Let the big fans blow

Several summers ago I was at the lake and talking with a local Deputy at one of the larger and more popular boat ramps. Boats were steadily coming and going and it doesn't take long to figure out who knows what they are doing and who doesn't. It takes a little practice and time with a particular boat to know how to tow it, how to back it, how to launch the boat and how to load the boat.

Enter "ski daddy" and "hot mamma". A truck arrives pulling a brand new looking ski boat. Very nice, clean, powerful boat. They attempted to back that boat down the ramp and into the water for nearly 20 minutes. That was entertaining enough to keep our attention until they were out of sight, which we knew would be a while.

They finally got the boat backed in, figured out how to get into the boat once it was in the water (also entertaining) and then they were faced with starting and maneuvering the boat off the trailer. Ok, the boat is running, the trailer is parked, ski daddy pulls a groin trying to hold the boat from hitting the ramp and steps while being picked up at shore by hot mamma, and the trip was on.

The trip lasted 50 yards. They idled just past the No Wake buoys and threw the boat in neutral. Dude throws on a vest, attaches a tow rope, tosses a couple of skis off the side of the boat and in he goes. Surely not. They have obviously never been in this boat, if any boat and they plan to ski? Without even learning the boat and controls? It took him 10 more minutes to get the skis on.

Anyway, they have been at the lake for nearly an hour and are still at the ramp. He is in the lake, skis on, grasping the tow rope and talking to his wife just off the rear deck. He is about 5 feet away from the back of the boat with all the tow rope bundled up between he and the boat when his wife jumps with joy and runs to the console. What happened next was questionably the funniest and scariest thing I have ever seen.

The wife, "you ready ski daddy". The reply, "let the big fans blow hot mamma". And she did. She floors it, full throttle. About the time the boat planed out ski daddy realizes that there was 50 feet of tow rope being jerked out of the lake in front of him at an alarming rate. They should have had the rope taught before going all out. But they didn't and by the time he realized it, it was too late.

She jerked his ass out of the lake like a missile being fired from a rocket-launcher. I don't know how far he flew before crashing into the lake only to be drug for several yards before letting go, but he had no skis, could barely breathe and needed to be rescued. He suffered from at least one dislocated arm and drank quite a bit of lake. Otherwise, I guess he was ok. I don't imagine he has been called ski daddy since.