Alcohol & Boats

Introduction

So it’s the 1st of July and I’ve been thrown out of only 3.6 bars this year. I don’t know what to attribute the low number to. I guess you could just say I’m aging gracefully. I should clarify that the 0.6 in 3.6 is due to an as of yet unconfirmed ruling. You see at one point I was thrown out of a bar but have no memory of the event. I was told that I was thrown out, but with only one witness can you ever really be sure? Since they are actually pretty unlikely to lie about something like that I tacked an extra 0.1 on. It’s a very precise system, you see. Not the crapshoot you were expecting. There’s science, and even math involved. One might argue that I am the Isaac Newton of blackouts.

I like to think of the 4th of July as the All-Star game of intoxication. The mid-summer classic, if you will. A holiday where everyone is on board with getting bombed, rather than just the typical drunkards like me. This brings me to the most logical combination of all time: Alcohol and Boats. This is the real American past-time right here. Forget baseball, its golden age was the 50’s. (Just ask ESPN Classic, it’s all they talk about.)

Alcohol & Boats

Doesn’t it just roll off the tongue?  Like peanut butter & jelly, or a fish to water, or six of one and a half dozen of the other.  The two words just belong together. If you are out to get just obliteratingly drunk, and I mean straight-up hammered… What better place to do it than on a fast moving power vehicle surrounded by the deepest, darkest body of water you can find? That’s living on the edge baby. It’s especially awesome if you are unable to swim.  And I don’t just mean can’t swim cause you are too smashed, I mean even sober you swim about as well as a large rock. This is a recipe for only one thing: Good Times!  My God… have you ever been so drunk you can barely see, and stepped behind the wheel of a speedboat full of people?  Power baby.  That’s what that is.  Pure unadulterated power.  Not only is everyone already off balance because they are standing on a boat rather than on solid ground, but now you’ve enhanced your game with the ability to rocket that throttle all the way forward and dump everyone in the place right on their ass.  Try that on land!  You can’t do it.  Only in a boat can you wield so much power so effortlessly.

I’ve been to regular parties where people are so drunk that when they try to walk they have to try so hard to balance it’s almost as if the floor was moving around beneath their feet.  Well on a boat the floor actually is moving around beneath their feet!  Let’s see ‘em try to handle that!  It’s like pouring water on a drowning man!  They don’t know what to do. They don’t know whether they’re coming or going!  Because they are confused see.

So now that this awesome power lies before you, let me offer some guidance on how to harness it and wield it with the most rewarding results.

Tip 1: Maximize shock value.

The best time to ratchet that boat into high gear is when no one is looking. Create a distraction, pull some girl’s top off, claim to have seen the loch ness monster, it doesn’t matter.  Just get all the drunken bastards looking in one direction and then hop behind the wheel and blast that baby into top gear.  Even if it’s a slow boat this move will usually result in either knocking everyone on their ass or hopefully dumping one or two of them right out of the boat and into the drink.  

Tip 2: Jam the prop.

If you are going fast enough, the water will open up behind the boat in such a way (especially with an inboard) that you can actually see almost all the way down to the prop spinning in the water. In this situation what you want to do is find something solid enough to stop that spinning metal right in it’s tracks. I suggest an oar or a fire extinguisher (most boats have one somewhere). It’s tough to do right, but if you do it’s totally worth it. The torque created here can be enough to rip the motor right out of your ride with a sound that makes an atom bomb sound like a mild fart.  Most the time the prop will just fire the obect right back out and into your face, but some risks you just have to take.

Tip 3: Hit something.

Hit something? Hit what? Hit anything! I don’t care if it’s a buoy, a rock, a sandbar, or some little kid swimming around, if you hit something in a boat going fast enough the results are mayhem. Like when a space pebble hits a space ship and just rips through that steel like it’s a piece of cheese, great speed can make even minor impacts amazing.

Tip 4: Find a jet skier and drive your boat directly behind them.

Sooner or later that bastard is going to fall. And when he does? Oh boy! He’s going to have two tons of aquatic vehicle stuffed straight up his butt. Plus he’s a jet skier, it’s not like the world is going to miss him. It’s practically a miracle that he’s lived this long anyway. You are just helping nature regress to the mean.

Tip 5: Penalize anyone using wind power

This is the tip that creates the most confusion. What do you mean Synthetic? Penalize? Wind Power? That’s right! This is the year 2009. Boats have motors in this day and age. They don’t harness the awesome power of the wind anymore because that power sucks now. We have gas power, which trumps wind any day. So how do I penalize these fools you ask? Simple. You take your modern day gas powered boat and drive around their slow moving p.o.s. wind powered boat in circles until they capsize. This is surprisingly easy to do, as gas boats make a pretty big wake when they are going in a circle. Plus people driving wind powered boats are typically stupid, as is evidenced by the fact that they are driving wind power boats. So they are ill-equipped to think their way out of your ring of death anyway.

Tip 6: Litter like a madman.

Some people don’t get why this is such a great tip. To those people I say reread Tip 3. Just because you are the only one out to have a good time doesn’t mean you can’t force a good time on others! If you litter often enough and big enough, other people are bound to run into all your refuse at some point. I should have mentioned this earlier, but the golden rule of boating is “The more stuff you hit, the more fun you have.” 

Tip 7: Convince someone new to boating that it is ok to touch the prop.

Only complete fools touch the prop ever. This is because even if the boat is off some drunken knucklehead is liable to turn it on and blast off into top gear while your dumb ass is standing on the prop trying to climb back into the boat. Plus most drunk people can never figure out where neutral is so you end up coasting along with that spinning blade whirring the whole time you swim around the boat. Just because most people have wised up to this doesn’t mean you can’t still have a little fun. If you are next to the prop and act like you are touching it, and tell whoever the noob in the water is that only wimps won’t touch it, they will usually touch it (bonus tip: on a boat with drunk girls this trick will also work with your penis.) Little do they know they are about to lose a hand.... In both scenarios.

Tip 8: Be as drunk as possible all the time.

This one sort of goes without saying.  But if any time you think that maybe you are drinking too much, or have drunk to much, just remember this this saying and make it your mantra:

You are on a boat. Nothing can go wrong.