Importance of Boat Maintenance

The whole world loves holidays. It is usually time to share happiness with friends and family. There are various activities that you may take part in during holiday like hiking, camping, visiting places etc. personally I love boat cruises. This is a tradition which emanated from my grandfather, who was a mariner. Then my dad followed suit when he became a captain of a major sailing company.

I’ve never been close to either of them in terms of my sailing experiences. Unlike them both who were sailing because it was part of their career, I usually do it for fun. I learned scuba diving, wakeboarding and other waters activities by the time I was 15. Therefore during my holiday, I love spending time with friends and having fun by participating in water activities.

Last year holiday was no different. Actually, it was the most romantic sailing experience because for the first time I would be having my girlfriend on-board together with a couple of friends. We started our tour from San Francisco Bay and we wanted to make a tour to Muri Woods and Sausalito.

The tour started sometime in the afternoon, and we were all excited about the opportunity to sight-see together. It was a great adventure and we cracked jokes, imbibed some drinks and had some snack while aboard my own motorboat. Everything was fine and all went well according to plans. We did a lot of sightseeing and the beautiful sights were really marvelous. Time seemed to pass a little bit first and soon we realized that evening was approaching. We decided to head back to the bay. However, the beauty of the evening did carry us, or maybe we were being controlled by the little alcohol that we had taken, because we decided to do  little exploring under the beauty of the moon before going back.

Improper Maintenance of Boats Can Cause Inconvenience in the Seas

It is during this time that the unexpected happened. The boats engines just stopped working. At first, I thought that it was a joke from my friend Kevin who was steering. However, after several attempts to get the engine up and running, I realized that we were in deep shit. The worst part is that I had detached my amateur radio from the boat a week earlier because it needed some repair. Also there was no cell coverage in the region, so we couldn’t make any calls. There were no people on sight and it was already past 8 in the evening.

There are usually many things which can go wrong with a boat, but I couldn’t think of any of them. It was a while since I had done either any mechanical checks on the boat or any maintenance and this was something to be worried about especially, since we were stuck in the middle of nowhere at night. I tried to calm my friends who had already panicked as Kevin and I tried to detect and solve the problem at hand.

No good results were forthcoming even after several attempts to detect the results of the mechanical failure. There wasn’t much that we could do or check because we were stuck in waters and hence there wasn’t a way that we could remove any part of the engine or propeller to check. We only concentrated in trying to solve the problem from the cock pit unsuccessfully.

Equipment for Signaling for Help Should Always be on a Boat

The more time went by, the more we became frustrated. We couldn’t think of anything better to do than to wait for people cruising by and signal them for help. Fortunately, this happened sometime at around 10pm when we noticed a boat approaching. Immediately we started to shout for help as we repeatedly flashed the torches.

The people on the boat may have realized that we were in trouble because they heeded to our calls. They approached us and to our surprise it was a search team. Apparently, the parent of one of my friends on board and become concerned after he didn’t show home on time and after investigating, they learned that we had gone sailing that afternoon. Therefore the parents contacted the authorities and search parties were dispatched.

We were able to be taken home safely, but I was later charged because I was the designated driver, yet I was drunk when I was found. The boat was also taken for repair, and I later learned that the boat’s propeller was damaged bad enough that it strained the bearing and seals around it causing the malfunction and eventually the entire breakdown. This taught me a great lesson of always checking your boat before leaving and the need to maintain it appropriately after every ride to ensure that all is well with it.