3/4" piece of rebar drove into a stump and high water. Going down the river on plane on Millwood Lake. Got to the spot I wanted and started slowing down. I knew the backwash was coming so I throttled her a bit and felt a very small bump on something but the boat just stopped dead in its tracks. Knew it was bad when I saw the building pool of water coming up from the floor drains. It was winter and about 35 degrees. I tried for 3 hours to get the rig to move. Still didn't know it was rebar. I stripped down and tied the bow rope to me and told my buddy to save my ass if I didn't come back up. Jumped in and got under the boat, found the stump and felt the piece of rebar going into the middle of the keel. This was a 20' Stratos with a 250 Merc. I tried to lift it up but the water was too deep and I was turning blue. Ended up calling a buddy to come drag us off. Kept the bilge pump running and ran the 20 miles back to the landing. I had to take the center livewell out, the built in gas tank, and patch from the inside. It was not to bad a hole until we started pulling it off the rebar. Not a fun trip. I did find the rebar when the water went down and cut it off the stump.

About a month later, I had bought one of those automatic bow eye connectors that let you just run the boat up on the trailer and it would automatically connect......Well it didn't and I had those teflon strips on the trailer bunks. You guessed it. The wife started pulling up the hill at yarborough landing and the boat slid right off the trailer. The guy that helped me get it back on the trailer ended up buying the boat from me. The ramp did a lot of damage while the boat was dragging. It is hard for a wife to hear manly screams for life over a noisey diesel. Could have been worse though.....almost went to work that day.