My friend, his 19yo daughter, my dad and I headed out to nice seas Sunday. Found a weedline at 250ft, hooked and lost a dolphin but nothing else. Water temp only 70 so me moved out. Picked up a couple more trolling out but a little slow. Were getting ready to turn around and saw a nice weedlline. Immediately hooked two skipjacks, and a nice dolphin was going crazy attacking the lure one had in its mouth. dropped a bait to him and hooked up, and he came to the boat with a bunch of friends which we started picking off. nice size too. Looked like we were in for an epic day, and then the steering stops responding to the wheel. Found a small hydraulic leak. Engines basically turned hard one side or the other. We called coast guard to call sea tow for us. In the meantime we figure out how to uncouple the middle outboard so it would swing freely, and we could sort of steer using dock lines. So we start zig zagging toward home at 7mph, 70 miles from edisto. NOt 15 minutes later the chopper is over us. We tweaked the steering so one man could drive and we could get up to 9mph. 3 or 4 hours later coast guard tells us Sea Tow is not coming to help. we take 30 minute shift and 10 hours later are at the dock. Another 30 minutes to try to dock the thing with no steering and back to the house. Coast guard was unbelievable, check in every 30 minutes. SeaTow was no help at all. Now down to the dock to clean boat and fish.
Sounds like you all did well on your own. Catch any fish on the slow ride in? Glad ya’ll made it home safely! Sunday fishing. Happens to me all the time.
We heard the USCG calling on the radio. Glad to hear everyone was safe and you made it back safely. I’m sure a call is going to be placed to SeaTow so they can explain themselves.
Pulled one line on the way in and caught 2 dolphin and a Bonita. Seen a lot of sunrises but never a sunset and now have another story. Will get it repaired and be back at it.
wow, fortunately it wasn’t a true tragedy and you made it back safely. Good call on the dock lines, I’ve rigged an automatic steering setup on a sailboat before, but never on a motor boat… I may need to go out there later this week and see if I can rig one up just in case. That’s definitely a scary situation to be in with bad weather. Not like it makes a difference now, but did you have a sea tow membership? I could be very mistaken, but I think both boatus and sea tow only covers a 50 mile distance from shore. maybe that was the reason?
I switched to tow boat from sea tow. Called for a tow and ended up getting some help from a Good Samaritan. The fuse between the starter and alternator was blown so the battery wasn’t charging, it would just run until the battery was dead, then shut off. We swapped batteries with the good sam and we were able to get all the way back on that one. Called sea tow and let them know we were heading in on our own power. Sea tow met us a few miles outside the jetties and we told them we were good to go. He followed us to the dock and chewed us out for not being prepared?? I offered the crew of the other boat to have our fish, buy them beer/gas, etc. and the sea tow captain was jumping in on every sentence saying stuff like “yeah, you better be thanking these guys”. I was ready to punch him in the face, very unprofessional captain. Sea tow will not see another dime of my money. Glad you guys made it in safely. On a side note, throw a few bottles of steering fluid in the boat just in case that happens again.
So what would have happened if you couldn’t have got in touch with the CG or what if your engines wouldn’t work at all? That would have been really bad. That’s pretty crappy of SeaTow
Definitely report back on what Sea Tow’s reasoning was. I know I would have counted on them as well. What was your fuel situation like? Couldn’t imagine having that long of a day.
Did Sea Tow state a reason? I thought they covered to 70 miles out. One of the Sea Tow guys posts on here “Mike Crouch”??? I would like to see the official response. I am a Sea Tow member as well, but will switch in a heart beat if they aren’t fulfilling their obligations.
In all fairness, Maz, you pay membership dues to sea tow and those paid for your tow. Whereas everyone that pays state taxes would have paid for the tows of your friends if they hadn’t been fined for whatever violation they committed. Is it fair to the rest of the state that your friends don’t pay sea tow insurance and instead rely on the DNR? No its not, and that’s probably why the officers gave them an inspection and fine.
I get it that it’s all in style to be anti-gov’t and all, but you really just don’t look very bright when you imply ingratitude for the services of the Coast Guard.
Did Sea Tow state a reason? I thought they covered to 70 miles out. One of the Sea Tow guys posts on here “Mike Crouch”??? I would like to see the official response. I am a Sea Tow member as well, but will switch in a heart beat if they aren’t fulfilling their obligations.
My Sea Tow renewal is due right now… I need to know that I’m getting what I think I’m getting or I’ll switch too.
