"Genius? Not!" wrote in message
. ..

Dude! - I can *so* relate!! I got a new Bayliner 175 Capri, and
struggled with almost all of the items you mentined. However, I
had the help of a experienced boater with me for the first few
outings, but I'm on my own now, so yeah, I can relate fully!
(and your piece is written pretty cool too!)

So that covers a lot of "logistics", but how about your actual
outting itself? Waves, dodging people, other boats etc?
So have you hit a wave yet and come down and landed so
hard that it knocked you senseless? I recently did this, and
don't know if I caused any damage, or if this is semi-normal,
or just how much of a slam landing a boat like this can take.

That whole backing up of the trailer *sucks*, and thats all
there is to it. (there is no sugar coating it). Might have to
do with the truck, and trailer design, but all I know is that
my 1996 F-150 4x4 w/ short box makes backing my boat
in a straight line very difficult (short wheel base on F-150
small box). Anyways, I found what helps is to take the
boat to the local school (school's out), and keep practicing
until you either go mad, puke, go silly, the tranny drops out,
or you get so fustrated that you back the thing thru the fence,
and on to the 4-lane highway, and a Mach truck takes it out
(in which case its game over). Being new to it, I make it a
point to go to the school before every outing, and again
on the way home from the outing before I get back home
so that I don't embarass myself in front of the neighbors.
Even then, I still sometimes handing up putting the thing
on the neighbors lawn. (but I'm getting better) The
challange for ME is that fricking gas meter upside the
house. I got 1 foot (max) between house/gas meter, and
the edge of the gravel RV pad and the neighbor's lawn
(and this really sharp concrete scallops lawn edging).
Taking out that gas meter really *WOULD* be "game over"...


Ok, so I'm new to boating and I've got an 18 foot boat with which to get
my
feet wet. Here's the first couple of dumbass things I've done with or to
my
new boat. Let's hope that I start learning from other people's mistakes
and
don't make the same one's twice. In fact, I wish that for everyone!

Did you know that when you raft up with a friends taller boat that
someone's
fender is going to rub the decal off your boat? No worries, it's a small
blemish (I'm sure it's not the last).

Did you know that the Sherriff doesn't like it when you create a wake in
the
no wake zone? Oops; seriously, it was a definition glitch (a wake is not
defined by the presence or absence of white water - a wake is a wake is a
wake). I got off with a warning, but had to suffer a prolonged discussion
as I was used as training material.

Did you know that when you tie your boat up alongside the open water side
of
the dock, and you tie it tight to the dock, that even with fenders, your
protective rubber trim will get knocked out of its track? In defense of
my
boating buddy, he told me not to tie it tight to the dock. The problem
was,
from a distance, it sounded like he told me to tie it tight to the dock.
Sigh. I did learn that those orange pfd's make great fenders.

Not last and not least, did you know that you should put the prop into
trailer mode the second you tie up to the launch dock? No damage on
pulling
up the ramp, but plenty of embarrassment.

Now for the piece de resistance. A writer I'm not, but I'll try to convey
the scene for you boat ramp sadists. We pull up to the dock and squeeze
in
behind a boat that was just launched. The boat in front is ready to go,
but
the boss went to park his trailer and the rest of us are stuck (at least
those of us that aren't quite ready for the delicate task of driving the
boat onto the trailer) waiting for his boat to move out of the way. Well,
I
had a great parking space so I was ready to back the trailer down as soon
as
the just launched boat found it's owner so it could pull away and let us
move our boat forward. My wife, an impatient woman, god love her, decides
she isn't going to wait for the boat to move, unties our boat, jumps in
the
water with the boat and walks it to the middle of the ramp. The first
thing
I know about this is when I look back (remember, still waiting for an
absent
owner to move his boat) and see my wife chest deep in water not even
holding
a dock line as the boat begins to turn sideways. Yeah, this is where I
start yelling at her 'cause I'm an ass and don't know what else to do.
Now
I have to back down (remember, I'm new to backing trailers) to the middle
of
the ramp (sorry folks, I know I'm taking up two spaces, but .... To make
matters worse, we can't agree on whether the boat is on the trailer
correctly (I'm worried about is to far to one side or the other and
hitting
the wheel well. Enough is enough and I pull the damn boat out of the
water
and out of the way only to have my kids run up and tell me the boat ain't
right. Ah crap! It probably wasn't as bad as it seemed, but it was
cockeyed on the trailer. I didn't realize that lined up means nothing if
the blasted thing is still floating when you start yanking it out of the
water. It gets even better. For some crazy reason (it's 5pm on a Sunday
night), there's a line a block long waiting to launch (someone's got to
explain this to me). I figure I'm not going anywhere until I reload my
boat, but the next guy in line with the sea doos, says hell no get in
line.
And so on. Anyway, we got the boat reloaded, correctly this time, but
we're
not speaking to each other for awhile (at least not anything nice - I'm
dying from the embarrassment of a wife who won't do what I tell her to do
and a hundred witnesses to that and to me not knowing what the hell I'm
doing with the boat. Maybe you can picture this; maybe not. It was
actually the next trip where I figured out why the boat didn't stay where
I
thought I had put it.

Hey, I'm sure there's more to follow, but I hope not!

Marty