Boathouse blunder bashes boater bravado

Photos by Jerry Hale

Failure to shut off the boat lift resulted in a severely bent tower rail at the aft end of the windshield. A similar "elbow" was created on the starboard side.

The dock house ceiling sustained some easily repaired damage. The hole is from the towing knob on the top of the boat's wakeboard tower.

In 2002, shortly after my wife, Ferne, and I had finished building our boathouse, we acquired the water-ski boat of our dreams -- a leftover from 2000 -- a 23-foot MariStar from Conrad Brothers Marine in Westlake, a MasterCraft dealer.

A few months later, I dropped in to schedule winterizing with dealership principal Mike Ratcliff. On his desk were photos of a yellow MasterCraft wakeboard boat with its towing tower severely crumpled.

"Bad day for that guy," I remarked casually, pointing to the photos. "What happened?"

"They left the lift motor running, and it pulled the boat into the boathouse ceiling," Ratcliff replied. "Happens all the time."

I shook my head, thinking: Not to me. I'm too smart, too attentive, too much in love with my precious MasterCraft to ever let that happen.

Fast forward about eight years to a "bad day for this guy" just a few weeks ago.

It started out well enough. We had successfully gotten our friend, Bill Moore, who had recently recovered from rotator cuff surgery, up on a wakeboard for his first time. He was thrilled and so were we. After Bill left, Ferne and I each took a turn on the slalom ski on glassy-smooth water.

Our session over, we returned to the dock where I stowed the gear and did my customary wipe-down of deck, windshield, cleats and rails. A few more dock-tidying projects and I was ready to follow Ferne to the house and return with lunch trays. Lunch on the dock is a lake-living delight that we share whenever we can.

But with some clouds gathering in the south, I decided to raise the lift a bit so that a storm, should it come later in the day, wouldn't spatter the boat and spoil my wipe-down job.

I've done such a lift-level adjustment without incident at least a thousand times in the nine years we've had our dock. This time, however, I headed for the house without shutting off the lift. Perhaps it was the freshening breeze slapping waves against the floater that masked the telltale hum of the lift motor running. Perhaps it was just a "senior moment." But when I returned a half-hour later, lunch tray in hand, I found our beloved MasterCraft missing. No, wait, not missing, but hanging way too high, well above eye level.

Horrified, I surveyed the situation. The lift switch was still in the up position though the motor had stopped running, apparently having overheated from the work of crunching our wakeboard tower through the plywood ceiling and against the rafters. The tower then collapsed, sort of like a stepped-on beer can, its protrusions gouging the side decks as they crumpled downward. Closer inspection showed cracks and gel coat compression at the tower's four attachment points. It would require at least cosmetic surgery and perhaps some Fiberglas reinforcement underneath -- about $2,500 worth of labor and materials, it turned out.

Workers from Michael Dillon Custom Docks arrived early the next morning to replace the charred lift motor belt, lower the boat and check out the lift mechanics.

"We see this all the time," one of them said. "We've been out to several docks more than once. Often, it bends the main winder pole. Yours looks OK, though."

That was good news: Replacing mine would have required cutting a hole through the roof.

Trolling for sympathy

I've told my story many times since, often to knowing looks and responses such as, "You should have changed to spring-loaded switches." Or, "Installing a lift remote keeps you from doing that, you know." And from those who still have the old-fashioned "stay-in-position" switches like I had: "I always wonder if I'll make that mistake someday."

Bill Nissen of Dock Solutions, one of two authorized installers of Gem Remotes in our area (Turner's Building is the other), answered that question. "It's not if, it's when. It's bound to happen sooner or later with the old-style switches."

Mike Dillon agreed: "We don't install [old-style switches] anymore. People walk away and leave them running. Even in the down position, the cables eventually rewrap and start the cradle back up again, driving the centering poles through the ceiling or roof. The damage can be major."

That's what happened to Jack Disque of Fox Chase in Wirtz four year ago. He set his switch to lower the boat and climbed in to make ready for departure. His guests walked onto the dock, came aboard, and he backed out of the slip. It wasn't until he returned and saw the cradle smashed against the rafters that he realized his costly mistake.

"A neighbor heard the racket and came over to turn the motor off," Disque said. "But by then, the damage was done."

Unauthorized users

Dillon said that while he always mounts lift switches up high, out of the reach of children, there still is the potential for one to be accidentally engaged. One dock owner told me a two-boat horror story. Realizing the temptation for curious hands, he habitually switched off the dock power breaker in the main panel at the house when his grandkids were playing on the dock.

One weekend, after the guests left, he blithely turned the power back on only to find later that both of his boats had been pulled into the rafters. The controls at the dock had been switched to on sometime during the weekend.

Another had significant damage when a wind gust caused his piling-mounted hammock to swing violently, snagging the switch lever and pulling it to the on position.

Once is enough

I've decided to invest in a remote setup which requires thumb pressure to keep the lifts operating and can be operated from the boat when water levels drop substantially. Unlike the spring-loaded switches, this setup lets me move around the dock, tidying up or socializing while the lift is running. And the likelihood of repeating my "walk-away" mistake is virtually nil.

I encourage all dock owners who haven't taken steps to prevent a lift incident like mine to do so right away. Otherwise, it's just a matter of time before oversight, tampering or even vandalism makes it a bad day for you.