Just when I thought that winter might be beaten - and the meteorologists did not dispute my thought - Mother Nature got the last laugh. While it is pretty outside, with large snowflakes swirling about in the wind, the snowfall does make my mind wander to the possibilities of spring, summer and.....water. I began ironing - a wonderfully mindless activity - and daydreaming about water, wakes, and wind. I turned on my television, only to tune into an advertisement for Walgreens featuring a man having trouble backing up his boat in his driveway.
Now, if you have ever tried to back up an "anything" attached to a trailer hitch on the back of your vehicle, you will know how difficult it can be. Capt. Cook, who grew up on a farm, is an expert at backing up everything and anything attached to a trailer hitch. I, on the other hand, did not grow up driving tractors and trucks hauling wagons and other farm equipment. In the past, when I have tried to back up fishing boats, the final result has been a boat in the driveway, but in-between arrival at the house and the boat in the driveway was a laughable series of back-ups, see-saws, forwards and a few blue words thrown in for my own stress release. The inability to back up a boat has long been a favorite past-time of "good-backerupers" at public boat launches. To say that some people should not own trailerable boats is an understatement. It is possible to see backing-up attempts so mangled that your stomach hurts from so much laughter.
The commercial for Walgreens in which the boat owner backs up the boat - with the help of his wife, only to have her let him go too far and the motor prop breaks into the garage door - reminded me of a similar situation with Capt. Cook and me that took place a number of years ago. We were hauling an overall twenty-seven foot boat, which did not include the prop length when the outboards were in a tilted position. The storage building where Byrdie was stored was almost brand-new, with a length and width that was snug on all sides. So snug that Capt. Cook had taped lines applied to the floor that the tires of the boat trailer had to precisely run on or the outcome would be a ruined boat, storage wall or messed up boat trailer - none of which was an option.
It was the first time we brought Brydie back from her inaugural outing and darkness had fallen. We were working with flashlights and walkie-talkies. Capt. Cook was doing great and so was I........at least when it came to watching the sides of the rig. Capt. Cook had those boat-trailer wheels aligned perfectly on the tape. I was at the back of the storage unit, walking backward, keeping my eye on those taped lines, feeling really good about the great job we were doing and what a team we were as Brydie slowly inched her way backwards......until the props just touched the back wall, putting the slightest of indentations in the drywall. Fortunately, the walkie talkies were working well, but that didn't matter as my shouting got Capt. Cook's attention immediately.
Yelling is a highly effective form of communication when backing up boats.
Ancora imparo
