I retired from Computer Science Corporation where I worked at NASA's
Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama on June 4th
2004. My wife and I bought a house in Pensacola Florida where we
planned to move. We had an old 34 foot sailboat on Guntersville Lake
on the Tennessee River. The boat, although built in 1964 has a
relatively new engine in it, a Yanmar 30. But the problem was I had
to get the boat from Guntersville Lake to Pensacola, Fl. a distance
of 675 miles by water. The boat was 150 miles from the mouth of the
Tennessee Tombigbee Waterway, which is 450 miles in length to Mobil
AL. And it is 75 miles from Mobil to Pensacola.

So with my grandson Ryan and my brother-in-law Don, we set sail on
the morning of June 12th for Pensacola.

The trip down in the boat was quite hectic. I meant to write a
kind of journal of the trip but just have not got around to it.
The very first day out we ran aground really hard. It was about
4 in the afternoon and we were just past Brown's Ferry Nuclear
Plant. We were in 26 feet of water and I was steering. I must
not have been paying attention because the channel turned and I
did not. We hit, apparently the river bank about four feet below
the water with a hard bang. I was thrown against the binnacle
and bruised my shin really bad. It turned blue and stayed that
way for most of the trip. Ryan, my grandson and Don, my
brother-in-law were both thrown down but not hurt very bad.

We were aground and could not get off. To top that the boat
would not go into forward gear. My heart sank, I thought I had
torn up the transmission. I just knew we were going to have to
get towed in and I would have to abandon the trip, at least for
some time. But it turned out that the hit had caused the fuel
tank to slide forward about an inch or so. This caused the
transmission lever to come down against the tank when I tried to
put it in forward gear. Once we pushed the tank back an inch or
so all was okay. And Ryan and I jumped into the water and
managed to push and shove until we got the boat back in deeper
water.

It rained really hard on us the next day for a couple of hours.
We could not see more than one hundred feet ahead part of the
time. But we made it to Yellow Creed, the mouth of the Tenn-Tom that
day, Sunday the 13th.

The next day we were about to enter Rankin Lock near Fulton
Missippi when the steering linkage broke. The wheel on the
binnacle is attached to a lever about a foot long. The wheel is
about five feet behind the rudder which sits just behind and
attached to the fin keel. An exact lever is attached to the
rudder. A rod connects the two levers. The lever on the rudder
simply snapped in half. It is stainless steel, but electrolysis
can sometimes cause stainless to corrode. Anyway, the lever had
corroded until it snapped right in half. Strange since the rest
of the lever looked untouched.

Anyway the lock gates were about to open and a barge would be
coming out. We radioed our predicament to the lockmaster and he
said the barge would hold up if we needed it to. But we managed
to put the boat in reverse and get out of the way. In the hold
below the cockpit I had an emergency steering tiller. It is a
long steel rod about four feet long, turned down on the end to
fit over the top of the rudder. A plug screws out of the cockpit
floor to revel a square peg on top of the rudder, the emergency
steering tiller then fits over this peg. So we managed to get
underway with only about an hours delay. Now the emergency
tiller faces to the rear of the boat instead of forward as would
a normal tiller as it sits right behind the door to the cabin
and could not possibly face forward. But this confused my
brother-in-law Don. He steered right into the side of the lock
as we were pulling into it. He simply got confused and pulled
the tiller the wrong direction. But little damage was done, just
a few splinters were knocked up on the wooden anchor housing on
the nose of the boat.

We made it into Midway Marina in Fulton Missippi that evening.
The next day we got a courtesy car from the marina and drove
into Fulton. There we found a muffler shop that could weld
stainless. For twenty bucks he made the lever look like a new
one.

There were far fewer anchorages that could handle deep draft
boats, (I draw 5 feet), or marinas than I had counted on. But
we managed to make it without further incident, on day 6, to
Demoplis Yacht Basin where we tied up for the night. But the
chart showed nowhere we could anchor or tie up the next night
before Coffeeville, about one hundred miles downstream. But we
were delayed entering Demoplis Lock the next morning and no way
could we possibly make it that day. About 30 miles above
Coffeeville we decided to pull up into a little cove and drop
the hook. We ran aground again. Trying to back out of the mud we
pulled the propeller shaft right out of the transmission
housing. Not only that but the shaft has a keyway with about a
two inch key that slides into both the shaft and the
transmission housing. The part of the key, about one inch of it,
that fits into the housing sheared off. I suppose all those
years of reversing gears has it about to go anyway and when it
did the shaft spun freely in the housing and just pulled right
out. But my grandson, who is a mechanic, managed to fix it. He
turned the key around and drove the good part, along with the
shaft, back into the housing. Then tightened the two lock screws
back good and tight and all was well again.

