This is what I’m looking into to avoid the ramp at night with a crowd! If no availability, we won’t be watching from the boat.
It's not bad, even at the most crowded ramps. I've seen boats fall off trailers, and people slide boat/trailer combos backwards into the water. I've pulled peoples truck/trailer/boat combination out at the ramp, and I've put other peoples trailers on my truck to get them out. In 20+ years of boating I've never seen a ramp get so bad that it's just full on closed. There's always at least one lane open, and I've never seen anyone stranded on the water. I've dropped off a driver, and had them take the truck/trailer to another local ramp, and I boat to the other ramp due to crowding, but that was me being impatient, not because it was closed.
This all holds true for any popular 3 day weekend. The closer you are to a major city the more shenanigans you see. Labor Day, Memorial Day, 4th of July are the big ones around here.
The absolute best advice for a busy ramp is to have patience. Take your time, let other people be flustered, in a rush, mean, whatever. You do you, take your time, wait your turn, and don't be in a hurry. If someone cuts you in line at the dock, just let 'em go. If someone cuts in line at the ramp after you've been waiting 45min, just brush it off. Don't be a pushover, but keep your cool, take your time, and give the idiots a wide space to pass by.
Don't let them bring you down to their level, they'll most often beat you with experience down there!
TL;DR at the bottom......Story Time!
One of the "best" stories I have (I've got a couple that are pretty good) was 4th of July in 2009. Wife and I had our '98 Rinker 182 on the Ohio River to watch the 4th of July Fireworks display. Louisville has a great waterfront area, and they had a huge stage setup that we could easily hear from the water. George Clinton was headlining, and there were a few other artists ahead of him. It was a great evening to just chill at anchor on the boat, listen to the tunes, and enjoy the area. A few hiccups with other boaters, but in general it wasn't overly busy or crowded. Once the 2-3 people that couldn't work an anchor were out of the way a good number of us just hung out.
Anywho, once the fireworks were over, well past dark of course, the crowd collectively idled back to Cox Park, the nearest ramp to downtown Louisville on the KY side. Of course it was PACKED. Normally it's like 4 or 5 boats wide, pretty easily. Debris had it down to a max of maybe 4 boats, and most of the yay-whos were coming in crooked and limiting it to 3 on the ramp at a time. No big deal we'll wait. After about the 15th boat gets out we realize (what we'll call) lane #1 was the same husband/wife team trying to get a MONSTER 28ft-ish cruiser back on a trailer. He on the boat screaming and cussing. She's in the truck crying and cussing. It's a real display of how to NOT stay married. Everyone else is having various levels of luck with the current/waves/wind and generally moving along at a decent pace without losing their collective minds on each other. I think the husband/wife combo was showing everyone else how BAD it could be. SO it's finally our turn, wife has dropped me off, I have the truck trailer ready. We pride ourselves on being seasoned pros at this, and of course it works out perfectly. She comes in perfect, we're on/off the ramp in minutes. As we're tieing down and cross-loading to the truck we make the decision that we should pay it forward and help these folks out. Nobody else seems to be helping, we had nowhere else to be, and they clearly aren't going to get this done on their own. So I park the truck, and off I got to help. Wife is standing by with the phone in hand and 911 dialed prepared to press send if shit hits the fan.
Off I go to help. I approach the couple as they're making attempt #238. The trailer is crooked as dammit again, he's coming in hot, and she's clearly over it while standing beside the truck. I calmly ask if I can help, and she almost begs "yes please, get me out of this mess". So I yell out to Mr. Captain, and he screams back something obscene about his wife, but the general thought is "yes please help". So, I go into, "Were gonna fucking fix this right now" mode. I tell him, you get back away from the trailer and wait for my signal. I'll get the truck/trailer prepped and in the right spot and we'll try this again. I start looking the equipment over and realize I'm in over my head. It's an late '90's F150. V6, 5spd manual, short bed 2wd pickup. Rear tires have cords showing. This truck isn't pulling anything out of this ramp tonight. SO I walk back and look at the trailer. Ball is a 2in, it'll fit on my truck ('03 Yukon 4wd with good tires). I also immediately notice there are no chains attached, the coupler is unlocked, and there is no jack. Great, I've really stepped in it now. I'm neck deep in helping these folks at this point, I'm not just gonna walk away, I'll figure this out. Head back to the dock and wave the guy over. He comes over and tells me he has a floor jack in the bed of the truck he uses to hitch/unhitch at home. Great, at least we're getting somewhere.
Now, I've driven his truck and empty trailer to the tie down area. I use the floor jack to get his trailer off his truck, and I've moved my Yukon into place and got it hooked up. While dropped my trailer I take the chains from it and wrap them around the bow stop, and hook to the hitch. At least there is a backup at some level at this point. I get my Yukon, and his trailer backed in. Rusty fenders just above the waterline where he says they need to be, and I wave him in. He comes in HOT, and I mean like 10mph HOT to load. He's mostly straight on the trailer, and he's all they way up on the bow stop. I now learn why he came in so HOT, you see there is no hook on the winch strap, just a frayed end where a hook used to be. I hold it up, and look at him with a serious "Dude WTF" face. He says "Just throw a couple hitches on it, it'll be fine". WOW. OK, well, put a bowline on it, cause I know they hold and are generally easy to remove later, it works and I winch the thing until it's snug. At this point I'm finding religion again and praying to any god that will listen that the boat doesn't simply slide off the back of the trailer as I pull out of the water.
I should have prayed harder. I really should have. The boat stayed on the trailer, however my Yukon (now most likely severely overloaded) is finding a hard time getting traction on the ramp. Switch to 4wd. I've got this I think, they're pretty new tires and I've never had a problem at this ramp before. NOPE. Got a 3 wheel spin going on. Power is coming up to fast, and I'm having a hard time modulating power and brakes. Switch to 4Low. Get some extra torque off idle, and not have to add so many revs to make it happen. It works, just barely, but it works. We INCH up the ramp. I had all the windows down in hope of hearing early warning signs of trailer/truck/boat failure. Instead, I'm greeted with a collective cheer from the people watching all these shenanigans from the grassy hill next to the ramp. I feel somewhat "hero-ish", but clearly we're not out of the woods yet.
Once we manage to get to the tiedown lanes (maybe 200ft ahead), he hops out and has clearly had some time to cool down. He's very thankful, and is asking to pay for my time and efforts. $50 is all he has, but says he'll run to the ATM if I want more. I should've taken his cash in hindsight. Instead, I tell him to just pay it forward to the next guy, and help out the next time he sees someone that needs it. I'm not sure I've EVER unhitched a trailer and driven away as fast as I did that night. It was literally like a "Good luck, we'll see ya around" and I drove off, hooked out boat, and got out of there. No idea if he ever made it home, or how much his divorce lawyer cost him. His wife left in a cab (this was before Uber was a thing) about 1/2 way through the debacle. I assume she had enough of the bullshittery coming from him, and expected more of it later. I like to think she went somewhere other than home, but I have no idea.
TL;DR:
Guy/Wife having a hard time getting a cruiser out of the Ohio river on the 4th of July in 2009. I fought through ROUGH equipment, used my truck, got them out. Final familial status of couple unknown, presumed separated.
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