What Are Your "oh Crap" Moments?

[Bassn Blvd]

I was pulling the boat out of my garage this evening to go fishing and ran my bicycle tire over with the trailer tire, bending the bicycle tire rim. After a few pharases, I realized I have cost myself THOUSANDS of dollars by being careless. Here are some of the "mishaps" I have had.

Ran mailbox over while turning out of driveway with boat. I had to replace the entire wooden post and box.

Ripped molding off garage wall with trailer fender.

Hit and broke taillight lens cover to wife's SUV with back corner of the boat.

And the biggest, most expensive mishap I've had while towing the boat is,

Completely destroying my two car garage door. ,

I backed the boat inside the garage and unhooked the trailer from the truck. I get back into the truck to run some errands and closed the garage door with the garage door opener while pulling out of the driveway. I look in my mirror to make the sure the door closed all the way and noticed the door was going back up. I pushed the door opener AGAIN and watched through the mirror as the door went down and back up. Now, most people would have got out to see what was preventing the door from closing, but not me. Nope, my dumb ars pushed the door opener AGAIN. And I'll be a SOB if that door didn't go down and right back up.

Now I'm MAD. I fished a tournament all day in the heat. I'm tired, grouchy, hungry and just want to run my errand and get back home. I get out of the truck to see what fell over and is preventing the garage door from closing. OMG, dumb ars me forgot to collapse the trailer tongue .

The force of the garage door hitting the trailer tongue (3 times) caused the aluminum panels of the door to crumble beyond repair. New garage door = $2100.

Now , let's see who can top that.

[Fish Chris]

If I thought about for just a while, I'm sure I could come up with some seriously (costly) screwups !

Here's one that fortunately didn't break anything.... But I don't know why not !

Recently, I pulled into the bank parking lot, towing my boat. It was early, so nobody was in the parking lot. I park sideways, taking up like 7 slots. When I pulled in, I could clearly see I had an island (with about an 8" curb) sticking out in front of me.... But I figured as long as I cut hard right as I was leaving, I would be fine.

Problem is, when I hopped back in my truck, I was too close to the island to see it... and being a dum-bass, I forgot all about it ! Doh !

So, being in a hurry to go fishing, I fire up the wagon, and gun it ! SLAM !!! Just about threw me out of my seat ! Boat was all slamming and surging against my bumper ! Ouch ! And worst yet, another guy was just pulling in, and he was looking at me like, "What a dum-bass" ! Of course I was thinking, "Yep ! That's me ! I'm a retard" !

So their was no way my small trailer tires would have went over that curb... Meaning I had to reverse back over the island (more slamming) with my truck to get out of there ! Urggggg !

I hope that will be the stupidest thing I do this year.... But it probably won't be !

Fish

[J Francho]

Chris, I'm guilty of that move even WITHOUT the trailer, LMAO.

[tholmes]

My "oh crap" moments are usually followed by a big splash as my fat butt hits the water.

Tom

[Bankbeater]

A couple of years ago I was going to park my car over at my Dad's place while we took his truck to the lake. So I'm backing into one side of his double driveway trying to make sure that I gave him enough room to pull out and turn when I hear a big BANG. While I was trying to give him enough room I forgot to look while backing up and ran into the garage door. I buckled that puppy pretty good.

[Root beer]

My dad let my mom back the trailer down the ramp to get the boat out of the water once. See where this is going...She backed it down and jackknifed the trailer so bad that we had to get a welder to cut off the tongue and weld a new one on..

I was at home and dad called me and told me come down to the ramp and bring some tools to straighten the tongue out enough to get home. lol. Moral of the story, never let a woman back a empty trailer down a boat ramp. :D Unless she has experience.

I personally haven't had any mishap while towing, yet..

[lynyrdsky1]

Burnt bearings three and half hours from home and then a flat tire from hitting something while pulling over on the highway.....

[KU_Bassmaster.]

Easter 2006

I am cruising down I-35 ( a pretty busy highway in a populated area) at 70 mph in the far left lane. All of a sudden the truck starts jumping. Kind of feels like a spark plug wire came undone or something. It definitely feels like something is mechanically wrong with the truck. So I start to make my way over to the right shoulder (3 lanes over) and just as I start to switch lanes I see the trailer starting to swerve severely. Then SHE BREAKS loose and the sparks are FLYING!!!!!!!!!!! After what felt like an eternity I somehow manage to get to the shoulder with the trailer still in tow. Had to slow down very very very slowly so the trailer didn't ram the back of my dad's truck. Some how I got that accomplished with no damage. Just some very scary moments!!!! Something very bad could have happened.

In the end I am not sure what happened. I am not sure if the hitch lock broke, or I forgot to lock it........

I don't know. Thank God for safety chains. USE THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Root beer]

Holy crap!

[Bluebasser86]

When I bought my first boat, a '92 Ranger, my dad was going to go with me the first time I got to take it out. I back the truck up and he drops it down on the ball, hooks it up and we take off. I get to the end of our long gravel driveway and slow down because of the big washout hole at the end of it. My back tire dips down into the hole and I feel one quick jerk and then a loud bam! and the truck jerks again. I put it in park and got out to see what happened. My dad swears to this day he locked the trailer on the ball but when I got to the back of the truck my trailer was firmly embbeded into the fresh new dent in my tailgate and was no longer on the ball where it should have been . He said it was my fault for hitting the hole but I've hit potholes going alot faster and a few parking lot islands and never had it happen again so I have my doubts .