But we did all that the next morning. That night we still had
other problems. We managed to get the boat off the ground but
were heading downstream in swift water, with no power.
Fortunately we were still very near the bank so we just dropped
the anchor. We were in about twenty feet of water and about
twenty feet from the bank so we were in a very safe spot.
However we dropped the anchor right into a tree top that had
fallen into the water. It was hung fast and the next morning we
just had to cut the line and leave the anchor.

The next day we made it only about thirty miles to a place
called Bobby's Fish Camp, about a mile above Coffeeville. We had
no idea what we were going to do. There were no anchorages and
no marinas until twenty miles below Mobile. That was a good one
hundred and twenty miles away and no way we could make it. I
know, you would think there would be lots of places in Mobile
but that is simply not so. There is nothing there, on the water
that is, except shipyards, barge yards and commercial tieoffs.
If you try to tie up anywhere there the Coast Guard will run you
off after they fine you. The closest place is Turner's Marina,
about half way down Mobil Bay.

But we took off anyway, what else could we do. To make matters
worse we had only the small stern anchor, less than half the
size and weight of our bow anchor, which we left in a treetop.
But a couple we met at Bobby's Fish Camp told us of a Marina at
mile marker 16.6, (sixteen miles above Movile), that had closed
down. The guide book we had with did not list it but an older
version, which I also had, did list it. Bit it was three and a
half miles buck up a small river. And that was 93 miles away,
barley within a day's run. But we could make it, we thought.

Unfortunately we were held up two hours the next morning before
we could enter the last lock on our trip, Coffeville Lock. No
way could we make it now. But we ran on anyway, looking all the
time for a place to tie up or drop our very small hook. But no
place did we find. We ran on and on until it got pitch dark. We
had a spotlight with which we could see the buoys and mile
markers. About 9:30 we found mile marker 16.6 and sure enough
there was a small clearing leading back into the swamp. The
water, after we got past the enterance was quite deep, about 20
feet. But half a mile back there was a small island with the cut
turning hard to the right. We tried to negoate it but it got
really shallow then and we ran aground again. Fortuately the mud
was really soft. I jumped in and began pushing. I hollowed for
Ryan to jump in and help me. His eyes got big when I said that
but he jumped in anyway. In mud half way to our knees we managed
to push the boat into deeper water. The current was quite swift
and that helped us a lot.

Back in deeper water, I attached the small stern anchor to the
main anchor line and dropped it over. I knew it would not likely
hold in that mud and swift current so I got in the dinghy with
another line. I tied that line to a tree and fastened the other
end to the stern of the boat. We pulled the stern of the boat to
within ten feet of the bank with the bow heading downstream. We
were safe for the night. It was about ten thirty then. We soaked
ourselves with Deep Woods Off and settled in for the night. That
stuff is really greasy and when you sweat it off, the mosquitoes
attack you anyway.

The next morning when we were headed out of the cut we saw a
five-foot alligator lying on the bank. I then understood why
Ryan was so reluctant to get into the water. But at that point
we were 86 miles from Pensacola and with no locks to hold us up
we were determined to make it into the home marina that night.

It was smooth motoring right through Mobile and all the way down
Mobile Bay. When we got to the bottom of Mobile bay, I wanted to
go out into the ocean and perhaps sail the rest of the way. Don
however is deathly afraid of the ocean and would not hear of it.
He isnsisted that we take the intercoastal all the way. But when
we got to the bottom of the bay, there was not a buoy in sight
marking the intercoastal. But I could see it on the GPS and
could tell the exact direction we should go. It was only about
three miles away but in the haze it was impossible to see from
that distance.

After we found that one the buoys were only about a mile apart
and we had no trouble the rest of the way. But the wind came up
and it got really rough until we entered the intercoastal cut.
We made it in about 8 that evening, to Rod & Reel Marina on the Big
Lagoon, just as it was getting dark. That was on June 21st, my 66th
birthday.


