'll rethink your safety strategy.

:

According to Texas Law vessels less than 20m are only required to carry some kind of noise making devices, i.e. HORN, or a whistle. I am going to give Gomer Pyle here the benefit of the doubt and say that he had the required equiptment in the form of a built in horn that most vessels have.  As for everyone else, the USCG states that it is unlawful not to render assistance to those who are in trouble. So J Francho, I would venture to guess that those other boaters were in fact negligent in their duties on the water, and NOT Private Pyle there. I have had some issues on the water before, and I have a 17'9" Javelin with an 85lb trolling motor. When my main died I considered myself in distress, and was properly assisted by an unfortunate family who happened to be the first to get to me. I say unfortunate because they took 45 minutes out of their skiing time to assist me. I will say it again, the other boaters were negligent and it is unfortunate that none of them can be reprimanded.