"Battle Stations! All Hands Man Your Battle Stations!"

That's the order you'd hear barked over the loudspeaker if you were attending the Navy's USS Buttercup damage-control training facility (see right), where leaks spring up faster than you can possibly move to plug 'em all.

At least you can see those leaks, and most importantly, you know that, at the end of the day, you may be drenched, but you won't be a drowning victim. But what do you do when you can't see the leaks, and yet water just keeps getting higher and higher all around you?

I'm well-acquainted with that "sinking" feeling you get when your boat suddenly starts taking on water for no apparent reason, from no apparent source.

It was Saturday, Sept. 8, 2009, while fishing a tournament out of West Neck Marina, that I turned around from the front pedestal and saw water mysteriously bubbling up through the deck drain in my 17-foot Skeeter.

My first thought was that I perhaps had forgotten to insert the drain plug before launching, but then I remembered I hadn't removed it from the previous outing. At the same time, I could hear my automatic bilge pump running nonstop, but no water was pumping over the side. There was no doubt in my mind I needed to stop fishing and make a beeline for the marina.

That "beeline," however, turned out to be a "crawl" because, by this time, I had so much water in the stern, the 115-hp Yamaha outboard couldn't possibly put me on step. For that matter, I couldn't even "crawl" fast enough to force some of the water out. Realizing I was fighting a losing battle, I made a call with my cellphone to the marina manager, a longtime buddy of mine, who immediately dispatched his son, Curtis Wayne, with a portable bilge pump.

Within minutes of his arrival alongside and quick helping hand, the water level in my boat started receding to the point where I finally could get on step and stay there until I reached the marina ramp, where more help was waiting to take my car keys and orchestrate a super fast recovery.

I eventually would learn that a two-fold problem led to my close call. The thru-hull fittings for both my livewell and bilge bumps had snapped in half, allowing water to rush into the bilge at will. I've always surmised that what caused both of these parts to fail was one too many hard jolts from the wakes of "big boys" on the main river.

My incident, however, paled in comparison to the one I read highlights of in the latest issue of BassBlaster. In that case, Darrell Proffitt and Brandon Lovelace were fishing a Jan. 22, 2017, Rat-L-Trap tournament on Sam Rayburn Reservoir when Lovelace's 21-foot Champion bass boat began taking on water for unknown reasons and ultimately sank.

As reported in the Feb. 2, 2017, The Huntsville (Texas) Item by freelance outdoor writer Matt Williams, "The mishap left the two men with no choice but to jump into the 61-degree water, where they spent the next 90 minutes bobbing and paddling and getting beaten to a pulp by a relentless chain of tall waves churned up by high winds that ushered in a recent cold front. The wicked front packed wind gusts up to 40 mph as it raced across eastern Texas, pummeling lakes all across the region and turning them into watery danger zones, riddled with whitecaps and treacherous rollers estimated by some counts to be as tall as 8 feet.

"The waves were especially bad at Rayburn, a 114,000-acre reservoir...known for its big bass and huge water. Proffitt and Lovelace, who have roughly 30 years of experience on the lake between them, knew the weather system was coming, and they planned their tournament strategy around it. For starters, they chose a wind-protected boat ramp in Mill Creek Park to launch from... . The idea, said Proffitt, was to put themselves in a decent fishing area that offered shelter from big winds that wouldn't require navigating across a lot of big water on the way back... .

"What the anglers didn't prepare for was a nightmare that began unfolding as they started making their way back to the Mill Creek boat ramp, somewhere around 2 p.m. According to Proffitt, they were riding the tall swells with no issues when Lovelace looked back and saw water boiling through the compartment door at the rear of the boat.

"'We didn't take any waves over the front or hit anything,' Proffitt said. 'The boat just started taking on water for some reason. We had run the bilge pumps a couple of times during the day, but they never stayed on for more than a few seconds. We were probably 200-300 yards from Mill Creek Cove and maybe 75 yards from the bank when we saw the water pouring in. I told Brandon to turn on the bilge pumps, and he said they already were on. Water was coming in faster than the bilges could pump it out.'

"Realizing they were in serious trouble, Proffitt and Lovelace goosed the throttle in an effort to reach the nearby shoreline. That's when the outboard died and never regained power.

"'By this time, the whole back of the boat was full of water, and that's when reality set in,' Proffitt recalled. 'I told Brandon we needed to get to the front of the boat. About two minutes later, the whole back end went under, causing the boat to roll. We didn't have any choice at that point, except to jump and hope for the best.'

"Both men were wearing lifejackets when they leaped overboard into a froth of towering waves churned up by the stout northwesterly winds. Proffitt donned a traditional buckle-up model; Lovelace, an inflatable PFD designed to inflate once submerged in water. While the lifejackets ultimately did their job and kept the anglers afloat, Proffitt said there were several times over the next 90 minutes when he questioned whether he and his partner would survive or not.

"'Six-foot swells were coming right down the pike,' he said. 'As soon as we hit the water, our heads went under, and the water was cold enough that it took our breath away. Brandon was pretty rattled, and I had to yell at him to get his head on straight. I thought he was going to drown right off the bat. We kept yelling back and forth, but after 5 to 10 minutes, we lost sight of each other in the swells.'

"Proffitt said his first inclination was to attempt to swim to the nearest shoreline, but it was impossible... . The angler added that the waves were so powerful that it became a constant struggle for both men just to keep their heads above water and to prevent their lifejackets from being ripped off their bodies.

"Exhausted, water-logged and cold, the two anglers washed ashore several minutes apart on a main-lake point. Lovelace was the first to reach the bank, but Proffitt didn't realize it until he saw him waving his yellow lifejacket in the air.

"'At first, I thought the lifejacket was in the water, and I immediately assumed the worst,' Proffitt said. 'Then I saw him waving it. That's when I knew my prayers were answered. I didn't care about the boat or anything else, as long as he and I made it. We hadn't seen each other in over an hour, and neither of us knew whether or not the other one had survived. In looking back, there is absolutely no way either of us would have survived this ordeal without our lifejackets... .'

"Proffitt said Lovelace was unable to walk very well due to a foot injury he sustained a year ago, so he set out alone to look for help at around 4:30 p.m. Not long into the journey, he came across an old roadbed that dumped into the lake in the back of a cove. He said the road eventually led him to a house. Luckily, somebody was home at the time.

"'The people called for help and gave me a dry top and blanket to take back to Brandon,' Proffitt said. 'It took me about 30 minutes to get back, maybe a little less. I got Brandon up, and he tried to walk, but he only made it about 10 feet and fell. I headed back out at that point, and I ran into a volunteer fireman. Together, we managed to get Brandon out of there.'

"TowBoat U.S. crews were able to right the Champion 210 and tow it back to Mill Creek Marina (see photo above) in calm water the following day, but the boat and its contents were wrecked. The motor's cowling was torn in half (see photo right), one of the Minn Kota Talons was ripped off the transom, and three Humminbird Helix 12.1 chartplotters were destroyed. Additionally, the anglers lost all of their tackle, including nearly two dozen expensive rod-reel combos and dozens of Rat-L-Traps. Amazingly, Lovelace did manage to salvage one of his rod-reel combos and the Rat-L-Trap that was tied to the line, but it wasn't on purpose. Somehow, the rod got snagged on the lifejacket when he went into the water, and it rode across his back all the way in.

"'That gave him something else to worry about the whole time,' Proffitt said. 'He was afraid to try to get it off because he thought the hooks on the lure might punch a hole in his lifejacket. That would have been a really bad deal... . We both feel very lucky to be alive,' Proffitt added. 'We both feel like we won that tournament, and we never even made it to weigh-in.'"