Hit a submerged tree with my boat yesterday

[joekingcorvette]

I hit an underwater tree with my boat yesterday doing about 15 mph or more on the way to wide open under full throttle. Wow, it sounded really bad and my wife and I almost fell out of our seats from the collision. I thought I might have ruined the transom or the engine/lower unit on my 115 hp Mercury 4 stroke. Luckily the prop and lower unit appear to be ok. A person needs to be very careful there and you never know when you might hit something underwater that you cannot see. I was very surprised I didn't damage anything.

 

[mrsilv04]

I've torn up a nice stainless steel prop in the past. It happens, and things can be fixed. Glad you came out OK on this...

 

[Kira]

I've heard insurance for that is available. Is it? Is it affordable?

I can show you rocks in ponds 'just beneath the surface' with different colors of paint on them from boats.

 

[frankbee3]

I have noticed a lot of larger debris in our local lake from the large amount of rain and high lake levels.

I dread hitting something that I can’t see. Glad you’re okay though.

 

[RDY4WAR]

My dad and I, when I was about 8, were wide open going up river when something bounced me out of the seat into the floor. I remember looking back and the propeller was locked in the up position out of the water, still spinning wide open throttle. It was a huge boulder just under the water. We hit it hard enough to kick the motor up out of the water. Luckily, no serious damage except some scuffing. The boulder wasn't very deep down. We figure we were lucky to have been at full speed and planing because if we were going slower, tracking deeper, the hull likely would've hit.

 

[4WD]

On my flats skiff the motor skeg is pretty flush - fed by tunnel hull … really changed things around oyster reefs too …

 

[Cujet]

While jet drive is not ideal or really all that efficient, done correctly, it does have advantages for submerged obstacles. I tend to prefer jet drive, can't imagine why..... (Jet aircraft are my thing, of course)

 

[RhondaHonda]

A painter that worked for me fishes a lot of tournaments. In one tournament at Kentucky Lake, another boat went too close to a bridge support on the way back to weigh-in. The outboard hit the submerged part and flipped into the boat and killed the driver.

Scary stuff.

 

[Taildragger]

Could have been worse.

 

[Donald]

I hit an underwater tree with my boat yesterday doing about 15 mph or more on the way to wide open under full throttle. Wow, it sounded really bad and my wife and I almost fell out of our seats from the collision. I thought I might have ruined the transom or the engine/lower unit on my 115 hp Mercury 4 stroke. Luckily the prop and lower unit appear to be ok. A person needs to be very careful there and you never know when you might hit something underwater that you cannot see. I was very surprised I didn't damage anything.

Aluminum or SS prop?

Chartplotter did not show anything?

 

[joekingcorvette]

Aluminum or SS prop?

Chartplotter did not show anything?

It's an aluminum prop and it did not get hurt at all. No vibration on the steering wheel at WOT so everything is ok. I have very good electronics a Garmin and a Hummingbird and I was a slacker and didn't notice I was only in 7 feet of water near a bunch of submerged trees and stumps etc. It was totally my fault that I hit the log and I hope it never happens again. It scared the heck out of my wife and myself.

 

[Donald]

Good that it was an aluminum prop. It would take the damage vs a SS prop that may transfer the damage to the gears for $$$ repairs.

SS prop is better with less flex to power the boar until you hit a rock or stump.

My forward gear had two teeth missing (unknown to me) when I bought my current boat. It seems that if only 1 or 2 teeth are missing it may not be noticeable when doing a sea trial of a boat you are buying.

 

[ammolab]

Back in the 1960s my Dad had a beautiful mahogany Reardon 16ft runabout with a 40hp Mercury outboard. We hit a floating log at speed in lake Bastrop Tx. It put an 8in hole in the bottom. We beached the boat on a ramp and managed to get it on the trailer. I fixed the hole with a fiberglass mat and glassed the whole bottom with fiberglass cloth and resin. A lasting repair.