My dad is pretty much the white man incarnation of Fred Sanford, and our yard and vehicles show it. He's never paid more than a couple thousand for any vehicle, waterborne or wheeled. He bought a run-down trailerable 25 or so -foot day sailer recently and had been tinkering to set it up so that he can rig it by himself (ordinarily a two-person job because you have to set the mast up from its trailered state, horizontal).

The Friday prior to the Tenn game, he asked me to come with him on a shakedown cruise of sorts on Lake Santa Fe, to see if his rigging system worked right and how the boat sailed with more people on it. To test it, he also invited along our next door neighbor John, a guy roughly my dad's age that knows nothing about boating. He ALSO invited along my sister in law and her 3 boys (8, 6, and 2).  So that's 7 people on a boat that's really not comfortable with any more than 4.

Aside: Because of the aforementioned Sanfordness, my dad didn't see the need to get a vehicle with any sort of trailering capacity when he had a perfectly good 1985 Mercury Marquis sitting around. "It's built like a truck", he rationalized. Never mind that it actually has critters living in the upholstery and looks twice its age, peeling vinyl roof and all. He has realized, however, from previous experience pulling boats, that two-wheel drive cars might slip a bit when the drive wheels are submerged on mossy boat ramps. So he has fashioned a trailer hitch to the back AND the front of the car, allowing him to put the boat in the water with the front of the car facing toward the lake and the drive wheels dry.

So we’re motoring our way through Gainesville to Melrose, drawing stares from everyone on the road. The car is able approach 50mph so it’s not too bad. We get to Melrose and decide to launch at the old ramp that goes into the small bay on the south side of the lake instead of the big new ramp on the west side. John and I hang out talking to the lone fisherman (who hooks a nice size catfish and then is too squeamish to remove the hook from its mouth, so I had to…go figure) while my dad rigs the boat. “I need to make sure I can do it myself”, he rationalized.

2.5 hours later, it’s rigged and my sister in law has shown up with the kids. We drop the boat in the water and start floating. There’s not a lick of wind but my dad is convinced he sees trees moving across the bay (1/4 mile or so) and once we get out further there’ll be wind. I’m not so sure, but I humor him. While we’re floating, I mention “you did check the outboard to make sure it’s OK, right?” Dad mumbles something about it being fine. I persist “you started it and ran it today?” He gripes “no, not today, but I ran it a while back at home.” Uh oh. I insist we try it out now. It’s an old Nissan 2.5 HP with a pull start and incomprehensible operation icons on it. We do what we think we’re supposed to do to start it, but seeing as dad doesn’t have the operating manual on the boat, we’re not sure. Of course, it doesn’t start.

Fortunately, across the bay we see my sister in law’s carpenter (a boating nut) fishing with his buddy (Dad has binoculars on the boat, but not a radio or operating manual…go figure). We call him on her cel (thank heaven for cel coverage) and it goes:  “Uh…Mike? It’s Mindy. Hi to you too. Hey, listen…you see that sailboat about 100 yards from you? I’m on it and our motor won’t start. You think you could come take a look at it?” He motors over with a bemused smile.

By this time we’ve managed to find what little wind there is and it’s just enough to move the boat, but not enough to really steer it, so it’s just pushing us westward toward the weeds. Mike ties us to his boat and pulls us out into the little island in the mouth of the bay, where he ties us to the no wake sign. He pops the top open, finds a disconnected ignition wire, and the motor fires up. He takes off, and we sail merrily (if very slowly) out into the bigger part of the lake.

We continue sailing VERY slowly westward with the idea that we’ll take out at the bigger ramp, where my sister’s car was parked.  After a while, we figure we’d take the sails down, we’d all swim a bit, then we’d head in with the motor. We were close to shore (but about 1/2 mile from the ramp’s channel entrance) so we go to turn on the motor to go into deeper water to swim.

Of course, the motor won’t start. At all. We try and try while the breeze pushes us further from the channel. Finally, John and I grab the two canoe paddles on board and start paddling a very heavy 25 foot day sailer.  With canoe paddles. In 90 degree weather. And me furious at my dad.

An hour or so later, we near the channel and proceed to get breeze-pushed into low-branched cypresses, which the mast starts hitting. My dad insists on trying to push the boat out and into the channel. Meanwhile, several boats have slowed to see if we need help, but he waves them off while I bite my tongue. I finally ask “How are we going to get down that narrow channel without any wind or a motor.” My dad responds “JUST HELP ME GET THE DAMNED BOAT OFF THE TREES!” “Dad, we need a pull” “PUSH OFF!”

Finally, I wave down a woman on a waverunner and say “Can you give us a pull in, our motor’s not working”. She says “sure” and I go to get the line. My dad starts yelling at me about being the Captain and following orders but at this point, I just wanted to get the boat in. So we exchanged expletives at each other for the first time in our lives as she fires up the waverunner and we start down the channel. This is a 20ft wide channel with 2 90 degree turns in it. Even if there was wind, we couldn’t have made it in.

Finally, we get to the dock and I thank the woman on the waverunner and my dad and I apologize to each other and we get to work getting the boat out of the water. He backs the car down, realizes that that won’t work, and decides to flip the car around and pull it out with the front hitch. Problem is, this ramp is steeper and the boat has water in it now. So when we crank the boat up onto the trailer, the drive wheels are too light. He spins them, so I run back and sit on the trunk for extra weight traction, while John stands on the ramp, helping direct my dad.

I’m facing away from the lake, my dad guns the engine, and I hear and feel a POW and the car jerks away from the lake. I turn around and see John, all 5’5”, 120lbs of him, desperately trying to stop the boat AND trailer, now free of the hitch, from rolling down the ramp and into the lake. Much yelling, people dashing about, but finally we stop the boat’s imitation of a submarine.

It turns out the boat is so heavy that it popped the pin holding the hitch onto the front of the car. The guys in the large bowrider waiting to get up the ramp finally stopped laughing long enough to go get their pickup truck and yank the boat out of the water, to our eternal gratitude. We derig the boat and head back into Gville, ending a full day of misadventure.

My dad now owns a Pathfinder and a brand-new outboard.