phrase
You're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat
A first dawning realization that the situation is much worse than expected.
Origin
From Jaws (1975). Police chief Brody, baiting the water on a small boat, finally sees the size of the shark and steps back into the cabin: 'You're gonna need a bigger boat.' The line was largely ad-libbed by actor Roy Scheider. The American Film Institute ranks it among the most memorable in cinema.
Modern usage
Used the moment a problem visibly outgrows the tools brought to fix it โ engineering incidents, legal cases, support escalations.
Tags
realization
scale