What have you hit out on the water?

[Jody_Seal]

Seen this morning from the race boat world.

 

At the 93 worlds Singapore I had to pull the boat and use the back up to finish the tournament due to the report from the driver that the transmission was slipping. When I pulled it out after the tournament Art and I found a 4X4 wedged and impaled on the front fin..... causing cavitation where it felt like the transmission had failed...

 

[lpskier]

I was skiing and my driver hit a common loon. Still feel bad about that.

 

One time skiing really close to shore (the only calm water available) with my dad driving I hit a rock with my ski and went flying. The rock was within 10 feet of shore. Haven’t made that mistake again.

[dvskier]

A snapping turtle, a big one. Launched me out of my ski.

[thager]

Underwater cable across river. My driver let us drift back over an area I told him to avoid before pulling me up. Cost me a drive shaft, prop and skeg repair. About 3K back in the early 90s.

[teammalibu]

My brother hit a 10ft long waterlogged

pier plank while barefooting! Badly bruised foot!

When we flipped it over there were several rusty nails sticking out!

[MattP]

Drove over a duck in the course once. He popped up and swam away dazed and confused.

[mfjaegersr]

From the observer seat, on a local river, my spidey senses were up as it felt like we were hugging the bank too much (particularly given we were the only boat out) so I commented to Buddy Boy. No more than 7 seconds after he gave me the dismissive wave off...we hit/sideswiped a 14” deadhead just below the surface. No real damage, beyond his emotional scar and poo-soaked shorty. ?

[skihacker]

Once was riding shotgun in a buddies m/c and i glance over to the driver and he had a really serious oh shite look on his face, and he's trying to tuck his head like a turtle. Wham goes a swan off the windshield, i kinda think the skier ran the pass but can't remember for sure.

[2Valve]

Sometimes I hit....my stride. :)

[kmenard]

It.

 

[bojans]

Back in the days of skiing on the Fox River it was fairly early in the season and while pulling a skier we felt a thud and then the boat had a terrible vibration. Assuming we had trashed the prop, we limped it back to the launch. When we pulled the boat out we saw we had hit an ~12" 2x4 with the front skeg. The board was still in pace . Knocked it loose and went back to skiing.

[Blake5982]

Not me, and not a boat, but I witnessed another club member barefooting stick partially submerged/floating fish carcass which impaled the bottom of his foot with a sizable bone...deep in his foot and still sticking out 3-4 inches. Back on shore we could not remove the bone (imagine a super sized barbed fish hook) and he ended up going to the hospital for removal.

[Horton]

ducks

[skibrain]

2 ball, 3 ball...

[Horton]

wasps

[Horton]

the bottom of the lake

 

[oldjeep]

Wasn't a lake, but I hit a piece of floating log in the St Croix river (with a ski not the boat)

[LakeOneSkier]

My limit.

 

And a rattlesnake.

[UWSkier]

Drop ski (not mine)

[eyepeeler]

"Iceberg right ahead!" Skiing in February just as the ice is coming off and throwing up ice on each turn down the course.

[MISkier]

I am waiting for someone to say "a gator".

[Jordan]

I hit a duck.

[ScottScott]

I was skiing, girlfriend was driving and another couple in boat. They said the boat hit something big just after exit gates. They all swore it was big enough that there was no other option but a gator.

 

I was driving someone through the course and a family of ducks passed through the boat lane. I chose not to try to avoid with someone going back and forth behind....saw most of the family later, but I can't imagine they all made it

[Broussard]

I hit a grass carp with my slalom ski once

[Fastguy888]

I ejected over the front hit / kicked the back of own my head with the back of my foot full scorpion.

 

My parents had left for 4th of July, I was 19 and had a good friend and some girls lined up for a day on Folsom Lake, CA. I had taken their California Skier out a few times with permission (without them). I strategically did not ask or mention I hoped to take it out on 4th of July in case they would have said No. They strategically placed one car in front of the boat that was in the garage and hid the key. I was able to rock crawl the boat through the front yard sideways out the garage without damaging it around said car (and back in). I had a friend whom had only driven an inboard once before pull me on what was surprisingly good water for the 4th on a public lake. Showing off I crashed, very hard full scorpion. Hurt my back bad but I was able to sort of walk. I tried to hide my injury when they got home and that was tough. Ultimately a week later my neighbors ratted me out. I almost could not stand straight for a month, but luckily I was able to go on with my active lifestyle without issue. 10 years later I started getting sharp pains in the same area of my lower back riding motocross. Chiropractor did some X Rays and said I must have broken my back years ago in that location. Luckily with help of Chiropractor, stretching, strength and fitness it no longer bothers me. Payback was a bitch though. Hope to share the story with my daughter when she is old enough to learn from it. My parents can laugh about most these bygones, but this one still a soar spot 24 years later.

