Friday, 17 November 2023

015: Bad Day at “Black Rock”

On Veteran’s Day I woke up early and did my annual FB post: “Thinking of my father, Uncle Bill, Uncle Jimmy and Joseph Kanzler (KIA) on this Veterans Day. RIP.  Also, Cousin Stephen, who served in Vietnam.  God Bless you all and thank you for your service.” 

Of course, I couldn’t help myself from violating my “no politics pledge” and added this at the end: Despite what some may think, I don't think you were "losers" or "suckers."     

We left the dock at Paducah at 8:00 a.m. sharp headed to the Green Turtle Bay Marina via the Ohio River and the Cumberland River and Barkley Lock and Dam.  Flotilla ready to cast of lines:

When I engaged the Garmin autopilot the boat suddenly took a hard turn to the left.  That was weird.  I tried it again.  Same result.

I did the suggested fix, and turned off the Garmin Chart Plotter and Autopilot Control and restarted them.  Same result.   I went to the second level fix which was to turn off the house battery bank which completely cuts power to the units (think unplugging your computer.)   I turned everything back on with the same result.   But this time my Autopilot Controller came up with a message that I need to do a “sea trial reset.  (Note the warning on “being prepared to take control.")

  

And the chart plotter was now showing our boat moving sideways through the water.  We most definitely did not travel 36 n/m through the winding Ohio and Cumberland rivers sideways:

Nancy took over the helm and followed the boat in front of us while I went on the internet to find a fix. I saw a YouTube video on how to do a “sea trial calibration reset” and it required some wide-open water.  The Ohio River is wide at Paducah but with all the barge traffic it did not seem prudent to do the reset here.    I’d wait until we got through the next lock.

In the meantime, this committee (that is the proper nomenclature) of vultures was a foreshadowing of things to come.

 

We turned off the Ohio River to the narrower Cumberland River and it was a tight squeeze with the tows:

 

Once we cleared the Barkley Lock and Dam, we came up to Lake Barkley which looked nice and wide on the chart, depth indicated five to ten feet (five in fall/winter, ten in spring/summer) in the lower spots. Since we draw only thirty inches, I judged this an acceptable place to run the “sea trial reset” which involves making a 540 degree turn and then letting the autopilot take control of the boat to run its calibration protocol.    At approximately 90% complete on the calibration, we ran aground and had to be towed off.   The mistake I made was watching the autopilot controller do its thing, and not watching the chart to see where we were going. I was not “prepared to regain control.” The marina manager later said, “there is a small high spot over there, and I guess you found it.” 

Once towed off I fired up the engine and when I ran up the RPM’s noticed a vibration which means one of four things:  1) bent prop, 2) bent rudder, 3) bent shaft, or 4) some combination of all of those items.

The good news was that a) nobody was hurt and b) we were one mile from a marina where we had a reservation and that has a full-service boat yard with a boat lift. If it was just a bent prop, I was carrying a spare one (in planning for the G/L trip I talked to people who had done it.  To a person they all said: you will run aground, you will hit a log, you must carry a spare prop with you.) But it was Saturday, and the boat yard didn’t open until Monday.  Now began the longest thirty-six hours of my life.  Could the boat yard pull me on Monday?   Is it just the prop (easy to fix) or is the rudder and/or shaft damaged as well (not so easy to fix)?

At dinner everyone was very nice.  Telling me how many times they had run aground so far on their trip.   One guy said five boats in a row hit the same rock in Georgian Bay and had to be pulled.    I appreciated their sentiments, but I still felt lower than low.

On Sunday, the 12th, I woke up to a nice sunrise:

Willie Dawes left Green Turtle Bay later that morning.  Our leader was now leaving us behind!

I then spent the morning updating all my Garmin software (having done it in April), bought all new charts, painted my spare prop with antifoulant paint, and otherwise moped around making miserable company.  

I got this shot of the sunset at a flotilla “docktails” gathering but my heart wasn’t in socializing (too much sympathy from folks and too many, “saw you out there, what happened?”) and I went back to the boat for more moping while Nancy socialized.

 

On Monday, the 13th, at 7:45 a.m. I got a call from the boat yard (I had left a v.m. on Saturday).   The woman said, “You got a spare prop?”   Yes.   “Can you be at the lift by 8:00 a.m.?”  YES!   Matt Murphy from KatMat joined me and we motored over to the lift.  Long story short, I was back in the water by 9:11 a.m. with my spare prop spinning vibration-free.  No rudder damage, no bent shaft, cutlass bearing all good. 

I tipped the yard workers generously for them squeezing me in. (One guy in our flotilla was waiting a week to get his boat pulled.  But he didn’t have the spare parts and the boat yard doesn’t want to tie up a lift or yard space waiting on spare parts.)

Boat being set back in the water:

The wages of my folly:

I shipped the damaged prop off to a repair facility near Midway Airport.  (Spoiler alert: I found out a week later that it was damaged beyond repair.  Tow + boat lift + prop pull/replace + 4x tips + shipping + new prop to order = expensive screw up.   Damaged pride: not priceless.)

The next good news of the day was the arrival, from their land tour of Nashville and Memphis, of the crew of Sol Maria.  Our newfound New Zealand and Welsh friends were joining us again!   That said, I still needed to run the autopilot calibration, as now the Garmin had us traveling backwards and to go left when we needed to go right and vice versa. But that is a story for another day.

 

Dave

 

PS:  That night we went to the “must go to” restaurant Patti’s for their “famous” two-inch porkchop.  It was a good porkchop.  But honestly, Christmas decorations in early November? What happened to Thanksgiving?  Waitresses in full length poinsettia print dresses?  Hey Fox News: your fake war on Christmas is over, Christmas won!




 

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