No water needed

While randomly scrolling a social media boating page, a post on the page asked, “What’s your most memorable moment towing a boat?”

I replied, and realized it’s a story that a few of you may get a kick out of.

Here’s a warm and funny memory of a day we spent together, picking up a boat, although, to be perfectly honest, some parts of this story weren’t funny at the time. But in retrospective memory, they certainly are.

A good old U.S. Marine buddy of mine, who has since passed of cancer, bought a 1988 Bayliner Cabin Cruiser.

He knew the history of the vessel and knew the late owner’s mother quite well, so although it wasn’t completely sight unseen, he really didn’t know what we were getting into.

The boat had been moored at a yacht club/marina northeast of Detroit. 

He talked me into driving him up to pick it up in a truck he had borrowed for the occasion.

We make the four-hour drive from east central Indiana up to Mount Clemens and find the boat not moored in the marina. It was sitting up on blocks in the boat’s long-term storage area, with no trailer.

He wheels and deals to find a used tandem axle trailer and after several hours of cajoling, cussing and coaxing, we get that huge vessel loaded up on this trailer that it wasn’t really meant for.

We manage to get rolling down the highway with this massive 28-foot, heavy behemoth of a boat, with the borrowed truck, which incidentally was merely an early 1990s era Chevy with a 4.3-liter, 6-cylinder engine.

It was all that truck wanted to haul that old Bayslammer up the big concrete mountain there along Dearborn on Interstate 75. 

The Chevy got it done, but the most harrowing moment was on Interstate 75 near Lima, Ohio.

My friend kept insisting we could make it to a fuel stop where he had an account, but I kept insisting we were going to run out.

I was driving and literally could see the fuel gauge go down in real time as that poor, old truck sucked down the petrol.

We ran out and I literally coasted, out of gas, down the freeway ramp, blew the stop sign at the bottom, and rolled up to the gas pump at a Speedway gas station, completely out of gas, with that huge boat and trailer blocking the entrance, but close enough to the pump, to get gas.

What an adventure of a day. 

All other negative things you hear about Bayliners aside, we eventually got that big monster on Grand Lake Saint Marys in Ohio and for several summers we had a blast on that old party boat. We made a lot of great memories.

And yes, to those familiar with Grand Lake Saint Marys in its glory days, you know, with a boat that size on that lake, we replaced and repaired a lot of props.

That lake is man-made and extremely shallow for those who are unfamiliar. 

Great memory of a long, tiring day picking up a boat with an old Marine buddy who has since died of cancer. 

What a day it was.