https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/06/us/charles-gregory-missing-st-augustine/index.html
 

Good outcome thanks to the Coast Guard…The boat was still floating great even though it was swamped. I wonder if he didn’t have a motor let go or something that left him drifting. 

Glad he’s still with us, I saw him on TV and he was 100% lobster fried 

Even though the article says he has done it multiple times, I can’t grasp the idea of going out in the open ocean in a 12 foot Jon boat. 

I won’t even take my 15 foot canoe into Lake Michigan 

When the good Lord passes out brains, some folks must think he is saying trains, and asks for a slow one!

i get the recommendation for those safety devices...but in a 12ft jon boat that gets swamped hed be lucky that stuff stays in the boat if it was strong enough to rip him out.

 

Moral of the story should be plan properly and use the right vessel for the body of water, not "dont give up". I kind of hate articles like these because they dont address the stupidity, they want to make it glamorous that he didnt give up in unfavorable conditions/odds. If he wasnt dumb he wouldnt have been in that situation. 

 

Might come off harsh, I'm glad hes fine but come on...

Yeah. I've got 189 lbs worth of batteries in my back seat. Some of the foam is still on each side, but with the aluminum deck and floor I've added, not to mention tackle, it'll most like sink. I'll never be in salt water, never out of sight of land, and if it starts leaking more than my bilge pump will handle, I will run in right up on the bank.

In a small vessel it’s almost never leaks; it’s getting swamped by a rogue wave or  other boater and/or having your propulsion die.  That vessel still isn’t one I’d take out of a sheltered waterway.

I Sounds like the guys OB wouldn’t start or would have returned to sheltered water. You can easily drain a swamped boat is the OB is working...just pull the drain while underway, insert the plug when the hull is empty of water.

Mistakes by a unskilled boater can be deadly, he was lucky.

Tom

@WRB just curious because I do not know the answer. Would a 14’ Jon have enough motor to do this if it was swamped?

Depends on the OB hp, but a 9 would have enough power to move the boat forward, a 5 1/2 would get you back to shore.

Tom

 

As a kid we went out in the Atlantic Ocean in our 14' wood skiff with 14 HP many times. Only on nice days and that boat had considerably more freeboard than most 12' Jon boats. Still, I wouldn't do it on a dare today.

On 8/8/2023 at 11:14 AM, TOXIC said:

Even though the article says he has done it multiple times, I can’t grasp the idea of going out in the open ocean in a 12 foot Jon boat. 

I know a guy who regularly salmon fishes 4-5 miles out in Lake Michigan in a 16ft Lund with a 40hp tiller and a 9.9 kicker. I would never and have never gone out with him. To each his own. 

the guy needed a bucket.  can you bucket out a boat fast enough?

 

i just got back from an AK cruise.  i step out on the balcony one evening and saw a tinyass alum boat way way out in the ocean. the dude looked happy as a clam.  i did use my binoculars on him.  

^ He was probably smoking something before getting in the boat.

On 8/10/2023 at 12:13 PM, Darth-Baiter said:

the guy needed a bucket.  can you bucket out a boat fast enough?

 

 

Depends on how big the hole is but most times, yes 

My dad used to have a 12' deep V boat.  Ain't no way I'd put that in anything bigger than a pond.