[McGruder]

A gator. A gar. Cut the gar in half. The part we picked up spanned the swim deck. Hit the gator in an outboard - kicked the motor up real hard. Scared the heck out of the gator, but he was ok.

 

Another time, I was driving and a friend was teaching a blind kid to ski by holding on to him and skiing next to him. Friend was on a pair of tricks to ski at low speed. Made a 180 turn with the boat. Gator came up between boat and my friend and blind student. Friend went right over the back of the gator. Blind kid never knew. Friend's eyes were the size of saucers. All I could do was acknowledge I saw it. It was a very big one. Very big.

[Zman]

@MISkier Lol, I did come close to hitting a gator on Lake Tennessee in Auburndale, FL.

Worst thing I did hit in my early days in WV was a wood pole floating vertical with one end about an inch out of the water, I was in a toe hold barefooting. I went flipping through the air. The shock up my leg was crazy. Fortunately, the damage was not so bad. Lucky.

[lpskier]

I clotheslined a duck turning in for the gate. Knocked the duck out of the air and I let go. Duck got up, flew off, circled back and dive bombed at me while I floated in the water waiting for the boat. He was pissed!

[A_B]

Back in 1979 or so, I was skiing and out to the left of my 1977 SN when I see the transom kick up and hear it cavitate. My ski partner immediately shut down and we found a huge tree that was completely underwater. Bent the skegs, rudder, shaft, and prop.

 

I was out on a whip on a turnaround and there was a little chop and as I was doing Mach 1 and all of a sudden I see about an 8" diameter log pop slightly out of the water between the chop, directly in my path. I raised the tip of the ski and tried to jump. The tail hit the log and ejected me in an OTF. Ski was a EP Comp X2, and nothing happened to the ski. I was seeing stars. Not sure today's skis would take that hit.

 

All of the above was on the river. So glad we got off the river!

[ESPNSkier]

Once had a Diver Duck pop up just inside 1 ball as I was going through the gates. He tried to fly over the ball just as I was rounding it and ran smack into

my ski just ahead of my front boot. I didn’t fall but the pass was done and I looked back as I skied away but never saw the duck again.

[skiinxs]

When I was 16 I hit a large submerged log with the family's 19' Owens day cruiser (Wooden hull). I stopped to check the bilge and saw water coming in really fast. I yelled at my skier to get in the boat fast and took off back towards the boat ramp where I planned to get the trailer in to pull the boat. As I got close to the ramp the boat started coming off plane (at full throttle), so the back up plan was to beach the boat on the rocks, as I was almost there another boater was backing in his trailer. I did a quick mental compare to my trailer and decided it was close enough, cut off the other boater, and hit his trailer at full throttle (now down to about 5 mph). Luckily I hit it perfect! The driver jumps out of his car with an astonished look on his face and before he could say a word I yelled "pull it out it is sinking"! The driver complied and tried like hell to pull it out, but it was very heavy with all the water. over the next 15 minutes and a few moves up the ramp as the water drained out the 4" hole in the bottom of the boat we got the bottom of the boat level with the water and it all drained out. I backed my trailer in, stuffed my shirt in the hole and floated it off his trailer and on to mine.

[adkh2oskier]

Only hit 3 things skiing, 2 at tournaments, one free skiing. First time at a tourney I was just outside the wake as the boat made a hard turn to line up for the course. I was on the outside of the wake about 20' from shore trying not to sink and must have hit a log, full eject front flip. Got a re-ride and somehow not ski damage or injury.

Second time at a tourney must have hit a big Snapper from 4 to 5 ball at 28, right behind the boat. Face hit the water before I knew what had happened. Couple front flips, scorpion. Tried to ski second round but back was not good. Flattened the bottom of my fin, didn't realize it until about a week later when I tried to ski again.

Other hit was a bat to my chest while out free skiing at dusk, no injury to me, not sure about the bat.

[skiinxs]

One other notable experience. When running fast, hit a very large Asian carp with the WINDSHIELD!!! it bounced off the inside of the bimini top and then motor box then slapped my passenger sitting in the back in the face. There was blood everywhere, fortunately it was from the fish, not my passenger. Nasty stinky huge fish was DOA! Carpet and interior were a mess, it was hard getting a grip on the dead fish to get it out of the boat because it was so slimy and bloody. One more reason I like Seadek much better than carpet.

