North Australian FISH FINDER forums

Have you ever sunk a boat accidentally? If so, how?

I had a very lucky and unlucky incident recently at the Ski club ramp.

It was a few months back and I launched the boat by my self, I pulled the boat up to the beach and stuck the snad anchor in. I then pushed the boat out a bit so the falling tide would not strand the boat too much while I took my time packing up and securing the ute.

I got back to the boat about 5 minutes later and started the outboard put it in forward and nearly flipped the boat over nose to tail

One thing about false floors is you dont see all the water lurking in the bottom, and you can not bail with a bucket
I cthought I know I put the bungs in......I stuck my hand over the trqansom and had a feel around while trying not to let any more water over the back.....one of the bungs had split and half of it had come out WTF
Still in shock I managed to slowly motor over to the ramp and sit the boat on its bottom there.

I gave the winch on the trailer a bl..dy good work out to tip it up enough to start to drain.

Idont want that to happen again

6 years ago yesterday! Try 32 hours in the water off Dundee. It was a near death experience unfortunately, but that deep down need to see my family again made the difference in the end. I wrote a bit of a yarn about it after the event.

Years ago I had a little stessl boat of some descript. I lived on the Central Coast of NSW. Early one very cold winters day, I went to the local Brisbane Waters ramp, at Saratoga. Its only a small ramp, and has a ferry wharf right beside it. A regular small ferry comes to take punters to the Woy Woy trains.

About 6.00ish just as the sun is poking up, I got to the ramp. I did the usual boat ramp u turn, and was about to get out to untie and take the lights off the trailer, when a bloke walks up beside me, and is having a chat through the troopies open window. Now I was pretty tired and after a bit he said "run it down bloke, I will hold her for you"

Without thinking I start to reverse down a cold slippery ramp. Suddenly I think "Oh, gotta untie the boat" Hit the brakes, but it just kept going back. And back. And back.

Splash, the whole F&%$ lot goes in, boat tied to trailer, car and Chris in the drivers seat.

i stuck the troopie in first then second to try to get some forward action happening, as she was floating pretty good, but the current got me.

I decided to bail out (in my heavy woolens mind you. Each time I tried to get out, the car tried to roll on top of me.

Eventually I dived out,so I pulled the handbrake on (yes I did) and dived but I was about 50 metres from shore. I decided best to go for the boat, which was doing a good job of holding the trailer and rear of the car up.

As i went for the boat, out of the light mist looms the ferry.

You all know what happens next dont you? He tried to keep it port to port,(read I scared the sh$% out of him and he took evasive action, but he just knicked the boat as I tried to pull myself in. He hit the opposite side to what I was climbing up, which was just enough to lift his side, and my side started to fill with water. Didnt take long, and well the good ship " Casting Couch 1" became a gazzunder. Down she went, pulling the car with it. Lost the lot, including fishing gear, tools car the whole lot. And had to doggie paddle to shore. Where about a hundred oldies who were out walking asked me the same questions a hundred times while I stood freezing and penniless

The ferry later dinged the roof of my sunken car with its prop.

A few hours later I had to swim out again so the biggest tow truck I have ever seen could tow me out. I had to swim the cable out. He charged extra to tow the boat and trailer out too.... Just magic. I reckon if I had cut the tie down, the boat would have floated alright on its under seat/floor buoyancy, it would have been full but on top....

Only the car was insured, but I later go the old merc 25 to fire again, and kept the trailer boat and motor for another 3 years (two up here)

if you ever see a mustard colored Stessle with a 25 horse merc and stainless prop running about with a bow mount electric, she is the one. Its still running as far as I know

No but I threatened too out a Manton Dam last year. The Master and Commander had thrown me off at the boat ramp as per usual, and then just wandered off to do his own thing. The wind kept blowing me into the weeds as I tried to keep out of everyone elses way and I was in a poop of a mood to start with so this was not doing me any favours.

Told the Master and Commander to come and get his f'n boat before I f'n sink it! Not sure if he heard exactly what I said, but one of his customers filled him in at work the following week.

