Mistakes Made

Let’s face it. Everybody makes mistakes. Some of us make lots of them. We burn the bacon, forget to lock the front door after leaving the house, totally blow by somebody’s cherished birthday or other milestone, or wander endlessly in the aisles of the supermarket, struggling to remember what it was that brought us there in the first place. And our boats? Well, unfortunately, they’re not exempt from this pesky phenomenon. Not by a long shot.

Indeed, even a bunch of guys who’ve worked for years at marine publications like Power & Motoryacht and Anglers Journal are perfectly capable of occasionally pulling off dumb boat-related head-scratchers. So here, dear reader, are a few choice examples. We hand them over to you now in an attempt to help you avoid some of the embarrassing, expensive and/or even dangerous slipups we’ve made ourselves.

FENDER BENDER

It pains me to admit this, but after leaving my slip one fine morning a month or so ago, I simply forgot to pull in my fenders. And, I suppose, during the jaunt that ensued, nobody pointed this oversight out to me via my VHF radio because boaters are so nice in northern Florida and southern Georgia. At any rate, tragically, the seas were rather sporty that day—sporty enough to cause the upper edge of the big midship fender to rhythmically bounce, slam and rub against the starboard hullside of my boat as she proceeded through the water, thus causing a 2-inch-by-1/2-inch gouge to appear in both the hull’s Awlcraft 2000 acrylic urethane paint and the primer underneath.

Cost of the repair? Still to be determined as of this writing. But it ain’t gonna be cheap, I predict. On the upside, though, this whole awful affair brings up a useful point. Certainly, we’ve all heard the experts tell us that the failure to pull in your fenders is the mark of a lubberly, deplorable neophyte without a brain in his or her head. And yeah, that may be true most of the