Had to rescue a pontoon today.

I was just walking back to my boat after launching it and a pontoon comes gliding toward my boat. The guy on it says, "We lost all power!" and tosses his bow line at the dock. A guy on a jet ski had towed him toward the dock when his engine died.

I managed to stop his boat just inches before one of the pontoons crashed into my outboard, but he then started drifting toward the rocks on the shore next to the ramp because of the breeze. I handed the pontoon's bow line to my nephew who was going fishing with me and then tossed my bow line to one of the guys on the pontoon.

He looked at it like he had never seen a rope before and I told him to take it to the back of the pontoon. He said, "We don't have any place to tie it." I replied, "Just hold it!"

I managed to slowly back away from the dock and reversed slowly enough that the pontoon was slowly brought back in line with the dock where I had been. However, the guy had no clue how to tie his boat off and he started drifting again.

I then managed to get the pontoon to the other side of the dock (two ramps) where the breeze would blow him into the dock and not away from it.

The pontoon looked to be a hailed out mess and the outboard looked like it just came from a scrap yard. The owner clearly had no clue what he was doing and might have been a little intoxicated.

While all this was going on there were boats stacking up to come out of the water and more boats stacking up to put in.

The takeaway?

Maintain your boat, have adequate lines available, learn how to handle your boat and DON'T boat and drink.

Not following those simple rules can ruin everyone's day.