Quote Originally Posted by fuzzy View Post
My dad will be 88 this year, and has been running a boat on it since it was first "navigable" by boat. He's been around it long enough to remember being able to drive a vehicle to Church Island. He has never had issues like you are saying you have had. Either he has been extremely lucky, or you need to let someone else operate the boat for you. And I myself, have run boats on Lake Marion for 35+ years, and done no serious damage to a boat. I'll also run a boat from the canal to the springs, and never hit the channel.
I have been in the boat probably 3 times when we knocked the motor clean off the boat. I have seen another 2 get knocked off. I saw a friend almost break his arm when his motor kicked up. I have bent, broken, and cracked motors and boats. I have had the boat jump completely out of the water hitting stumps I never saw. Me and thunderchicken got hung up on a stump for about 4 hours once. We almost tore the motor and the boat up trying to get it off. I know a guy that broke his leg when he hit one skiing. The bone come out of his skin. I have hit them so hard that I slid to the front of the boat before I even knew what had happened. I have all these stories and I would not even consider myself to be the guy that’s on the lake all the time. Screw a stump.