Today was pleasant - some sun, light breeze, mid 60s - so I took my new
homebuilt flatiron skiff out for a row along the Erie Canal near Utica,
NY. I also took my fishing rod, of course; trolling while rowing is
sort of like killing two birds with one stone - one exercises and goes
fishing at the same time. Anyhow, it was a quiet day on the canal - I
saw four boats in total - two larger sailboats transiting the canal, and
two smaller powerboats out for a Sunday cruise. In particular, there
was a 16 foot open bow trihull that launched just as I was getting back
within a quarter mile of the launch ramp. There were four guys in it,
and it zoomed up the canal and back again in joyful abandon (at least,
they looked like they were having fun). I get close enough to the ramp
to reel in my line and sort of get ready to land (there are no docks at
this launch - just a concrete ramp cut into a bank that is heavily
riprapped with big honking boulders, making solo launches and landings
interesting). I look downwind, and notice the trihull sort of adrift in
the middle of the canal, with the cover off the outboard and very
ominous noises coming from the vicinity of the motor.

Well, if you are running a boat you're a mariner, even if it's only a
rowboat on a freshwater canal, and a vessel in distress imposes certain
obligations. I row down and ask if they need help. The boat was just
purchased, used, for $6,000. The motor does not start. There is no
paddle aboard (no PFDs either). They can't swim. There is no line
aboard. This is a canal, so the water is 10 feet deep four feet from
the shore. They are beginning to realize they stand a good chance of
being *very* late for supper. Fortunately, I have a long painter that
snaps into my bow eye, a sculling notch in the center of the transom,
and a couple of cleats on the gunwale. Pass the snap end of the line to
the trihull and tell them to snap it to their bow eye. Lead the line
through the sculling notch and make fast to a cleat. Shorten up the
oars a bit and begin to row. Fortunately, it's only a couple of hundred
yards, and the wind is light. Get to the launch ramp, find one of their
buddies standing there, pass him the line, and beach both boats on the
ramp. It would have been a lot easier except these four guys in that
boat were BIG - easily half a ton of manflesh involved there, indeed,
when dead in the water that poor trihull had between 4 and 8 inches
freeboard. Of such boaters are statistics made, I guess.

The *really* amusing part was watching four guys with a cumulative IQ of
about 25 and lacking the sense God gave geese faced with the problem of
getting a beached boat onto a trailer with neither power, paddles, nor
line. They finally managed it and nobody drowned, though the Keystone
Kops could have learned a few things about silliness from the spectacle.
Then, boat on trailer, drain plug pulled, they drove off, blissfully
ignorant of little things like tie-downs for gunwale and transom (that
boat was bouncing several inches off the bunks as they drove across the
rough parking lot).

I was laughing all the way home, and feeling very smug and almost
righteous. Proud of my little boat, too - she was more than up to the
rescue.