andrewterri
Chief Petty Officer
- Joined
- Jun 25, 2014
- Messages
- 437
After posting a question about draining my engine or removing it from the slip I choose to go get it. I did not see the post intime and got scared of it freezing. Also, there is a storm coming in this weekend so figured I would just go get the boat. I had a friend come with me while my wife met us at the dock on the other side of the lake. The water is very low, as they are anticipating a heavy rainfall so the drained some of the water off. There are no navigational charts for this lake so i did my best to look for low water obstacles from a high vantage point. Problem is the wind was blowing sustained at 30mph with gust much higher. We got the boat out of the slip and while entering the mouth of the cove we were going to we ran aground. I raised the motor and assets the situation. We hit slow so no one was hurt. The waves were about 3' and beating the boat hard. I could not try to self recover with an anchor as the stern was into the wind and current. I checked the depth and we were about two and a half feet of water. I could not us a paddle to break us loose. We were getting blown further into shore where there were many many tree stumps. Now im worried about puncturing the hull. I felt I had no choice but to try and keep the drive tilted up even if it meant I destroy the u-joints. At this point, I am worried about my friend and i going into the drink which is currently 58 degrees. Once i realized that would not work, only took about 10 seconds, i realized our only chance to save the boat was to jump in and guide it to shore where we could at least miss the stumps and get it secured on land. I quickly calculated we had about 20 minutes in the water before getting to cold and risking hypothermia. I told my buddy to be careful not to get trapped between the boat and the stumps. As we were moving the moving forward we suddenly got into deeper water and got lucky. We made it out and it did not appear to damage the boat to much. There were a couple deep scratches on the keel and the prop is of course chewed up but everything else looks okay. I watched the engine temp closely and the raw water intake never got plugged. Is there anything else i need to look for or check? Is there anything else i could have/should have done (besides running around)? After 16 years of boating I have never had this happen.