The trip took ten days, two or three days shorter than I had
thought. Our average speed when we were in the current,
down stream all the way, was 8.5 to 9 miles per hour. In the bay
and lakes where there was little or no current we did about 7
miles per hour.

We got in on a Monday night and had to wait until Saturday until
my son could come down and pick us up. That night we got a taxi
to my place and the next day I rented a car so we could get
around until Saturday. It rained all that week and we could not
take the boat out at all. Not that anyone wanted to however. We
were all too tired and sick of being on the boat. We just wanted
to lay around and do nothing for awhile.

I went back to Huntsville and finished packing. I rented a truck
from Budget and then had to get a trailer to hitch behind that.
But we got down here the 13th of July I believe it was. I drove
the truck, Alice, my wife, followed in the car with her three
dogs. Brother-in-law Don followed in his truck with his wife. It
took us two days to unload and I had to pay an extra day on the
truck. We were really beat. Don and wife stayed a week and a
half before going back. We still have unpacked boxes in every
room. We have no storage area whatsoever but lots of stuff that
I need to put in a storage shed. I have sent for, on the net,
plans for a 12 by 24 shed and will build it this fall. But I am
not going to be in any hurry. The stuff can just sit in the
boxes and the lawn mower and tools under a tarp in the back yard
until I get it built, whenever that may be. ;-)

A footnote. On the morning of August 10th, I got a call from Rod &
Reel Marina telling me that my boat had to be moved by tomorrow,
(Wednesday the 11th) They said a tropical storm was bearing down on
us and they wanted all boats out of the marina. I quickly made
arrangements with Browns Marina, just inside the Bayou Chico Bridge.
That area is much more sheltered. Rod & Reel gave me a full refund
for the remainder of the month as well as refund my security deposit
of one months rent. I like Browns much better so it all worked out
for the better.

Ron Patterson
1086 Gordon Av.
Pensacola, Fl.
ReadYourDarwin@y... (that is yahoo.com)

Interesting story. What was your most valulable lesson?

Cheers

Ron Patterson wrote:

I retired from Computer Science Corporation where I worked at NASA's
Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama on June 4th
2004. My wife and I bought a house in Pensacola Florida where we
planned to move. We had an old 34 foot sailboat on Guntersville Lake
on the Tennessee River. The boat, although built in 1964 has a
relatively new engine in it, a Yanmar 30. But the problem was I had
to get the boat from Guntersville Lake to Pensacola, Fl. a distance
of 675 miles by water. The boat was 150 miles from the mouth of the
Tennessee Tombigbee Waterway, which is 450 miles in length to Mobil
AL. And it is 75 miles from Mobil to Pensacola.

So with my grandson Ryan and my brother-in-law Don, we set sail on
the morning of June 12th for Pensacola.

The trip down in the boat was quite hectic. I meant to write a
kind of journal of the trip but just have not got around to it.
The very first day out we ran aground really hard. It was about
4 in the afternoon and we were just past Brown's Ferry Nuclear
Plant. We were in 26 feet of water and I was steering. I must
not have been paying attention because the channel turned and I
did not. We hit, apparently the river bank about four feet below
the water with a hard bang. I was thrown against the binnacle
and bruised my shin really bad. It turned blue and stayed that
way for most of the trip. Ryan, my grandson and Don, my
brother-in-law were both thrown down but not hurt very bad.

We were aground and could not get off. To top that the boat
would not go into forward gear. My heart sank, I thought I had
torn up the transmission. I just knew we were going to have to
get towed in and I would have to abandon the trip, at least for
some time. But it turned out that the hit had caused the fuel
tank to slide forward about an inch or so. This caused the
transmission lever to come down against the tank when I tried to
put it in forward gear. Once we pushed the tank back an inch or
so all was okay. And Ryan and I jumped into the water and
managed to push and shove until we got the boat back in deeper
water.

It rained really hard on us the next day for a couple of hours.
We could not see more than one hundred feet ahead part of the
time. But we made it to Yellow Creed, the mouth of the Tenn-Tom that
day, Sunday the 13th.

