Bass Boat Crash Scare: My Mistake Could Save Your Life

At 60 mph, your bass boat covers 100 yards in just over 3 seconds––learn this critical lesson while you have the time.

A bass boat crash scare caused me to look up the fact that at 60 mph, 100 yards goes by in just over 3 seconds. There's a fine line between speed and safety. / Kurt Mazurek

Near Boating Disaster

That was a rough morning of fishing. I'm heading in, I grumbled to myself. On the bright side, even when the fish don't cooperate, it still feels great to rip across a big lake in a high-powered, bass boat.

After a long, enjoyable ride back from the other side of the lake, I spot the small, one-lane launch in an opening in the shoreline trees about 200-to-300-yards ahead of me. I ease up on my Hot Foot throttle pedal as I approach, but this time, unlike the thousands of times before, my outboard continues running wide open.

I stomp down hard, hoping the pedal's trusty springs will snap to life…nothing happens. Now, I'm well under 200-yards from the ramp and closing fast. Specifically, how fast? At 60-mph, I'm covering 100-yards in just over 3-seconds.

What to do? In under a millisecond my mind painted an image of me flying my boat into the trailer parking lot like Evel Knievel. Not helpful, brain!

The speed and power of modern bassboats is a fun and exciting part of a day of bass fishing, but safety should always be your first priority. / Craig Mazurek

So, I began a sweeping turn left away from the launch. This move bought me a couple seconds, but now I'm headed for a shallow, rocky, sand bar that separates a large bay from the main lake.

C'mon brain! Think! And my brain replied, "Take it out of gear!" But with the throttle stuck wide open the big motor screamed in protest. If I live, I'm gonna need this motor. Quick, put it back in gear! Bad brain! Try again, fast!

The hot foot pedal has a stirrup built-in so you can pull the throttle up with the top of your foot in case the springs fail. I pulled as hard as I could but the pedal wouldn't budge.

Seriously brain! What should I do? I've got it! Kill the motor! I turned the key and instantly felt like I probably wasn't going to die, but by now, there was no way to avoid the rocky bar. I aimed my gradually slowing thrill-ride, between two large rocks that stuck well out of the water and feebly began trimming the motor up as I braced myself. I can't really remember if it made a horrible sound although I'm sure it did.

Surprisingly, it slid across 6 inches of water, rock and sand fairly smoothly and came to rest in the deeper water of the bay. I sat dazed and motionless for a few seconds. I was emotionally shaken, but physically fine.

Now, what about that pedal? I crouched under the console and saw the typical scraps of monofilament and a few discarded Sweet Beavers, but nothing that would cause complete failure of the unit. I felt around behind the pedal and discovered that an old AA battery had lodged itself (one-in-a-million style) in the hinge and prevented the pedal from springing up. Wow, that stupid battery just cost me a couple hundred dollars in skeg repair, but the truth is it could have been much worse.

Damage to a bass boat is never fun, but compared to what might have happened, I'd call this missing skeg getting off easy. / Kurt Mazurek

Now, here's what I took away from this experience, and the reason I've shared this story with you.

Maintain Your Equipment

I think there's an old expression about the importance of "running a tight ship". You'll dramatically improve the safety of your boating experience if you control the variables that you are able to control. Weather, water and other boaters provide plenty of distractions. I'm pretty diligent about cleaning and reorganizing my boat after each trip, but something like a battery should never be left rattling around on the floor -even for just one day. It's seems like such a small thing, but it would also be a small thing to put it in a compartment out of harms way. Even if it hadn't become stuck in my pedal, a more likely scenario would have been me stepping on it and turning an ankle. Sloppy mistake!

Plan for Emergencies

I never really thought about what I would do if my throttle stuck open. I guess (based on my reaction) that I thought I would use the safety feature built right in the pedal, the stirrup, to manually pull the pedal back. But what would I do if my steering fails? What if flames come pouring out of the cowling? I'm not suggesting that I need to live like I'm paranoid and take all the fun out of fishing, just be prepared. As I sit here at my desk, having time to calmly and rationally think about it, turn the key off or pull the safety shutoff cord comes to mind fairly quickly. But sitting behind the wheel of a boat screaming towards disaster, there are a lot of distractions. In that moment, clear thinking is a real challenge.

What's the Point?

Maybe it's just common sense. I imagine some of you are saying "I would have thought of that", and maybe you would have. But for everyone else like me, I hope my experience causes you to give it a couple minutes thought so perhaps you can react more quickly if you need to. I sincerely hope you never need this information, but believe me, 200 yards goes by pretty quickly at 60 mph.