How NOT to load a boat onto a boat-trailer

Toydesigner · 2 Aug 2012

Port Vincent being a popular summertime tourist destination has all types of people coming & staying here, including a few, " upper-class Snobs, " who quite often are NOT so," upper-class, " as they seem to, " think they are "
This story happened about four years ago, right in front of our friendly, " Mr.Plod," who, was having a friendly chat with me, & some friends at our local Marina Boat-ramp. One of my friends is an avid weekend fisherman, & so is the local, " Mr.Plod. "( who was in casual clothes at the time ) Anyway we were talking away, leaning against my mate's dinghy, when we noticed this big flash half-cabin cruiser motoring into the second ramp, and one guy hopped off, ran up to an equally flash 4x4, with a decent size tandem-axle boat-trailer attached. Attempted to smartly reverse down the boat-ramp in front of us, ( couldn't reverse for all the tea in china, so to speak ), so he uncoupled the trailer, & pushed it down the ramp in front of us, then hopped back into the 4x4, reversed that down the incline, and hooked up to the boat-trailer. Guy at the helm of the boat, very slowly, and carefully lined up the big cruiser with the trailer rollers, and basically half drove the boat onto the trailer. First guy by this time had worked out how the trailer winch worked, ( nice electric unit ), and hooked up winch to boat coupling, and winched boat onto trailer. Naturally they gave us the, " nose-in-the-air, " attitude, along with a few choice descriptive words,- BUT in their big hurry, they made a few mistakes,- ( 1 ) forgot to put the safety lock onto the winch, and, ( 2 ), worse,- forgot to attach the safety coupling beween the boat and the trailer, result when the driver, " planted his foot," on the pedal, sped off the ramp, Boat came off the trailer onto the concrete ramp with an almighty, " C-R-A-S-H !! " The driver slammed on the brakes, chucked a U-turn, pulled alongside the very leaning Cabin-cruiser. Both guys hopped out, one pulled out his mobile phone, and began dialing. Our, " Mr.Plod, " casually walked over to them, and with a straight face, said, " Don't bother calling the Police mate,- I'm right here !!!!! "
( or words to that effect ), You should have seen the " L-O-O-K," on their faces. They didn't know what to say, or how to react. My mates were joking about THAT for weeks afterwards. As for the two, " Upper-class," guys,- never saw them in town again,- maybe they were too embarassed to show themselves !!!
'ave a happy day,
Roger

Chems · 2 Aug 2012

I want to read it. I just can't make it further than a few lines, it needs some serious paragraph help and a war on quotation marks and commas to sort it out some!

Tom K · 2 Aug 2012

Why would they call the Police. Over here the last thing you would want is to see "Plod" when you have been acting like an *******.

Toydesigner · 3 Aug 2012

Tommo, - They HAD an Audience looking on,- me & my four mates along with the occupants of the nearest town house about fifty meters,( yards ) away, and anyone else close by, AND our local, " Mr.Plod," has an extremely good sense of humour, although one wouldn't want to get on his wrong side, as he is a, " Big Boy," with a very Big voice too.

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Here in my street, I live alongside an intersection, which also has two Spoon Drains running across it,- one square on to Germein Street, the second on an angle, and the crown of the road between both drains is a bit over-designed to put it mildly. Us locals are well aware of the, " speed trap, " Tourists nearly always get caught,- come, roaring down the side street, and, " WHUMP,- CRASH,- THUMP, " One day a couple in an up-market imported, Bright Yellow, Low-Slung, 2 door Open-top Sports Car came tearing down the street, noses in the air to all us locals !! Hit the first spoon drain so hard the car became Airborne, totally cleared the hump in the middle of the intersection, and crashed down heavily, nose end down, on the other side of intersection,- then drove very slowly along the remainder of the street, leaving a trail of oil along the road, and the engine instead of," purring, " was going, " Chuff ! Chuff !, Chuff !, Chuff ! Last week the same couple in the same coloured low-slung 2-door sports car came along the street,- this time driving very S-L-O-W and carefully. Actually stopped at the intersection, then proceeded across extremely S-L-O-W-L-Y. at almost, " snail's pace !! "

Methinks they had a very expensive repair job, and probably learnt a very expensive lesson at the same time !!!

'ave a good day,
Roger

Phil Pascoe · 3 Aug 2012

Tom K":klne0cjc said:
Why would they call the Police. Over here the last thing you would want is to see "Plod" when you have been acting like an *******.

Joy! Good to know someone still spells ******* properly!