My dad lives a few miles up the Potomac River from the Chesapeake Bay. He "used" to own a 16' center console fishing boat with a little 40 hp Yamaha on it. It was a great little calm water day fishing boat. Me being the naive and perhaps a bit cocky teenager I was at the time, I decided that I was a good enough captain to take it the 15 miles down the Potomac River and then nearly across the Chesapeake Bay. I wanted to fish for red drum and sea trout in some excellent cuts along the many islands in that area.
Well, an early season t-storm began rolling in and instead of heading to the nearest harbor, I tried beating it back to my father's dock. It caught up to me in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay. Turns out it was a rather large and strong t-storm and even with keeping the boat head on into waves and the bilge pump running non stop I ended up taking on so much water that the fuel tank got contaminated with sea water and the engine cut out. It wasn't long and the boat was flipped in the now 8'-10' seas. Fortunately, I didn't have much tackle in the boat and it was just a bare bones fishing boat. I also was smart enough to have a life vest on. Water temps were in the mid 70's so it was not life threatening immediately.
Anyways, I spent the next hour and half being tossed around in the middle of the Chesapeake in a full blown t-storm and then another 4 and half hours floating in more calm waters until another fisherman happened to see me bobbing around... He was nice enough to scoop me up. By this time it was after dark and I was getting a bit on the chilly side.
To put it mildly, my father wasn't thrilled... Took a long time for him to trust me with another boat! They ended up finding the boat 30 miles further south in a marsh about a week later. It was beyond salvaging.
