*JimH* wrote:
wrote in message
ups.com...
Ran aground, couldnt power off, tide rising so I'm ok, just settin
reading the paper waitin. 20' power boat comes by, offers help, I
explain bout the tide, he insists his boat can pull me off. I foolishly
agree just to shut him up. Tie a 1/2" nylon line to my bow cleats,
before I can say anything, he gets a running start and cannot hear me
yelling for him to stop. He takes off, line goes taut, he seems to
stop dead as part of his transom tears off and then flies in a
beautiful arc over my bow to splash in the water behind me, bummer.
Instead of sinking, he manages to beach his boat about 50' away and
walks back to his truck. Should I offer him any compensation at all?
I did offer to give him some fiberglass cloth and resin.


I expect to hear:

Oops...my bad.

Truth is, I did sorta know this guy many years ago. At that time, I
had a problem with my old Yanmar 1gm engine and he was described as the
local inboard mechanic. This was at a time when there were really no
local mechanics working on diesels and he said he could diagnose my
problem (wouldnt reach high rpm). While I lounged int he cockpit, he
climbed into the locker to measure compression, seemed reasonable to
me. He told me to push the starter button which I did for a few
strokes and then there was a loud "POP" from the locker followed by
cursing. Turns out he had decided to make a fiting for an automotive
compression guage allowing it to be held in the same position as the
injector. The POP was the guage bursting cuz he hadn't thought of the
much higher compression of the diesel. I did pay him for his effort
then and even though I knew diesels have really high compression, I was
so impressed by his attempt at weird engineering that in a way I had to
admire his effort. I didnt know his poor judgement was a pattern...
Later, a mechanic simply pointed an infrared thermometer at my exhaust
and declared it was partially clogged, problem solved, amazing.
I s'pose I was just too relaxed about his offer to help this time.