Boat trade-in misadventures with Charlie

Three years ago I traded my 11.5 foot aluminum hulled inflatable boat in for a 16 foot aluminum hulled power boat. On the morning of the trade-in, I met Charlie, the boat dealer's assistant manager, at their shop on a Sunday at 9:30 am. He had the dealer's zodiac inflatable boat on a trailer and my new boat on a second trailer. We hooked the new boat trailer up to his truck and drove it the short distance to the boat ramp in Port Moody, trailered it into the water, and tied it to the dock. We then went back to fetch the zodiac. As we were driving back to the boat ramp with his zodiac, Charlie commented that he had just sold it. I was surprised that we were taking it out on a work trip. We trailered it onto the boat ramp, but it slid prematurely off the trailer and scraped along the concrete ramp before it went fully in the water. Oops. Hope it’s new owner doesn’t mind.

With the two boats in the water, he then attached a branched line to tow my boat behind the zodiac. We then motored out for around 32 km (20 miles), about an hour, until we hit the open ocean. 30 minutes into our trip, I notice that the gas tank on the zodiac reads little over half full. I ask if that’s enough to get us there and back, he says we will be fine. When we reach the open ocean, he starts looking at the map on his dashboard, for quite a long time, dialing in our destination. Meanwhile I’m noticing this large raft of logs immediately to our left. I look to our right and notice a barge. I’m wondering whether that barge is towing the log raft. I ask Charlie for his opinion, he looks up, says some eff words, and backs us up and around the log raft. Yikes. That could have been really bad (ocean HPGR treatment, no?).

The open ocean is a little rough and we make slow progress. As we’re motoring along, we hit a large piece of tree trunk that clonks the zodiac hull and hits both of the zodiac’s two outboard motors, but misses my boat. Not really his fault, that can happen to anyone. Charlie says that the zodiac handles differently now, and he doesn’t like it. Maybe hull damage. I hope it’s new owner doesn’t mind.

I ate some pizza slice on the boat at noon. We get to Porlier Pass at the north end of Galiano which I’ve been nervous about, because there's a whole bunch of ocean trying to squeeze itself through the pass. It actually doesn’t seem that bad and we get through no problems. Once we’re on the other side of the pass, I get into my new boat and drive it to the marina and we park at the fuel dock. The full distance from Vancouver is around 100 km (62 miles). The fuel dock is closed. Nice. Well, it’s a Sunday and out of season so that’s normal...

I asked him if he wouldn't mind backing my new boat into it’s new slip at the marina, since I'm unfamiliar with the boat handling and I have to get past five other boats. He agrees, and backs it up, crunch, into the boat opposite. Nice. Not too hard but still.

We tie my old boat to the back of the zodiac and go over to my cabin so he could check it out and he ate his pizza slices and a bottle of Modelo. He then says probably we should get gas over at Salt Spring. Sure. I’ve never bought gas at Salt Spring. We go over there, and the gas dock is closed. Nice. So that was over an hour of our time and precious fuel travelling in the wrong direction to home.?

He didn’t like the way my little boat was following us because it was only tied by a single line instead of the branched line he had rigged for my new boat. So we reel in my old boat but he can’t reach over the side of the zodiac to get the line through the two tow rings on the front of my boat. So he unpeels all his clothes and goes in the water. He’s probably 60ish I guess, a big guy. He hooks the line through through my boat tow hook, and struggles to get back onto the zodiac. It's hard to get back into a zodiac, the back is really the only place for it, but the back is crowded with two giant outboards. He hoiks his leg over and between the motors, stuff flailing everywhere, while I try to pretend this isn't happening and wondering whether he's going to scorch himself on the motors. Fortunately he had a towel so he was able to dry off and get dressed again.?

We get back through the pass no problem and on the other side the ocean is very calm and smooth and it’s a beautiful sunset. No issues on the way there. But the fuel level continues to drop and way before we reach the city the fuel alarm is flashing. It’s now dark. He says we will go into False Creek and fuel up at the dock there. We get there at 8:30 pm and they closed at 6 pm. Nice. They open again tomorrow at 6 am. I said, why don’t you tie up here and be back at 6 am, and I walk home and you take the train home? He says no, we’ll go back out of False Creek, around to Burrard Inlet, and get gas at the fuel dock in Coal Harbour, which is on the way home for him. I say, are you sure about that? What happens if we run out of gas under Lion’s Gate bridge, where there’s a big gnarly rip and container shipping traffic? He says we’ll be fine. Since he hasn't been good at predicting dock fuelling hours twice now, this time I take the initiative to check their hours, they close at 10 pm. Good. You'll note that I could have bailed at this point, but I didn't.?

We get to Lion’s Gate bridge and run out of gas. Nice. Pitch dark. We're in a shipping lane. A big motor boat roars up to us, sees us at the last minute, and shouts at us to get out of the shipping lane. Right, good idea. So we reel in my little boat and change the lines so that my boat is now towing the big zodiac. I'm in the zodiac, and he’s in my old boat, with the bottom so low under his weight and the zodiac weight that I’m worried that water will come in and swamp him. I'm wondering whether it would be better to lift the two giant outboards out of the water to reduce the drag on the zodiac. I take the initiative on that. He has no idea how much gas I have in the tank in my little boat. Fortunately I keep that thing stuffed pretty full of gas but it's still a small tank. I also always carry a spare full tank, but naturally I did not intend to donate that to him, so it's not there.?

We get to the fuel dock in Coal Harbour at around 9:30 pm. I totally love Chevron now. Except it’s also closed. Nice. Don’t know why google said it’s open till 10 pm but there was a guy who stays there overnight and he let us buy gas anyway. What else could he do. Except one of the outboard motors on the zodiac won't start due to running out of fuel. Fortunately the other motor does start and we make it back to Port Moody in the pitch dark past a bunch of other pitch dark tugs hauling pitch dark barges, at something like 10:30 pm. It's surprising how few lights boats use at night, ourselves included. And that's the story of delivering my new boat and a whole lot of bad decision making.?