“You can tell a new boater when”

mrsrobinson said:
This guy was a hoot, his 12ish year old son was on the boat with him. I was in the engine compartment, hear all this noise/yelling at the stern, freak out, jump out, see the dad yelling at the kid. The kid has some kind of battery operated toy that went out of control on the dock. He looks at my exhaust hose on the dock, asks "What's that?" I told him, he replies "That looks heavy, do you need any help?" I so wanted to say "No, not now, I already got it to the dock..."

What was interesting is his choice of music definitely did not match him. I am guessing he could not figure out how to change the channel but felt cool letting it play.

Later I see him wiping random things down. And he is hosing off the stern, no spray nozzle, just water running/dropping on it.

I laugh, but yeah, I was that guy, but only once ;-)
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18 years of owning a boat and I have never raised my voice to anyone in the family at the dock. Actually, I have only yelled at one person in the whole marina over that time and that was a lift operator who was too busy talking on his phone to realize my son and I were still on the boat and he was trying to put it in the rack. That ass hat got himself fired.

We see new boaters every year. Too many funny stories to get into. But my favorite ones are the overloaded boats. Every year it seems at least one guy puts his new to him 18 foot Bayliner (or similar high quality brand) in the slip and then you see the gang. Usually 4 to 6 other adults plus his wife averaging about 350 pounds each and the requisite compliment of small kids. Then all the adults sit in the cockpit and the kids pile in the bow. Then they aggressively back out of the slip, hitting the dock 6 or 7 times. Then they take off throwing a wake in the no wake zone. After they pass the no wake buoy they push the throttle to the stop and the poor little motor is working it's ass off to get all that weight out of the hole, while the bow is pointed to the sky. What is alarming about these instances is that the gunwales are about 6" above the water. If they come off plane to quickly the wave comes over the transom. I always worry about the kids. You can't tell these guys anything either.
 
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Usually this is attached to the front end of the car
 

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Halfhitch said:
Florida probably has the record for "most new boaters". Every year there are trainloads of new retirees showing up. All eager to spend a chunk of their nest egg on a shiny boat. One sure sign of a newbie I see regularly is not just leaving the fenders deployed while underway but fenders deployed driving down the hiway.
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you know if you have a Bayliner, ( no offense to Bayliner owners ) and the fenders aren’t hanging over the side while underway ,you can get a ticket
 
The thing I like is when a new boater is trying to dock and is constantly putting the engines in and out of gear like he is running a payloader. That always makes me chuckle.
 
Then there's running in a 10 foot deep no wake zone with the drive tilted up. Don't want to hit bottom after all.

Followed by forgetting to trim down and tossing a 15 MPH rooster tail all day.
 
I am anchored in a cove and it was pretty busy in there. The wind picked up and 2 rafting pontoons that had anchors out started drifting into me….. I got on the bow to push them off ……as they drifted past me they gave me shit for not anchoring properly and drifting into them…. Upwind…. :eek: True story
 
To lead into this, our marina put up channel markers and we just started to count how many boaters would go to the wrong side of Red Right Entering…simple easy rule to follow. We are at 90% of boaters get it wrong.

We have decided that 50% of those are new as most have almost hit the piling that the marker is on. They hug the pilings like they are doing a serpentine
 
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dwna1a said:
We have decided that 50% of those are new as most have almost hit the piling that the marker is on. They hug the pilings like they are doing a serpentine
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They're probably relying on their autocross prowess.
 
Really not to to hard to figure out who is new and who is not, they take a half hr at the ramp . 16 times to back up the trailer straight and then dont back in far enough to get the boat off the trailer and the are towing with a vehicle that is not rated to pull that much weight. I have a 2018 Silverado I use to pull my boat and combined vehicle weight rating fully loaded is towards the upper end of my vehicle weight limit. That is being safe and practical, 5000 plus pounds does not stop on a dime and leave change
 
Halfhitch said:
...One sure sign of a newbie I see regularly is not just leaving the fenders deployed while underway...
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Or, it's one of my rental pontoon boats and the fenders are non-removable because MOST renters ARE newbies, and even if not are still generally clueless!!
 
Ok a new one from the ramp. The guy unhooked the trailer from the truck, walked the trailer to and down the ramp to his new JetSki. Put the ski on the trailer and then backed the truck down the ramp to reconnect the trailer to the truck. Even the original owner of the marina, from back into the 60’s said he had never seen anything like this. The ski and trailer kept floating away from the truck. In this photo the ski is already on the trailer but it’s underwater.
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dwna1a said:
Ok a new one from the ramp. The guy unhooked the trailer from the truck, walked the trailer to and down the ramp to his new JetSki. Put the ski on the trailer and then backed the truck down the ramp to reconnect the trailer to the truck. Even the original owner of the marina, from back into the 60’s said he had never seen anything like this. The ski and trailer kept floating away from the truck. In this photo the ski is already on the trailer but it’s underwater.View attachment 135444
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Wow! That is the ONLY thing I can think of to say! Wow! :confused::confused:
 
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