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And another:
I was working Nor'Easter Yacht Yard in Ocean City, NJ and took one of the wooden yard skiffs to a nearby marina to fill up with gas. On the way back, I was running under the Ocean City 9th Street Bridge and decided to go through one of the side spans instead of the center span. I approached from an acute angle (less than 90 degrees), so I couldn't see if there was any on-coming traffic. Just as I got to the bridge, a power boat came through the bridge from the opposite direction. I cut the motor hard over to avoid a collision, but since the boat was flat bottomed, I just skidded sideways into a bridge abutment. I hit hard and the impact shifted all the floor boards. Within seconds, I was knee deep in water and going down fast. I got the engine started and gunned it. The thrust raised the bow, all the water sloshed aft, and I now had about an inch of free board at the transom. Since I was only about 300 yards from the marina, I slowed down a little and went directly into the hoist area and got the boat out of the water before the whole wreck ended up on the bottom.
My boss wasn't happy because it wasn't really his boat and a couple of us ended up refastening the bottom but I wasn't fired. This was way back in 1977.
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Sabre 38 "Victoria"
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