Tales of loaner gear broken or lost

[Guest]

I took my family and brother in law’s family on a gentle downstream day trip, all in solo boats. My solo boats and paddles. There was a bit of cat herding involved, but everyone seemed to do fine and had a good time.

I lent my sister in law a new, lightweight wood paddle, and wasn’t paying attention to her technique; she was keeping up and in relative control, so no worries. Even the offspring did well, it was a happy day.

Except that, once home, I discovered that she had taken every stroke by grinding the paddle shaft against the gunwale, wearing not just through the varnish, but well into the wood. On two sides. After some sanding and revarnishing I had an oddly indexed paddle with a peculiar ) ( area midway down the shaft. Never really trusted that stick again.

Lesson learned – Use the old Mohawks as novice loaner paddles.

The other episode was more inexplicable. I loaned a Timberline tent to a co-worker for a weekend car camping trip with her boy friend. When she returned the tent the bag seemed mysteriously light. I unpacked it and found the ground cloth, poles, connectors, stakes, rainfly and even the two vestibules.

No tent body. I asked her about this and she was clueless about where it had gotten off to. How do you come back with everything but the tent? Contacting Eureka with that WTF tale they sold me a replacement tent body at cost.

Lesson learned – Eureka is a good company.

Eh, two instances of loaning canoes to friends. One boat came back abused by sheer stupidity, one didn’t come back at all.

Lessons learned – I will only loan my canoes if I’m along on the trip.

 

[dougd]

Lent my brother my tent that my father took me to buy at the Eureka outlet back in my youth! I had it for years without a mishap. Now granted my brother was using it for a wedding, low key affair, and when I got it back every stake and pole was missing! It very nearly came to a fist fight! I've never lent him another dang piece of camping equipment!

 

[Alan Gage]

Lent a friend a sleeping bag for a trip and he slept in the pine woods, with no ground cloth of any kind, and returned it with sticky bits of pine resin on the outside.

No, wait. I have that backwards. It was the other way around back when I was young and dumb. Only saving grace is that was over 15 years ago and I don't think he's used his sleeping bag since.

Alan

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

Back in '86, I loaned my Harmony whitewater paddle (they had a pole vault shaft) to a guy on the Ashuelot River in New Hampshire, a very steep and technical whitewater run. He also borrowed a canoe from another couple. He dumped just before the take-out and the boat and paddle were lost in the inaccessible gorge after the take-out. He paid me what I asked for the paddle -- much too little, as I felt sorry for him -- and he eventually bought a replacement boat for the others. I never replaced that Harmony paddle with another, which was a shame.

 

[PeteStaehling]

I have a relative who reliably returns any item borrowed with parts missing if it comes back at all. I have always refused to loan her anything I cared about.

When it comes to boats and paddling gear I am particular about who I loan things to. They only go to someone who will respect them or to someone who I like enough to accept whatever they do to them.

I remember a good friend who when loaning out something was assured, "I'll treat it like is my own." He corrected them by saying, "No, you will treat it like it is MINE."

 

[Waterdog]

I ran the lower Yough in my shredder with a kayaking friend of mine at 8.5’ and climbing. The river was huge and I lent him my spare Werner Bandit. About 3/4 down we got ejected in a hydraulic. I got the shredder and myself to a safe ralley point and a couple minutes later he sits down next to me out of breath. “Hey man, I lost your paddle” he said. “Yeah I saw it out in the current but no way was I going to let the shredder go and try to get it” I said. Then he asked if my name and number were on the paddle. “No”,I replied. After a brief pause he says “ that’s too bad. If you had your contact info on it I would have paid for half the paddle”.

cheers

 

[goonstroke]

...

Eh, two instances of loaning canoes to friends. One boat came back abused by sheer stupidity, one didn’t come back at all.

Lessons learned – I will only loan my canoes if I’m along on the trip.

I led a trip for members of a local club a few years ago, and it ended up being 7 people in 4 canoes, three of them mine, all royalex. Of the 7 people three of us knew what we were doing, two were teachable beginners, and two were Experienced.