[BobF]

Great stories. I've hit fish and turtles with my ski. Got hit square in the forehead by a huge dragonfly once, during my gate pullout. Big enough to leave a mark. Funny thing was afterwards I can recall seeing it coming from a long way out, getting bigger and bigger until we collided. I remember thinking it was weird that neither one of us got out of the way.

[Andre]

Drop ski.(Mine!)

[Minelickskier]

@skiinxs those are great stories!

[skiinxs]

@Minelickskier Lots of years of boating and skiing to draw from:)

[igkya]

After skiing, enjoying a few beers and a late night cruise. My buddy was in the bow area and started screaming... We/(mostly him) hit a bat right in the head. Freaked him out, but I was LMAO.

[harrison_343]

Dad once lined up a coke can and hit it with the prop, had to limp 15 mins home to pull it off

[Hucklefin]

@bojans I don't know what fox river you used to ski on, but the Fox River that I ski on, I feel like there is constant imminent danger of hitting something. The river is very narrow, typically the first thing we do is make a run down and back scoping for logs and sticks and debris. Seems like we're moving stuff out of the way a high percentage of the outings.

[75Tique]

1985. Barefooting, hit something and it knocked me down. Driver came back and asked, "Did you hit that board?" I reached down to rub out the pain and my thumb went deep into a void between my heal and my foot. My heal was dangling off my foot like a broken saloon door. I had hit a board with the pointy end of a huge nail sticking up out of it and curved over like a hook. 10 minute ride back to the ramp, 30 minute ride back into town. 31 stitches to get it secured back in place. Fortunately, for some reason, it did not bleed.

 

[Zman]

@75Tique Dang! Just reading about your heal made me cringe. Yikes.

[ForrestGump]

I'd bought a ski nautique brand new in '96. About 3 weeks later we hit a waterlogged tree floating under the surface at 32mph on the big lake my parents lived on. It bent the tracking fins, bent the strut 45 degrees, turned the shaft into a pretzel, balled up the prop, and snapped the rudder clean off at the through hull fitting. Not one scratch in the gelcoat, though.

[Ed_Johnson]

First broken ankle was hitting a sunken coconut in my slalom course on the Wailua River in Kauai. Mid 90's on Animal Bindings. Switched to Powershells after 6 month recovery.

 

Second broken ankle was on the Turnpike Lake at Okeeheelee just when it was getting dark. At 35off, coming off one ball, just past centerline, a large gator surfaced right in front of me. Just like hitting a large log. Flipped the Gator over, as described by my Daughter, but I hit the water so hard and fast that it broke my nose and my front ankle in 2 places. When I asked the Doc how long before I ski again, he said you should be asking me if you'll ever WALK again...Lots of PT for over a year and a half before I could ever ski again with a fully taped up ankle.

 

 

[Jmoski]

Rock: 1, Tracking fin: 0

 

I went to look at a house for sale on the lake in a region I wasn’t familiar with, muddy bottom so no visibility, in 7 feet of water about 50 ft from shore I caught a rock piling just under the surface. Thank god I was going super slow and only the lead tracking hit it, the hull glided right over the top.

 

 

[Nando]

Driving a jump event years ago in a brand new Malibu promo- the owner had only driven it from the launch to the starting dock (no, I'm sure it was NOT properly broken in)- and on about the third skier I hit a submerged railroad tie going out the last set of gates. Pretty much destroyed the prop, bent the shaft and strut. Took us a while to find what I'd hit because it was floating just below the surface- I never saw it before I hit it. The owner was almost too nice about it but I felt terrible...

[Gashley]

New DV8 with only a few sets. Early spring skiing on the Tennessee river and hit a log. Didn't crash but totaled the ski.

[JayG80]

Really disappointed in BoneHead aka Forrest Gump. I wanted to hear about hitting a co-Ed.

[txskier]

I was cruising up Lake Austin early one spring morning to ski in my 79 S&S that I had just bought in the winter. All of the sudden it It was like the transmission locked up. I reacted quickly threw it in neutral and shut down. I slipped in the water to check the prop to see if it would turn and found a piece of 2X4 about 10 inches long lodged between the prop and rudder. Was able to get it out with no problem and it did not hurt anything. My lucky day I guess.