I left Bellingham, Wa. On a Thursday afternoon in the winter of '79-'80 with two 25' Bayliners on my back headed for a Winter Boat Show at McCormick Place in Chicago that had to be in the staging area by 07:30 Monday Morning that was a 10'6" wide load but legal height saith the shipper? AND THE SHIPPER HAD ROUTED ME ALL THE WAY TO McCORMICK PLACE soo. I kept looking back at the load out the left mirror and kept saying Dam that looks high? Pulled into the Amico T.S. in Mazzulla and sticked it. Sure enough, the bow rail around the nose measured 13'11" on the rear boat. An thinking to myself as I banzaid east, if they catch me off route and I nail a low one I buy the boat or whats left of it. Got into a Motel parking lot in Beloit, Wi. way after dark Sunday nite and ran into Three boat Haulers from up in Minnesota headed for McCormick Place too so I ask if they would mind If I tagged along with them in the morning. We exchanged route notes and agreed that we were taking the same identical route, sooo At 05:00 we're pulling out of the motel and onto I-90 east bound. To end this saga I was 2nd in line when we exited I-90 to turn east for the last 7-8 blocks into McCormick Place and we're looking at the "L" trestle that waz clearly marked 13' 8" and we're following shipper's instruction and I started LMFAO. The guy in the lead had 6 18' aluminum row boats stacked stern on the tralter bows forward. HE FOLDED THE BOW BACK ON ALL 6 ROW BOATS. Then here comes Jer. After discussing it ah bit on the 2-way we decided that the west bound lanes looked like the asphalt to the underside of the trestle waz ah bit better so the lead drive is out of his cab blocking the east bound lanes with the cab and load and standing on the west bound side using hand signals to guide me in the wrong direction moving east on the west bound side. I got the entire tractor and half the load out from under and then I felt the tug. I destroyed about 50% of the bow rail on the rearward facing 25'er and I thought that was all the damage. When I got into the staging area I went looking for the factory rep. Found him and explained what had just happened and where. He climbed up on the rear boat and both Captains and Passenger chairs were missing too. He ask why I didn't stop to pick up the two chairs and I said because we had all four sides of the intersection blocked at that time and I could see that they were trashed. The idiot jumped into his rental pickup and headed down the street toward I-90. Came back about 20 minutes later with both "TRASHED CHAIRS" in the bed of the truck and sighed my delivery papers and added, one boat damaged by shippers loading error. I thanked him and got the hell out of there, Jer