The trip was two nights, ~35 miles or so of lakes and easy-but-bony class I, so a certain amount of bottom scraping was to be expected. However, one of the boats ended up with a rock about 1/2 inch in diameter embedded in the hull about 3" below the gunwhale (in a big 14" deep boat), along the side, near the decal. It must have happened when I wasn't looking, but really I'm still perplexed by how they found a hazard that high above the water. It's like someone picked up a loaded boat and dropped it on its side, but I know they weren't strong enough to actually do that. There wasn't enough current in the streams for any serious broach action. The Experienced person in the stern did not report any incidents.

Could have been a lot worse, the rock came out and the dent is merely cosmetic, but I still look at it and wonder how they did that.

 

[sweeper]

My electrician friend was upgrading some wiring in the home and made me an offer to do the work for free all I had to do was loan them some gear for 4 wheeler trip they were taking in Austraillia.
When they got back they're telling the story of the trip and they said that it was so dry there that they didn't need the Fly, so they used it as a door mat to keep the sand out of the tent.
I bit my lip, looked at my wife who was softly shaking her head. I nodded back.
I knew my only used once Sierra Design tent was done. There were no tears but after 2 coats of Thompson's Waterseal the tent still leaked.
Looking at the greater picture, the work he did was worth more than the tent it was more the shock of their train of thought.

 

[scoutergriz]

I worked with youth groups for over 20 years, you could fill a tractor trailer with all the lost, missing, and yes, even stolen gear! several sleeping bags and pads, 2 smashed canoes, 2 "missing" water filters (I SAW one go in a parent's pack at the take out), several tents, stoves, fuel containers, and collapsible water jugs, and dozens of pots- I have 3 sets missing the 2 gallon water pot from being dropped when scooping water, and at least 5-6 stock pots that suffered the same fate.
That's the price of taking non- campers camping....

 

[ppine]

I learned these lessons in high school. I have provided people equipment for decades. Now I ask for donations. I ask people to buy a throw rope to contribute. as an example. I have charged people rent to use a new canoe that I knew was gong to get scratches on it. I charged $150. It was much cheaper than a canoe rental for a week. I never loan anything with a blade or delicate equipment. I don't loan anything for a trip I am not going on. But I will give equipment away to people that can use it.

A few people return borrowed equipment in better shape than they got it. Those people I trust, and lend all kinds of things to them.

 

[frozentripper]

...one of the boats ended up with a rock about 1/2 inch in diameter embedded in the hull...

This happened to a outboard motorboat borrowed from Ontario Hydro on the Abitibi river in Northern Ontario, except the rock became embedded in the aluminum stem. We were motoring up the river at a good clip with me cutting up suckers in the front, to use as bait for one of the fish assessment stations. At the motor was Mad Jack, who was a real bushcrafty guy and always on the lookup for wild meat... at one point he started pointing and yelling "LOOK AT THE DUCKS, LOOK AT THE DUCKS!!!". I was cutting up the suckers with an extremely sharp and pointy Rapala filleting knife and looked to the shore. At that exact moment the fast-moving bow hit a sharp rock head-on and stopped instantly. For a moment the motor boat stood stern-up out of the water and bow down as the rock bit into the soft aluminum stem, then the boat fell back down, fortunately not flipping end over end. The knife went flying forward into the water and happily, not into any screaming bodies. When we dragged the boat up on shore for inspection and to get over the shakes, there was a broken-off piece of rock wedged into the aluminum at the point of impact.

 

[Guest]

I have a relative who reliably returns any item borrowed with parts missing if it comes back at all.

I have a friend who fits that bill. He is still a friend; good paddler, great tripping companion, generous to a fault, but simply horrible with loaner stuff. He’s the guy I never got a canoe back from.

I should have known better, by then I’d had enough examples. I lent him a heavy duty 100’ extension cord for his son’s science fair project. He left it in the gym when he packed up. I lent him my always dependable old Toro rotatiller. He destroyed the motor.

I lent him a multi-function electrical/circuit tester. Not a tool I use very much and it still lived in the original blister pack. I didn’t really notice it was missing until a few years later when I was house sitting for him and spotted it in his shop, still in the very identifiable blister pack.

Took it home with me, the battery was (of course) dead, went to install a new battery and discovered that he had written his initials on the inside of the battery panel.

I don’t think he was trying to steal it, just in his usual way forgot where he acquired it.