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Old 10-06-2015, 09:51 AM
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ricki ricki is offline
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Default Securing unmanned boats while underway


Owls Head near Rockland, the area of the rescue.


The Maine Marine Patrol secured a lobster boat running in circles out of control with no one at the wheel. I am sorry Robert Staples passed away before help arrived. The Marine Patrol secured things well in a bad situation. More about the story including video at: https://www.facebook.com/54460692233...3/?pnref=story


I had a similar experience when I was 16. Some rich kid had just taken on fuel on his way overpowered and overloaded hydroplane at Lauderdale Marina. The weight of the fuel, minimal freeboard with the large outboard saw the boat sink stern first in short order. I was getting fuel myself and offered to locate and salvage the kid's boat. We agreed to a price and he promptly left in a hurry to make a date? The boat had drifted over the bottom about 75 ft. towards the 17th Street Causeway bridge in about 18 ft. of water in the tidal current but had stayed upright.


A slightly older but in someways similar hydroplane.

I took some plastic drums down as lift containers down tied them to the stern, inflated them with my handy low pressure air gun nozzle off my regulator and lifted the stern and outboard off the bottom. I also pulled the bilge plugs to allow water to eventually drain out. Then I tied a line to the bow cleat and secured it to the stern of my boat. It was a simple matter to plane the sunken boat to the surface and pull it around at speed until the water drained out. Well, the boat was dry and on the surface but the plugs were still out. If we stopped the tow the damn thing might sink again before we could do anything about it. So, my friend Denis, Dirk's dad, swung by the marina at speed where I dove overboard, swam up to the dock and hitched a ride on another boat. I had the guy pull up at speed by the hydroplane, I jumped across and inserted the plugs and all was done. Denis towed the hydroplane back to the fuel dock, tied it up and I called the kid to collect his boat.


The scene in Ft. Lauderdale the next year with Lauderdale Marina and Pier 66.
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