I Didn't Have To Be Rescued By The Lifeboat
Living in a village by the sea meant that a lot of my mates from the pub were fishermen or owned recreational boats and we used to rip then piss out of the stupid fucking tourists who'd go out in a boat and then get themselves into trouble and have to call the lifeboat out. Mouth-breathing Darwin Award candidates, the lot of them. Who could be so fucking stupid that they actually went to sea without any training and didn't take even the most basic precautions?

Well that would be me. But nobody from the village ever found out.

It all started when me and a mate, Uncy_Herb, decided to buy a boat. Uncy_Herb, like me, was an IT contractor with absolutely no experience of boats apart from the odd trip on a ferry.

But we'd decided to buy a boat and take up fishing. A week later we were off down the coast to pay for and take possession of a 14ft cabin cruiser.

We got a taxi from the village to the town where the boat was stores, paid cash to the owner and he gave us a basic trip round the boat showing us how to to turn it off and on.

Petrol switch on the outboard - needs to be on.
Throttle - push forward to go faster. Neutral for idling. Backwards to reverse.
Steering wheel. Just like a car.

And that was pretty much it.

"Well we'll be off then" we said. "Need to get the boat 20 miles up the coast before dark and to catch the tide at the village."

"You sure you want to do that lads? Bit of a blow coming on. Might be an idea to wait for better weather"

"Nah - we'll be right"

And off we set. It was a little bit breezy but, protected by the harbour walls, nothing to write home about. It took us about 30 minutes to motor down the river and set a course for the mouth of the harbour.

"That's odd." says Herb as the wind hot us from the harbour mouth "Why are we the only people heading out and everyone else is heading in?"

And, sure enough, heading for the harbour was a shitload of small craft pouring speed on like a bunch of fat girls at an all you can eat buffet.

So we rounded the harbour mouth and into the sea proper.

Oh shit! Now I didn't know much about the boating but I was pretty sure that if you were looking up at the waves then that couldn't be a good thing. At every wave we'd go over the peak and than crash down into the trough with an almighty bang. On either side of us were two walls of water - we couldn't see the horizon. This was not good.

"Errr - I think we better turn back" I say.

"Too fucking right" says Herb....

So we spun the boat about and gunned the motor back for the harbour. We surfed into the harbour on the crest of a wave, narrowly missing the wall and motored back to the mooring.

"We'll try again tomorrow" I said as we whistled a taxi up.

Next day, the wind had dropped and we tried again. Armed with our navigation aid - the AA Road Atlas - we cleared the harbour and turned left. 20 miles to go.

Then, in the middle of Druridge Bay, the engine coughed, spluttered and died. Out of petrol. Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that we were too dumb to have brought extra. Well you're wrong - we had a full jerry can. So we refuelled the tank and turned the key.

Whirr-whirr-whirr-cough. And again and again - whirr-whirr-whirr-cough.

Nothing we could do would make the engine fire and the battery just kept getting weaker and weaker and then died. We were stuck in the middle of Druridge Bay when we discovered something new. If you've run out of petrol in a boat it's a good idea to have an anchor 'cos I was buggered if I could find the handbrake. And the anchor was conspicuous by it's absence.

So, engineless, anchorless and brainless, we looked at the nasty looking rocks about 500 yards away. Those would be the rocks the current was pushing us towards.

"Clean the sparkplugs!" said Herb in a flash of inspiration.

Great idea but as well as having no anchor we also had no toolkit.

So there was nothing for it but to bite the bullet and call the coastguard. We were going to have the piss ripped out of us for the rest of our lives for this. So P picked up the radio mic, set the dial to Coastguard (helpfully marked) and turned the radio on. It lit up like a Xmas tree and then pitifully faded to dark. Ah. yes. That would be the battery again.

And those rocks were getting closer.

Then, my brainwave. 999. So I whippped my phone out and called emergency services and asked for the Coastguard. Got through to a nice man in Hull who told me as a frigging idiot and then he called the lifeboat out and told us to sit tight. If we got too close to the rocks to abandon ship and let our lifejackets take care of us until the lifeboat picked us up.

"Lifejackets?" I asked "What life jackets?"

He called me a frigging idiot again.

But God looks after fools and about 30 minutes later the lifeboat hove into view. They called me a frigging idiot as well as they towed us into the nearest harbour. We bought a new battery and, assisted by the mains electricity in the harbour, managed to get the engine back into life and we motored back out to sea, around the headland and into the village harbour.

"Nobody can ever know about this Herb." I said

"My lips are sealed" said Herb.

"I wish that fucking battery had been sealed" I muttered as we tied up to a buoy and headed for the pub.

As footnote to this epic, a couple of years later when I was much more experienced in boats, a 8 year-old kid came running into the pub and said (and this was Herbs sig for a while) :

"Oily Bill says to tell Mr Legless that his fucking boat is sinking"

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Fri 16 Sep 2011, 2:53, 9 replies)

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(McChinaman banned, Fri 16 Sep 2011, 5:07, closed)

I See What You Mean

Better add a few more in...

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Fri 16 Sep 2011, 5:11, closed)

*clicksies*
Oily Bill is a cracking nickname, but probably a seabird ailment too.
( e.m.m.y. foxtrot uniform charlie kilo india tango, Fri 16 Sep 2011, 9:20, closed)

Oh dear...
Nicely told. clickage
(SpangoTheWonderBadger is brewing beer, Fri 16 Sep 2011, 9:36, closed)

So what'd you catch?
Pics please cause I'm sure it was *this* big.
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Fri 16 Sep 2011, 9:55, closed)

Frigging idiot.
Having said this, apropos almost nothing, I have noticed that whenever you give someone a lifejacket, and explain how to use it to someone, when you get to the whistle EVERY SINGLE TIME they will go to put it in their mouth to try it out, and you have to stop them doing it because some fucker will call the coastguard . . .
(username failed moderation, Fri 16 Sep 2011, 10:30, closed)

Would this be The Tight Alnwick, per chance?

( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Fri 16 Sep 2011, 14:38, closed)

It Was
An ill-fated boat if ever there was one...

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Sat 17 Sep 2011, 4:05, closed)

*Clicks*
"Oily Bill says to tell Mr Legless that his fucking boat is sinking"

Hahahaha!
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Fri 16 Sep 2011, 21:48, closed)