Well I've written this somewhere else but I'll tell it again. A few years ago we had my birthday weekend down at the Daly (fresh side) We had three boats and about 21 people at our camp. We had a couple down there from the U.K that had flown in on the Friday so it was a bit of a culture shock for them. I gave all the newbies the usual spiel (be aware of crocs, don't sit with your back to the water blah blah blah) then me and my wife took out the bloke from the U.K. I should add that my wife caught her first legal barra in the morning and we had the photos safely stored on our digital camera. We flew upstream about 1km then switched to electric power and cruised down flicking at snags. I snagged my lure close to the bank so I went to turn around and get it. All of a sudden we hit an underwater snag and I was thrown from the boat with my legs still in the boat which let a fair bit of water over the side. The pommy bloke fell in also which just left my wife in the boat. This would have been o.k because she tipped out the esky and started to bail except the pommy fella was panicking a fair bit and was trying to get back in the boat. This just let more water in and in seconds the boat was under. I tied the bow rope to a snag above the water, grabbed my tackle bag and I followed the others to the bank. We spent the next 2 hours picking up anything that was floating down the river and retrieving the boat. All up we lost 1 Curado, 1 custom rod, sunnies, digital camera (with fish photos), 1 landing net,1 deep cycle battery, 1 Abu 6500 with $100 rod, buggered my Minn Kota electric and it cost me $300 to get the outboard running right again. I'll also add that in the morning I lost what would still have been my PB barra and that night I nearly had my head blown off by a firecracker that tipped over. Happy birthday?? I've had better

Was fishingat the elizabeth river for the first time with a work mate. I had recently had my outboard fixed and wanted to take my tinni for a run. Fred also wanted to give his a run so we ended up taking two boats for two people. We decided to drop the crab pots up a small side creek and then sit back for a fish. I managed to land a few small goldies and a couple of bream. I only had a hessian bag so I wet it and put the fish on the floor with it covering them. Fred and I went to check the pots and decided it would be easier if I anchor my boat and get aboard his to help pull the pots. My boat being maybe 10m from the creek mouth. As we enterd the creek we noticed a 3-4 m croc on the bank and he slid in as we went past. After pulling the pots heading back to the main river we noticed some stuff floating in the water, little did I know it was all mine.... manage dto gather the floating beers (need one after that), tackle box and not much else. Managed to flip the boat back over which was lucky as the canopy was up, or under which ever eway you look at it. after bailing most of the water out I was towed back to the ramp. Once on the trailer we noticed that there was what looked like large scratch marks on the rear of the boat where my live and kicking fish once were. Still not sure if the croc thought easy meal or what happened, lost all my rods sounder portable GPS and a few other items. Motor was repaied at B & H Marine $900 later, still had problems so bought a dam new motor, It was quite an expensive trip.

Lucky you were'nt in the boat when the croc decided to come over the side tinni!

Not a boat a canoe in the Katherine river, needless to say the school teahcer want very happy as it was one that had been hand made by the year 12 class as a final project! woops..I think his comments were ' well I guess you will be swimming back then Mr Grey!!

Yep heaps of times, that being if SLSA jet boats and IRBs count

Andy Grey wrote:Not a boat a canoe in the Katherine river, needless to say the school teahcer want very happy as it was one that had been hand made by the year 12 class as a final project! woops..I think his comments were ' well I guess you will be swimming back then Mr Grey!!

Managed to do the same Andy, getting swamped at galloping jacks. My mate and his old man organise an all boys canoe trip there every year camping at different spots over a few days going down the river. I lost a bit of gear to the bottom mainly my fishing gear, plus 2 cartons worth of beer came out of the foam box and floated amongst the watching crowd swimming the area.

During my time in the RAAF I was a regular at Francis Creek Dam as a part of the Tindal Water Ski Club. During thoses times it was a busy and sucessful club.

As usual we left Tindal straight after work on the Friday to arrive at the dam in time to launch the boat (Gilflight 190 with a 350 Mercruiser) and have a couple of skis before dark. We would then tie the boat up on a pontoon we built and leave it there overnight.

After a big night on the rum I woke up at 7:00am and went down to the pontoon to brush my teeth. The boat was missing and at first I thought it must have come loose and drifted. I then looked down to see the boat under water. We could stand on the gunwhale and just have our heads above water.

Two of us raced back to Tindal to get a pump and compressor. Someone already had three tractor tubes.

We positioned the tubes under the boat and filled them with air. The boat lifted so there was only 1 or 2 inches of gunwhale out of the water. We them pumped the remaining water out and towed the boat to the ramp for retrieval.

Once out of the water an inspection revealed a crack in the fibreglass midships where the skeg mounts. This crack had gone unnoticed. The boat was less than 4 years old at the time.

We then towed the boat back to Tindal and drained the water from the engine. After flushing it a few times with kero we filled it with oil and started it no problem. We ran it until it was at operating temp then drained and refilled the oil again. By 9:00pm the motor was going again.

The motor continued to run with no further problems. We then repaired the hull and increased the strength around the skeg.

The boat was eventually sold in Feb 1999 and sent down to Broken Hill. The club then bought a new Flightcraft and named it Faceplant. I believe the club has been left to run down now but I have seen the Flightcraft a couple of times between Darwin and Palmerston.

no but ive seen it happen