I know a bit about sailboats. Powerboats? Not so much. I own a 23’ Proline center console, fishing boat, which I keep at a marina in the panhandle of Florida. I recently decided to move the boat from one marina to another one about 75 miles away but closer to our home in South Georgia. Since I hadn’t used the boat trailer in over two years and don’t trailer often, I was very cautious about moving the boat. I had the trailer checked out to ensure that the tires and electrical system were in working condition. My son and I retrieved the boat from the marina and motored the short distance to the boat ramp and hooked it up to the trailer. We seemed like we knew what we were doing!
We drove the 75 miles to Alligator Point, FL, where I had arranged to have the trailer sit overnight in a parking area. The plan was to drive it to the new marina the next day. That morning, I got an email from my friend who had given permission to use the parking area that said, “Nice boat. However, I hear the radio is on, better check your battery”. Oh no! I had forgotten to turn off the battery! We trailered to the new marina and got the boat in the water. Sure enough, the battery was too low to crank up the engine. Fortunately, the marina had a portable charger, which was sufficient enough to start the engine. However, as soon as the dock master hooked up to the battery, the bilge pump starts pumping out water. He looked at me and asked, “Did you put in the drain plug?” Of course not! While I had properly taken the plug out when I pulled the boat from the water, my inexperience led me to forget to screw it back on before putting the boat back in.
I ran to the car and put the trailer back in the water. About 30 minutes and gallons of water later, we screwed the plug in and re-launched the boat. After jumping the motor, we ventured out for a grand afternoon on the water, no further incidents. While I was totally bummed for missing the step of turning off the battery, I realized that without that dead battery, we may have motored off from the marina with the drain plug out and potentially sunk the boat in the gulf! Sometimes, things happen that we don’t immediately understand but can appreciate later.
OK, so two wrongs DON’T make a right. However, as I write in my new book, Grounded, (get it here www.davidpeterson.com/buygrounded), you should have a checklist for important things, especially when you don’t do them that often. Lesson learned for the Grounded author, and another example that achieving Groundedness in a lifelong pursuit …
P.S. I was telling a realtor friend about my boating adventure and he offered to give me his boating checklist, what you do at the beginning and end of each boating trip. Score!!!