The next day we were about to enter Rankin Lock near Fulton
Missippi when the steering linkage broke. The wheel on the
binnacle is attached to a lever about a foot long. The wheel is
about five feet behind the rudder which sits just behind and
attached to the fin keel. An exact lever is attached to the
rudder. A rod connects the two levers. The lever on the rudder
simply snapped in half. It is stainless steel, but electrolysis
can sometimes cause stainless to corrode. Anyway, the lever had
corroded until it snapped right in half. Strange since the rest
of the lever looked untouched.

Anyway the lock gates were about to open and a barge would be
coming out. We radioed our predicament to the lockmaster and he
said the barge would hold up if we needed it to. But we managed
to put the boat in reverse and get out of the way. In the hold
below the cockpit I had an emergency steering tiller. It is a
long steel rod about four feet long, turned down on the end to
fit over the top of the rudder. A plug screws out of the cockpit
floor to revel a square peg on top of the rudder, the emergency
steering tiller then fits over this peg. So we managed to get
underway with only about an hours delay. Now the emergency
tiller faces to the rear of the boat instead of forward as would
a normal tiller as it sits right behind the door to the cabin
and could not possibly face forward. But this confused my
brother-in-law Don. He steered right into the side of the lock
as we were pulling into it. He simply got confused and pulled
the tiller the wrong direction. But little damage was done, just
a few splinters were knocked up on the wooden anchor housing on
the nose of the boat.

We made it into Midway Marina in Fulton Missippi that evening.
The next day we got a courtesy car from the marina and drove
into Fulton. There we found a muffler shop that could weld
stainless. For twenty bucks he made the lever look like a new
one.

There were far fewer anchorages that could handle deep draft
boats, (I draw 5 feet), or marinas than I had counted on. But
we managed to make it without further incident, on day 6, to
Demoplis Yacht Basin where we tied up for the night. But the
chart showed nowhere we could anchor or tie up the next night
before Coffeeville, about one hundred miles downstream. But we
were delayed entering Demoplis Lock the next morning and no way
could we possibly make it that day. About 30 miles above
Coffeeville we decided to pull up into a little cove and drop
the hook. We ran aground again. Trying to back out of the mud we
pulled the propeller shaft right out of the transmission
housing. Not only that but the shaft has a keyway with about a
two inch key that slides into both the shaft and the
transmission housing. The part of the key, about one inch of it,
that fits into the housing sheared off. I suppose all those
years of reversing gears has it about to go anyway and when it
did the shaft spun freely in the housing and just pulled right
out. But my grandson, who is a mechanic, managed to fix it. He
turned the key around and drove the good part, along with the
shaft, back into the housing. Then tightened the two lock screws
back good and tight and all was well again.

But we did all that the next morning. That night we still had
other problems. We managed to get the boat off the ground but
were heading downstream in swift water, with no power.
Fortunately we were still very near the bank so we just dropped
the anchor. We were in about twenty feet of water and about
twenty feet from the bank so we were in a very safe spot.
However we dropped the anchor right into a tree top that had
fallen into the water. It was hung fast and the next morning we
just had to cut the line and leave the anchor.

The next day we made it only about thirty miles to a place
called Bobby's Fish Camp, about a mile above Coffeeville. We had
no idea what we were going to do. There were no anchorages and
no marinas until twenty miles below Mobile. That was a good one
hundred and twenty miles away and no way we could make it. I
know, you would think there would be lots of places in Mobile
but that is simply not so. There is nothing there, on the water
that is, except shipyards, barge yards and commercial tieoffs.
If you try to tie up anywhere there the Coast Guard will run you
off after they fine you. The closest place is Turner's Marina,
about half way down Mobil Bay.

But we took off anyway, what else could we do. To make matters
worse we had only the small stern anchor, less than half the
size and weight of our bow anchor, which we left in a treetop.
But a couple we met at Bobby's Fish Camp told us of a Marina at
mile marker 16.6, (sixteen miles above Movile), that had closed
down. The guide book we had with did not list it but an older
version, which I also had, did list it. Bit it was three and a
half miles buck up a small river. And that was 93 miles away,
barley within a day's run. But we could make it, we thought.