[Raul]

I had a similar Oh crap moment to KU´s, but in this case it was a trailer bearing.

There I am driving thhrough the highway taking a curve when suddenly a tire passes me at warp speed ( WTH ! ) a split second later, bang, sparkles n´stuff, so I finally stopped, yup the tire that passed me was the trailer tire , so there I go looking for the tire in the dark, fortunately it landed in between the lanes and fortunately it didn´t hiy anybody and wasn´t hit or runover by anybody. Better safe than sorry we always carry a couple of extra bearings ( just in case ), we change the bearing but it didn´t fit quite right ( with all the wobble the cavity widened ) so after changing the bearing we drove home at arthritic turtle pace, you are not going to believe it but as we enter the city there goes another bearing, 2 wheel bearings in one night . I told my wife I would be back by about 9 PM, well, didn´t arrive home until 4 AM.

Blown trailer tires ? yup, done 2 blown trailer tires, twice !

[GLADES]

I had a trailer tire come off my trailer while I was traveling 30 mph. The frame hit the road and I ground down the threads on the axle u bolts dragging it off the road.

I forgot to check and re-torque the lug bolts, causing the tire to loosen up. The rim was ruined, all of the studs, as well as the axle u bolts. It cost me $300 to repair doing the work myself.

I check those trailer lug nuts with a 4 way lug wrench before each trip now.

[cufishin]

I'm sure I've done worse stuff in the past that I've blocked out of my memory, but heres a recent Oh Crap moment.

I had pulled the boat out of the garage just to clean and organize for the next days fishing trip, everything was going smoothly and quickly. I decided to check the fuel level and thought it would save a few minutes getting on the water if I went and filled the tank right then instead of waiting till morning. I head out for the gas station just 1/2 mile away and the trailer is pulling oddly and making noises I hadn't heard ever before. When I get to the station I start looking for the problem, I had left the new trailer jack in the down position. I'm just lucky that I haven't done something that stupid when I pull out for a long trip.

[scrutch]

My "oh crap" moment was just last weekend.

In a hurry to get in the water for some evening fishing. Put the boat in the water, looked down at my feet and saw water coming up thru the floor drain in my boat! Yep...."oh crap!" Forgot the plug! grabbed the plug from the splashwell and laid down to reach the hole in the transom step to put the plug in.

Whew! Got it. That was close! Opened the battery compartment to see how much water I had taken on board. "oh crap" AGAIN!! Plug was in the wrong (livewell intake) hole!!

Finally grabbed my spare plug and put the plug in the correct hole.

It took the bilge about 20 minutes to pump all the water out of the boat. I had water over top my battery boxes! THAT was fun getting that water out of the battery boxes when I got home!

NOTE TO SELF: Don't get in a hurry!

[skunked_again]

when i bought my new truck somehow a 1 7/8" ball made its way in place of a 2" ball. i assumed new truck made a new normal noise for the first few months...

[South FLA]

Backing up the trailer and forgetting that I chained the tire over the fiberglass fender.

Forgetting to put the power pole down a bit while backing into the garage, ouch.

After unhitching trailer, forgetting to remove safety break away brake line, hooking trailer back up on next trip and wonder while it smells like BRAKES about 3 miles down the road.

Forgetting to pull straps off when launching boat and wondering why water is halfway up the back deck.

Letting son play in boat and not realizing that JJs Magic is in his tackle bag as he throws it up in the AIR. Non skid deck, white...JJs Magic was Chart.

Forgetting to trim motor all the way up while pulling out of shallow boat ramp, it least it wasn't my boat.

Shutting rod locker on my FINGERS!

Taking off with trolling motor down in 2 feet of water and coming off plane in 1, not my boat at least. Unbreakable shaft my a...!

[SoFlaBassAddict]

I think the worst oh crap moment I've had is coming back to the States from Bimini. It's generally not a long trip to make the crossing. We left Miami, made the boat ride over to the Bahamas in record time. Had great weather and a great trip. And then on the drive back the weather got ugly. We started taking waves over the stern of the boat. Could only make about 10 knots and keep the boat together. It got so bad that we actually cracked some of the welds on the aluminum framing for the hard top on the boat. I think it took us about six hours in eight to 10 foot seas to cross the Gulf Stream. That was the only time I was really "scared" in all my years of boating. The bilge pumps were working overdrive on that trip. Needless to say my father and I made it back safely, but thats one trip that I will never forget. Ever.

Still managed to bring home a boat full of fish to put in the deep freezer though

[bilgerat]

Not quite on the scale of the previous stories, but last year I'm loading my kayak on top of the car after a days fishing. I had just slid it into the roof racks when a huge gust of wind blew it right off of the roof. It landed rightside up on the blacktop. Had a nice sized crack on the topside - the energy from the impact traveled through an internal support tube. No cracks on the bottom. Repaired it with some polyethylene plastic welding rod and a small torch. It has a nice battle scar but still solid and watertight.

[pa mountain man]

Before I had a trailer for my boat, I hauled it in the bed of my truck(what a pain). I just loaded up from an all night trip, it was noon when a deer popped out of the brush ahead of me, and I couldn't avoid it(who hits a deer at noon?). The outboard flew through the back window almost hitting me, landed on the dash, and spider webbed the windshield. I know it was noon on a Sunday because as I was finishing the bawling deer off with a tire iron, all of the blue hairs leaving the church 200 yards down the road were all rubbernecking.

[BassThumb]

Forgetting to trim the motor up when trailering and dragging my skeg across the slabs at the landing. The last 1/2" of my skeg is now flat on the bottom.