We bought the boat on July 15th, a Thursday, the day after my 24th birthday. The 15 foot Dixie Devil tri-hull has a 115 hp Mercury Mariner outboard motor and it's super fast and tons of fun on the water. We took it out that night and had a blast. We managed to get it in the water, ride about 2-3 miles, load it up, and drive home all without incident.
On Saturday, we took it out again with the intention of doing some wake boarding and knee boarding. At the Cherokee Dam, where I use to run often, there are two public boat ramps and a large gravel bank where many boaters launch their boats and park right there on the bank. We decided to give that a try and launch our boat on the gravel bank instead of using the concrete ramp. Everyone else is doing it, why not us? Riiight. We ended up getting my truck stuck. We were forced to remove the boat trailer and pull it out of the water. During this process, we lost a clamp that connects the safety chain to the truck, leaving only a simple S hook to connect the chains. Finally, someone with a bigger truck pulled up and agreed to pull us out.
We finally made it out into the water, which was rather choppy, and drove a mile or so into the middle of the lake. I tried to knee board but the waves kept hitting me in the face and I couldn't get up. The water was hitting the back of the boat and spilling gallons into the hull as well. Steven started getting pretty nervous so I climbed up and we took off to find a cove with calmer waters. Once we stopped again, I scooped out several gallons of water with a big cup. Later, we tried to wake board and knee board again in a larger calm cove but still couldn't manage to get up. My arms were so sore the next day. We decided to head home.
We only live about 2-3 miles from the dam. About half way home, I started to notice something a little off about the boat. I looked to Steven and said, "I think we just lost the boat." Steven said about the time he turned to look at me, he saw the boat in the lane next to us! I couldn't do anything. I was completely helpless...watching my boat pass me in the other lane! It started to veer right, rolling down a ditch into someones yard. It hit a parked Stratus in the right rear quarter panel, ricocheted around and took off the front end of an Alero. The boat and trailer then landed next to their house with the front end of the boat still attached to the winch on the trailer and the back end on it's right side on the ground.
Because we lost the clamp in our launching incident earlier that day, I had the safety chain wrapped around the hitch because the I was worried the simple S hook would come off the receiver. I thought at least the chain would keep the trailer coupler on the ball which is what I worried about. Apparently, it's not what I should have worried about. The only thing we can think might have happened is the hitch pin holding my hitch in my receiver on my either broke, wiggled out, or someone thought it would be funny to take it out because my entire hitch fell out of my receiver. We later found it half way between where the boat came loose and where it landed. Those things usually don't come out on their own and we've never had any problems with them before. I can tell you one thing, we will check, recheck, and check again from NOW ON!
We were incredibly lucky that no one was hurt. The insurance on my truck covered the damage to the two cars. We're lucky the boat didn't plow through the people's house. And we are really lucky we decided to go to the lake instead of the horse show I was thinking about attending because if we would have had the horses in that trailer, it would not have ended as well as it did. The people were so nice and understanding. A wrecker came and pushed the boat back on the trailer, bent the winch somewhat back in place. We were somehow able to tow it home. Amazingly, the boat received no damaged. The trailer took most of the blow and we had to replace one arm and roller and the winch strap. The next day, we went to Tractor Supply and bought the biggest safety chains, hitch pins locks, and coupler locks we could find! This will NEVER happen again! And this is only the first adventure (thankfully the worst) but definitely not the last!
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