{"id":5303,"date":"2025-02-25T10:07:24","date_gmt":"2025-02-25T10:07:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/krogragg.com\/?p=5303"},"modified":"2025-02-25T10:07:24","modified_gmt":"2025-02-25T10:07:24","slug":"ignoring-a-warning-sign-ruins-a-day-of-boating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/krogragg.com\/?p=5303","title":{"rendered":"Ignoring a Warning Sign Ruins a Day of Boating"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>    Ignoring a Warning Sign Ruins a Day of Boating<br \/>\n \t<BR><br \/>\n<BR><\/BR><br \/>\n    <!-- no image --><br \/>\n \t<BR><br \/>\n<BR><\/BR><\/p>\n<div>\n<section class=\"hydra-container\">\n<div class=\"hydra-canvas\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.boatingmag.com\/uploads\/2025\/02\/BTG225-ILAB-Warning-1024x768.jpg?resize=800%2C600&#038;ssl=1\" class=\"hydra-image\" alt=\"Boat towed back to the dock\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1400px) 100vw, 1400px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.boatingmag.com\/uploads\/2025\/02\/BTG225-ILAB-Warning-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.boatingmag.com\/uploads\/2025\/02\/BTG225-ILAB-Warning-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.boatingmag.com\/uploads\/2025\/02\/BTG225-ILAB-Warning-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.boatingmag.com\/uploads\/2025\/02\/BTG225-ILAB-Warning-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.boatingmag.com\/uploads\/2025\/02\/BTG225-ILAB-Warning.jpg 2000w\">                <\/div><figcaption class=\"caption margin_top_xs full border_1 hydra-figcaption\">\n                <span class=\"hydra-image-caption\">Ignoring warning signs can sometimes leave you stranded.<\/span><br \/>\n                <span class=\"article_image_credit italic margin_right_xs\">Tim Bower<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/section>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"wxuzj5efbz\" src=\"https:\/\/boatingmag.dragonforms.com\/wxuzj5efbz\" height=\"150\" width=\"100%\" style=\"border:0; width: 100%;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>It was a beautiful August afternoon in Maryland, and my fianc\u00e9e, her granddaughter, and I decided to take my 28-foot cabin cruiser down the South River and out into the Chesapeake Bay to the picturesque Thomas Point lighthouse, 5 miles from the marina. Once there, we decided to visit Annapolis, about 7 miles farther across open water dotted with crab traps. We went down Ego Alley and meandered through nearby Back Creek before heading home. I had noticed the voltmeter reading low and slowly dropping, but I pushed on.<\/p>\n<p>The seas had picked up to about 2 feet on our bow, making for a rough ride. Suddenly, the boat jerked and veered hard to starboard. I looked around and saw the anchor line leading behind our boat, pulling a crab-pot float (more on this later). The anchor had jumped off its hook and deployed. We stopped the boat, and I hauled in the anchor, which had its shank bent 45\u00a0degrees.<\/p>\n<p>I went to restart the boat and nothing. Both banks of batteries were apparently dead. I thought about checking the engine compartment, but the boat was rocking a lot.<\/p>\n<p>We donned life jackets, and I called TowBoatUS. I deployed the anchor again, but we kept drifting because it would not dig in. We were lying sideways to the 2-foot seas, and the cooler and refrigerator down below upchucked their contents. The granddaughter also upchucked her contents all over the cockpit.<\/p>\n<p>Ninety minutes later, Capt. Greg with TowBoatUS showed up and towed us safely back to our marina.<\/p>\n<p>We made it in before dark. Upon raising the boat on its lift, I noticed that there was a metal crab pot firmly wrapped around the prop. So, we would not have been able to make it home, even if I had found and fixed the loose battery connections that had prevented the motor from restarting.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read Next:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.boatingmag.com\/how-to\/the-importance-of-wearing-a-life-jacket-2\/\">The Importance of Wearing a Life Jacket<\/a><\/p>\n<p>What we did right: donning life jackets, keeping calm, deploying the anchor to slow our drift, and having three working cellphones and a handheld VHF. Had I gone into the engine compartment to troubleshoot, I could have been injured with the severe rocking.<\/p>\n<p>What we did wrong: not fully checking everything before leaving the boat slip, not stopping in Back Creek to check the voltage drop, and not staying clear of the crab-pot area. I have since installed locknuts on the battery connections to keep them secure and tight.<\/p>\n<p><em>Jim Anderson<br \/>Davidsonville, Maryland<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Wanted: Your Stories<br \/><\/strong><em>Share your boating mistakes and mishaps so that your fellow boaters might learn from your experience. Send us your first-person accounts, including what went wrong, what you\u2019d do differently, your name and your city, to\u00a0editor@boatingmag.com\u00a0and use \u201cILAB\u201d in the subject line. If your story is selected for publication, we\u2019ll send you a $100 West Marine Gift Card!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.boatingmag.com\/how-to\/ignoring-a-warning-sign-ruins-a-day-of-boating\/\">Ignoring a Warning Sign Ruins a Day of Boating<\/a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.boatingmag.com\/\">Boating Mag<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> \t<BR><br \/>\n <BR><\/BR><br \/>\n    Jim Anderson<br \/>\n \t<BR><br \/>\n<BR><\/BR><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.boatingmag.com\/how-to\/ignoring-a-warning-sign-ruins-a-day-of-boating\/\">Go to boatingmag<\/a><br \/>\n \t<BR><br \/>\n <BR><\/BR><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ignoring a Warning Sign Ruins a Day of Boating Ignoring warning signs can sometimes leave you stranded. Tim Bower It was a beautiful August afternoon in Maryland, and my fianc\u00e9e, her granddaughter, and I decided to take my 28-foot cabin cruiser down the South River and out into the Chesapeake Bay to the picturesque Thomas [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2168,126,175,2449,2561],"tags":[127],"class_list":["post-5303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boating-safety","category-boatingmag","category-how-to","category-i-learned-about-boating-from-this","category-march-2025","tag-boatingmag"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/krogragg.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5303"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/krogragg.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/krogragg.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krogragg.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krogragg.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/krogragg.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5303\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/krogragg.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krogragg.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/krogragg.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}