Fishtales
April 6, 1998
Jim Pope had a scary experience with a boat that he was lucky to survive.
A NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE
Jim Pope
The year was 1977. A friend and I were fishing the Tennessee River out of Clifton, TN. That part of the river is actually the running water section of Kentucky Lake. My four- year old son was also along for the trip. We had fished Hardin's Creek until almost dark and were making the six mile run back to the marina.
At that time, I had a 15 «-foot Arrow Glass boat. I was breaking my young son into the great sport of fishing, so I purchased the Arrow Glass because it was a deep, solid boat. I somehow lost track of the safety factor when I hung a 135 hp Johnson on the tail end. The boat was rated for an 85, but everyone was doing that back then.
As we were headed down the river toward the Clifton Marina, the motor was at its maximum safe RPMs and was up on the pad rocking back and forth. Alternating sprays of water were popping up from the rear as the boat gently rocked from side to side. My son was sitting between my legs and holding on to the wheel. (He always loved doing that when he was small.) My friend was sitting in the pedestal seat in the rear of the boat. There was no rear casting deck, just an adjustable captain-type seat bolted to the floor.
It is actually difficult to clearly describe what happened that day. It happened so fast, there was no time to think. For a few seconds, we were at the mercy of the enormous forces generated by an out-of-control, high-speed mass of energy. The first thing I remember was the motor screaming as if we had jumped a barge wave. In an instant, the boat had turned 90 degrees and was in the air. It hit the water hard, then skipped - and skipped - and skipped..
We must have looked like a flat rock skipping across the water at about 60 MPH. I don't know how many times we skipped. I was far too busy holding on to my son with my left arm and holding on to the steering wheel with my right hand. Finally the skipping stopped, but the motor was still running wide open, and the boat locked in a hard left turn. It was only then that I was able to free my right hand and turn off the key.
After the boat came to a rest, the first thing I did was make sure that my son was OK. Thankfully, he was. I then called my friend's name. He answered, but when I looked over my left shoulder, he wasn't there. The force of the multiple impacts with the water had completely torn the big pedestal seat from the floor of the boat. My friend was still in the seat with his hands still locked on the arm rests. He was wadded up under the splash well along with the batteries and gas tanks. He, too, was OK.
A installation flaw had caused that near catastrophic accident. The bolt attaching the Teleflex rod to the motor had been installed from the bottom up. The non-locking nut had backed off, and the bolt had simply dropped out. The torque of the motor slammed it as far as it could rotate (which is much farther than it would turn if the steering was attached). The result could have been deadly.We all sat quietly for several seconds. A million thoughts went through my mind. Had the water been choppy, we would have certainly flipped. Had the boat flipped It was then that I realized how lucky we were.
After saying a prayer of thanks, I located the bolt, put things back together, and then wrapped some wire around the threads to keep it in place. When I got home, I rigged a locking nut by drilling a small hole through the nut and bolt and inserting a pin.
That was the first and last time my friend ever went fishing with me. Later that year, I traded that rig for a Polar Craft aluminum bass boat with a 50 hp Mercury. F
