I struck a submerged object off Ocean Reef just before Xmas. I was returning from a short fish and checking my cray pots. The sounder on my tinny showed 14 mtrs of water under me at the time and I was about a kay and half from the boat ramp. The weather was good at the time so I had the little 30 fully open and she was zipping along when the motor kicked up. I did a short sweep of my track but could find nothing. Once I got my boat out of the water there was no hull damage but I had a bend in the skeg which i carefully tried to straighten but unfortunatly snapped the end about the size of a 20cent bit off. I hasn't effected performance in anyway... 

cray ropes that  pros have not shortened from out deep in Leeman.  Friend hit a big plank of wood coming home from out wide, it was in the sound, did some serious damage to his fibreglass hull, thank goodness he had a good bilge pump and about 2 klms from CPBA, very quick retrieval of his boat also.

Thought we were just about to hit a floating body, till we got up a big closer and it was a massive big turtle, saw us and off it went.

Over new years with the boat, the wind was blowing so decided to take the family around the corner to the basin and the next little bay for a snorkel.

Was heading back doing about 8 knots max keeping an eye on the many thousand cray pots when out of no were one has twenty meters of rope sitting on the surface, quickly selected netrual and started lifting the motor     clunk clunk  look back to see the floot and rope come free,  that was close i thought    looked up and no sounder,  lifted the motor and the transducer had been fipped clean off.

Later thought about it and if it happened again i would leave the motor down and this might avoid the chance off the float coming though and taking somthing out.

 just got my boat back after having the gearbox replaced due to fishing line around prop shaft.which in turn stuffed the seal and all the oil drained out leaving the gearbox dry. luckily it was covered by insurance. 

and we had just finished for the night and steaming to another bit of water when we struck "something". The impact knocked a bloke out of his bunk and onto the floor. We searched around for ages and couldnt find anything. The boss reconded it was most probably a semi submerged shipping container. Good thing we were in a steely and not GRP. Could have been a different story. On the slip later that year no real damage except for a feint line!!

Hit a sea snake at 25knots. There was a slight drag on the boat until its body folded around the skeg and hit the 150hp ss prop. Turned around and went back but there wasn't anything resembling the sea snake left floating on the water. Instant berley trail.

Worst thing I've hit was a 50mm mooring rope that was unmarked. Thankfully saw it just as i went over it at 20 knots, could have been really nasty. Rope was anchored to the bottom on both ends!

yes just the usual crayropes locally - idiots leaving there long ropes on in the shallows - no real damage except the transducer bracket once.... hit the usual submerged rockbars trees etc up north...

best one was heading out one morning with a mate from work for some fishing when he caught something just off the bow as we headed into a slop - swerved and went back to find a large dive tank! that woulda been very very handy ina glass boat thats for sure lol - not sure where the rest of the diver was tho????

I hit a massive Sea Snake a bit north of the Monties. Wrapped around the leg and slowed me down enough for the boat to drop off the plane.

Also cleaned up a mooring rope in my inboard ski boat in Hedland harbour. Pulled the prop and shaft clean out. Only just got towed back to the ramp and onto the trailer before it sunk.

Those on here that know me might be a little surprised that Im posting this as I dont ever speak about it.

I hit a Mooring at around midnight in the Dampier Archipelago in late 2005. We hit it at around 25 knots. As they are moorings inside port limits, there is no requirement for lighting. It was totally my fault as I was following my plot trail home in an area that I had fished for years. I actually went the way I did because I didnt want to go down past the south side of West Lewis Is. into Mermaid straight as there are HEAPS of moorings in that area. First mistake.

I didnt know what we had hit, but there was blood everywhere, sounder and GPS were both broken off their brackets (My head hit them), seat was broken and a few other things. I called in a mayday, but dont remember if there was a reply as I didnt know what we had hit or the extent of the damage to the boat, I started to drive toward shore. I had to stop for a bit to pull in the anchor that had fallen in, but decided to cut it off as I wanted to keep going. My mate, Shaun, was in a bad way so as we were moving, I put a life jacket on him and cable tied one of the EPIRB's to him and told him to set it off if he suddenly felt wet. I had to cut through the canvas cover as I couldnt see through the windscreen because of the blood. I put both bilge pumps on in manual and trimmed the motor as high as it could go without cavitating because, like I mentioned earlier, I didnt know the extent of the damage.