Unfortunately we were held up two hours the next morning before
we could enter the last lock on our trip, Coffeville Lock. No
way could we make it now. But we ran on anyway, looking all the
time for a place to tie up or drop our very small hook. But no
place did we find. We ran on and on until it got pitch dark. We
had a spotlight with which we could see the buoys and mile
markers. About 9:30 we found mile marker 16.6 and sure enough
there was a small clearing leading back into the swamp. The
water, after we got past the enterance was quite deep, about 20
feet. But half a mile back there was a small island with the cut
turning hard to the right. We tried to negoate it but it got
really shallow then and we ran aground again. Fortuately the mud
was really soft. I jumped in and began pushing. I hollowed for
Ryan to jump in and help me. His eyes got big when I said that
but he jumped in anyway. In mud half way to our knees we managed
to push the boat into deeper water. The current was quite swift
and that helped us a lot.

Back in deeper water, I attached the small stern anchor to the
main anchor line and dropped it over. I knew it would not likely
hold in that mud and swift current so I got in the dinghy with
another line. I tied that line to a tree and fastened the other
end to the stern of the boat. We pulled the stern of the boat to
within ten feet of the bank with the bow heading downstream. We
were safe for the night. It was about ten thirty then. We soaked
ourselves with Deep Woods Off and settled in for the night. That
stuff is really greasy and when you sweat it off, the mosquitoes
attack you anyway.

The next morning when we were headed out of the cut we saw a
five-foot alligator lying on the bank. I then understood why
Ryan was so reluctant to get into the water. But at that point
we were 86 miles from Pensacola and with no locks to hold us up
we were determined to make it into the home marina that night.

It was smooth motoring right through Mobile and all the way down
Mobile Bay. When we got to the bottom of Mobile bay, I wanted to
go out into the ocean and perhaps sail the rest of the way. Don
however is deathly afraid of the ocean and would not hear of it.
He isnsisted that we take the intercoastal all the way. But when
we got to the bottom of the bay, there was not a buoy in sight
marking the intercoastal. But I could see it on the GPS and
could tell the exact direction we should go. It was only about
three miles away but in the haze it was impossible to see from
that distance.

After we found that one the buoys were only about a mile apart
and we had no trouble the rest of the way. But the wind came up
and it got really rough until we entered the intercoastal cut.
We made it in about 8 that evening, to Rod & Reel Marina on the Big
Lagoon, just as it was getting dark. That was on June 21st, my 66th
birthday.


The trip took ten days, two or three days shorter than I had
thought. Our average speed when we were in the current,
down stream all the way, was 8.5 to 9 miles per hour. In the bay
and lakes where there was little or no current we did about 7
miles per hour.

We got in on a Monday night and had to wait until Saturday until
my son could come down and pick us up. That night we got a taxi
to my place and the next day I rented a car so we could get
around until Saturday. It rained all that week and we could not
take the boat out at all. Not that anyone wanted to however. We
were all too tired and sick of being on the boat. We just wanted
to lay around and do nothing for awhile.

I went back to Huntsville and finished packing. I rented a truck
from Budget and then had to get a trailer to hitch behind that.
But we got down here the 13th of July I believe it was. I drove
the truck, Alice, my wife, followed in the car with her three
dogs. Brother-in-law Don followed in his truck with his wife. It
took us two days to unload and I had to pay an extra day on the
truck. We were really beat. Don and wife stayed a week and a
half before going back. We still have unpacked boxes in every
room. We have no storage area whatsoever but lots of stuff that
I need to put in a storage shed. I have sent for, on the net,
plans for a 12 by 24 shed and will build it this fall. But I am
not going to be in any hurry. The stuff can just sit in the
boxes and the lawn mower and tools under a tarp in the back yard
until I get it built, whenever that may be. ;-)

A footnote. On the morning of August 10th, I got a call from Rod &
Reel Marina telling me that my boat had to be moved by tomorrow,
(Wednesday the 11th) They said a tropical storm was bearing down on
us and they wanted all boats out of the marina. I quickly made
arrangements with Browns Marina, just inside the Bayou Chico Bridge.
That area is much more sheltered. Rod & Reel gave me a full refund
for the remainder of the month as well as refund my security deposit
of one months rent. I like Browns much better so it all worked out
for the better.

Ron Patterson
1086 Gordon Av.
Pensacola, Fl.
ReadYourDarwin@y... (that is yahoo.com)

In article ,
Ron Patterson wrote:

Great story.

--
Jonathan Ganz (j gan z @ $ail no w.c=o=m)
http://www.sailnow.com
"If there's no wind, row."