Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 21, 1994 TAG: 9403230121
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Bill Cochran
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
AFT: Boaters have their own nautical language devised to help them maintain their superior status around nonboat owners. Aft is an example. It means behind. Aft also is stern. The opposite of aft is fore, which frequently is called bow.
Then there is starboard. That means right, which is the opposite of port. Or is starboard left and port right?
Never mind. This far inland, your chances of running into someone salty enough to know for certain are slim, so feel free to use these terms interchangeably to impress a land-lover friend.
BASS BOAT: A sleek, gadget-laden, heavily powered, metal-flaked, high-priced craft towed to the lake with a $300 vehicle.
BASS PRO: Fishing's equivalent to a NASCAR driver.
BOAT: The standard definition is a hole in the water into which you pour money.
BOATING SAFETY CLASS: What a boater thinks everyone should be required to take - except him.
BOAT SHOW: Where you buy a $4 ticket in order to let someone try to sell you a $20,000 boat.
CAPTAIN: What you call someone who owns a boat so big that he doesn't have to duck his head when he goes into the cabin.
COAST GUARD AUXILIARY MEMBERS: They wear blue uniforms and white caps, the reward for knowing what starboard means.
COLD FRONT: A nasty weather pattern bearing rain, snow, sleet, plunging temperatures and high winds that consistently reaches your favorite lake Friday afternoons and departs Monday mornings.
FINANCING: This is the process of paying for a $42,000 boat on a $26,000 salary. Sometimes it is called ``floating a loan.''Boat salesmen are trained to provide other nautical phrases in case you suddenly get cold chills at contract signing time. They include: ``You only live once.'' ``Grab all the gusto you can.'' ``You can't take it with you.'' ``Might as well spend the kid's inheritance.'' ``Just think, once you own this baby you won't have to squander money on a Caribbean cruse.''
FISHING GUIDE: Someone willing to take you fishing in his boat at the drop of a couple $100 bills.
GAME WARDEN: A law enforcement officer who always appears when you forget to carry your boat registration card, but never can be found when you see someone zooming 90 mph through a ``No Wake'' zone.
HOCKEY: A sport at the Roanoke Civic Center that put the Southwest Virginia Boat Show in the penalty box for 22 days.
JET BOAT: Manufacturers and operators haven't quite determined if this is a watercraft or a low-flying F-16.
LINE: You buy it at the hardware store as plain-old-rope, but once on your boat it magically becomes ``line.'' Unfortunately when an idiot climbs behind the wheel of a boat there is nothing that will magically change his character.
MARINA: Where 88.9-cents per gallon gasoline sells for $162.9
NAME: Boats with sterns (see Aft) that are large enough to write on should be named. Be creative. Don't fall for common names like Dolly's Debt or Bill's Pride. Be creative. One boater named his craft The Flu. When he skipped work for a day on the lake his secretary could tell impatient callers, ``I'm sorry, Mr. Jones is out with The Flu.''
OIL INJECTION: New technology that has taken the challenge out of mixing gasoline and 100-to-1 oil without spilling it on your new deck shoes.
PAYMENT PLAN: One hundred-twenty easy monthly payments or 12 extremely difficult ones.
PERSONAL WATERCRAFT: Small boat designed to let one occupant personally disrupt the weekend for 150 other lake users.
PFD: Something you keep stored in a fore or aft compartment that you wished you were wearing when you fell overboard.
PONTOON BOAT: With a deck the size of an aircraft carrier, this slow-moving craft is highly popular with people who move to the lake and have carloads of kin and friends and people they've never heard of suddenly show up for weekend boat rides, not to mention for room and meals.
POWER PACK: An expensive part of your outboard engine that blows up three days after your warranty expires.
PRICE: If you have to ask, chances are you can't afford it.
SNOW: Something that would dump on the boat show even if it was scheduled the last weekend of August.
TOURNAMENT: A fishing contest where if you are lucky you might win $100 for a measly investment of $28,362 in time, lost wages, equipment, boat, gas, lures, meals, motel and entry fee.
WATER SKIERS: The people who compete with fishermen for space on a lake. Fishermen say they are reasonable and willing to support a zoning ordinance that gives water skiers one half of the lake and fishermen the other half, as long as the water skiers get the bottom half.
ZEBRA MUSSELS: Tiny crustaceans that crawled into the brains of Roanoke City officials and caused them to sharply curtail boating on Carvins Cove.
\ RULES OF THE ROAD\ A set of regulations enacted by Congress to promote safety and well being among boaters.
You won't notice that the drain plug is missing in your boat until you launch it.
Boat batteries go to a lake to die.
Your favorite launching ramp will be blocked by some burly, shirtless guy with an anchor tattooed on his arm who is repairing a motor that hasn't been fired in five years.
Never ask a skinny person to bring the lunch.
Boat lights work fine until it gets dark.
If there is a single piece of driftwood in a 20,000-acre lake your boat prop will find it.
by CNB