 We made it all the way back to the ramp (12 miles) and needless to say we were pretty happy. I picked Shaun up off the floor and said we were ok, when I glanced to the front of the boat and saw the reflection of the flood lights coming through the hole in the front of the boat. Water began to rush in and despite trying to motor up the ramp, the boat leaned over and sank. When it went over, I stood on the gunnel (it was under the water at this stage) as the boat tipped over, the other gunnel came over and hit me on the head. The next thing I remember was Shaun pulling me out of the water onto the walkway of the ramp, just in time to see the spot/nav lights go out and the upside down motor stop running.

We got help from people at a wedding reception at the Sharks Footy Pavillion and were taked to hospital.

Shaun had a cut that required 35 staples and 3 fractured vertibrae. I had a broken nose, 2 fractured eye sockets, fractured cheek bone, tongue hanging on by a couple of veins but the worst injury that took 4 weeks to heal was where my teeth went into the back of my right hand - whole arm ended up swollen and very sore.

I dont want to sound like a head case, but I can still hear the noise of the impact - it was over so quickly. We were originally going to stay at the shack, but I wanted to do some gardening the next day, so we decided to head home and I stayed off the booze as I had to tow the boat home. Might sound strange but it makes it worse for me that I was sober, not tired and good to go and still came unstuck.

I didnt go out on a boat for a long time after that, but I eventually made it back out and Im right back into it.

Sorry for the doom and gloom post, but its probably a good thing to get out there to show it doesnt matter who you are or how long you've fished in an area, what we do is potentially so dangerous we need to be careful all of the time.

Hence the name of the new boat 'Lastchance'.

Thats one experience I bet you won't forget and thanks for sharing, seriously! As you said, it can happen to anyone.

Great to see you back out there cob.

Hit it in a glass off after a storm (at Night )  -   few years ago - was about 3 " under the water and man did it make some noise .

Reported it to the port authority and they disposed of it . Other than that - just cray ropes etc.

I did here of a guy that cleaned up a massive sun fish !!!! - that would have been interesting .

4 years ago in Coral Bay I hit a bommie. It was before the ramp was there, did the beach launch motored down to the start of the north passage and went out no problems. On the way back in I decided to follow the same line... only problem it was low tide. Boat went up on it, made a bad noise. Luckily I wasnt going too fast and I got it straight off by slamming it into reverse. No damage was good.

Learnt a lesson that day...

few years back we were at exy going over to long isl at about 6am just as it was getting light and about 6kms out of bundegi and as we went over swell line the bow of the boat rolled over a tiger shark around 10ft and luckily the whole boat rolled over the shark as it went down the swell line, the rear end of the boat kicked up about 1mt and then the motor did the same ploughing the bow into the next swell before the the shark came out the from behind not in a happy mood.   Only damage was all the paint was taken off the motor leg and bent up the transducer bracket. the thing that saved us was the motor trimmed right out and the rolling swell

While shark fishing off Barrow island, we were 5travelling at around 8 knots when out of the corner of my eye I noticed a big shark powering towards us at what looked like flat chat. It ran in under the boat and turned and ran head first in to the nozzle round the 6 foot diameter prop stalling the v12 cat. I restarted the motor and tried to put it in forwards only to stall again. Restarted and reverse this time , you could feel each blade of the prop turning as it tore bits off the massive shark. It took maybe 2 minutes before the prop came completely free with blood and big lumps of meat being spat out. One lobe of its liver floated up and was about 11-12 feet long suggesting it would have been over 20 feet in lenght. Spewing, there was about a grands worth of shark sinking to the bottom and unable to do anything about it.

Jesus! Top stories guys. Touch wood the only thing we've hit is the beach after a hard days fishing