soggy_feet
Senior Chief Petty Officer
- Joined
- Oct 10, 2009
- Messages
- 713
I question whether this is a SHT, or should treated as a more serious PSA and a serious reminder to new and old boaters alike.--
A little background on the start of my season first:
The cracked/broken bearing carrier I pulled out of the boat worked well for as long as it was back in service.
I've spent the last couple weeks trying to figure out what I needed for a carrier because the two different ones I bought didn't fit. I ended up machining the outer ring off of my original one, welding up the cracks, turning a new outer ring, and then welding the new ring on, and then turning back to it's proper diameter, and re-boring the ID the shaft seals press into.
Did all that off hours at work Saturday, installed everything Sunday, and launched and destroyed something within 4 hours on Monday, a little more than half way thru my 40 mile trip to my new mooring location with my houseboat.
I didn't plot a course before heading out, and assumed the former lobster boat captain who was holding my chart was paying attention to where she was directing me to go, and she directed me right into rock.
Not a shoal, not a reef, we hit dry land. Marked on the chart AS dry land. You'll see an island on google maps, which is apparently what she was primarily using to locate us.
Google Map:
44.74609, -73.32784
Chart: 14781
The lake is near flood stage now, and that dry land was actually 30" under water. Too bad I need 36" with the drive down.
Anyway, not much left of the prop, and the prop shaft is no longer driven when in gear. Paid $250 to launch the boat in the morning, paid $250 to haul it out again in the afternoon, after $175 for a tow.
Now I get to try to find parts for a drive I'm thinking more and more is actually a mix of MC1 and Alpha 1 pieces.
I don't put any blame on my navigator.
Neither of us knew the waters in that part of the lake, most importantly, I didn't know the waters.
It's my boat, I was behind the wheel, and I should have plotted a course before we left.
Instead, I assumed that because she had held a captains license at one point, that she was fully capable of acting as navigator. Don't assume.
In retrospect, the green can we passed was NOT "a mile marker" as she insisted it was, and I dismissed, it was to direct us around a shoal, and into a shallow when we SHOULD and could have passed to the west of the shoal and islands and stayed in deep water.
I didn't take a good look at the chart until we were anchored and waiting for the nearest marina to send one of their boats out to tow me in.
Just the same as all the stories here about launching without the plug, stick to a routine. Once you break that routine and start putting responsibilities on people who don't fully understand the scope of their responsibility, things can, and usually do, go wrong.
Fortunately, the only things hurt yesterday afternoon were my lower unit, and my wallet.
A little background on the start of my season first:
The cracked/broken bearing carrier I pulled out of the boat worked well for as long as it was back in service.
I've spent the last couple weeks trying to figure out what I needed for a carrier because the two different ones I bought didn't fit. I ended up machining the outer ring off of my original one, welding up the cracks, turning a new outer ring, and then welding the new ring on, and then turning back to it's proper diameter, and re-boring the ID the shaft seals press into.
Did all that off hours at work Saturday, installed everything Sunday, and launched and destroyed something within 4 hours on Monday, a little more than half way thru my 40 mile trip to my new mooring location with my houseboat.
I didn't plot a course before heading out, and assumed the former lobster boat captain who was holding my chart was paying attention to where she was directing me to go, and she directed me right into rock.
Not a shoal, not a reef, we hit dry land. Marked on the chart AS dry land. You'll see an island on google maps, which is apparently what she was primarily using to locate us.
Google Map:
44.74609, -73.32784
Chart: 14781
The lake is near flood stage now, and that dry land was actually 30" under water. Too bad I need 36" with the drive down.
Anyway, not much left of the prop, and the prop shaft is no longer driven when in gear. Paid $250 to launch the boat in the morning, paid $250 to haul it out again in the afternoon, after $175 for a tow.
Now I get to try to find parts for a drive I'm thinking more and more is actually a mix of MC1 and Alpha 1 pieces.
I don't put any blame on my navigator.
Neither of us knew the waters in that part of the lake, most importantly, I didn't know the waters.
It's my boat, I was behind the wheel, and I should have plotted a course before we left.
Instead, I assumed that because she had held a captains license at one point, that she was fully capable of acting as navigator. Don't assume.
In retrospect, the green can we passed was NOT "a mile marker" as she insisted it was, and I dismissed, it was to direct us around a shoal, and into a shallow when we SHOULD and could have passed to the west of the shoal and islands and stayed in deep water.
I didn't take a good look at the chart until we were anchored and waiting for the nearest marina to send one of their boats out to tow me in.
Just the same as all the stories here about launching without the plug, stick to a routine. Once you break that routine and start putting responsibilities on people who don't fully understand the scope of their responsibility, things can, and usually do, go wrong.
Fortunately, the only things hurt yesterday afternoon were my lower unit, and my wallet.
