Seeing the lifeguard boats coming to this little sailboat’s rescue reminded me of the time I had boat trouble. We had a ski boat when I was growing up. We used to take it up to Lake San Antonio several times each summer. The year before my parents divorced, we took it up there 6 times between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Most of those were probably weekend trips, but some of them were for whole weeks at a time.

After my parents’ divorce, though, the boat didn’t see much action. In 1998, however, my friend Dave and I took it out. I learned very quickly that boats are just a hole in the water you throw money into. We only took the boat out two or three times, and we had problems with it each time.

The last time we took out, we invited my friend Brian to go with us. He was this weird guy I worked with. He had a little 14-foot sailboat and an excess of unearned confidence, so he was a tad insufferable. A mutual friend worked with him at a boat manufacturing company. He told me that Brian irritated the owner so much he gave him two five gallon buckets of bolts, screws, nuts and washers and told him to sort them, just to keep him occupied and out of everyone’s way. He was annoying, but he could be entertaining, too, so we invited him along.

He immediately started getting on my nerves. He asked where we were taking the boat, and when I told him we were going to Lake Casitas, he suggested we take it to Channel Islands Harbor. No chance, I said. He persisted. I explained to him that in the first place, the boat has never been in salt water, and I’m not going to spend the time to clean and flush it, and in the second place, we had been having trouble with the throttle cable, so taking it out into the ocean would not be a smart choice.

He argued with me. He said that I wouldn’t have to flush the engine. Dave backed me up, but it made no difference. Brian was always right, and I was driving, so we were going to Lake Casitas. It was late when we got to the lake. We would only have about an hour on the water, but that was enough time for a spin and to see if the repairs we made worked.

We taxied through the no-wake zone, music blaring, spirits high, and then as soon as we passed the harbor buoys, I pushed that throttle down, the front of the boat tipped up, the rear sank down, and the boat lurched forward… for a second. The throttle cable snapped, and the boat came to a anticlimactic halt. Dave and started taking things apart, trying to save the day, while Brian, unhelpfully, whined repeatedly that we should have gone to Channel Islands until I snapped at him, “Then we would be drifting out to sea right now with no radio!” That shut him up

I was able to limp back to the launch ramp in reverse. It took twice as long to get back as it had going forward, but we eventually made it. A short time later, my mom traded the boat for two computers because we each needed a new computer. She took one for herself and sold me the other one for $500. I feel like everyone but me was a winner in that deal.

Still, I’m fortunate. I learned when I was twenty that boats are a pain in the ass and they’re not worth the money and hassle they cost to stay afloat. I don’t envy Mr. Sailor Man, who had to be towed back to the harbor this afternoon.