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Boating story
One of the finer places we visited during our abbvreviated cruise:
Spencer Spit The oldest drift has smoldered in the invisible slow-fire of radiant summer sunlight. The solar energy that built the living wood reduces the dead. Icy claws of dark winter rains have removed rust red and yellow chunks. After a few seasons, the old logs are softened underfoot, like a luxurious pad beneath a green and grass-gold carpet. Pioneer stalks and stems sense nourishment here. They spring from cracks and creases in the bleached wood bones and reach for the light- until they are eaten by rabbits. Rabbits. There are hundreds of rabbits. Could there be thousands? They are dry thatch brown, driftwood gray, and mottled hues of black, red, and tan. In places, rabbit scat blankets the ground like uniform, coal black peas scattered from a busted crate. They are crazy in the underbrush and among the tidal flotsam, browsing endlessly on tender, emerald shoots and roots. The survivors keep a cautious distance and blend effectively into the ground. They are all betrayed by beaming signal flashes of white posteriors as they lope from feeding to feeding across the open ground. Keen-eyed owls, hawks, and eagles dive on the white flickers to snatch an evening meal. The energy that descended from the sun, (to be absorbed by the grasses and consumed by the rabbits), is carried heavenward again by birds. Birds. Birds abound in the vast salt marsh formed where Lopez Island is creeping inexorably toward its neighbor, (Frost), with the gravelly tentacle of Spencer Spit. Signs prohibit human incursion into the heart of the marsh. Gulls, herons, ducks, geese, and sandpipers gather to feast on sea creatures served up by the wash of the highest tides. Pickleweed, goose tongue, arrow grass, gumweed, stellaria and salt wort proliferate here. The mud has a dark, impregnated, smell- like hot peat moss or an ancient duck pond. Crusted and dry above the mean high tide line, the mud is copper and bronze, slate and yellow: scabs atop a fertile ooze teeming with life. Life. Spencer Spit is defined by life. It is forming, growing, reproducing, dying, and decaying simultaneously and has, therefore, no subjective awareness of time. Exempt from time, life can truly be said to be eternal on the spit. On the south side beach, great harrow rows of eel grass and seaweed toast to crisp and salty hay on a late summer afternoon. The vacant shells of ten thousand clams are crushed by waves and footfall to blend and bind the agates, the quartz, the granite, and the sandstone into a low-sloped bastion that will surrender to, yet endure the tides. Naked skeletons of wicked winter's windfall victims are tossed ashore beyond any high tide lines discernable on a laconic, September day. The forest browns surrender to whites and the whites before long to silver. Greens will morph to grays among the drift. Drift. The oldest drift has smoldered in the invisible slow-fire… We put in at Spencer Spit State Park, off the east shore of Lopez Island, in mid-September. Past Labor Day, we had no difficulty securing one about two dozen mooring buoys sited on the north and south sides of the spit. The buoys here could easily be full during peak season, but there is ample room for prudent anchoring. Once secured to a buoy, our GPS read 48.32.37N and 122.51.35W. We rowed ashore. The vivid grandeur of the natural environment is evident well out into the bay. It would seem almost criminal to fire up a noisy outboard motor. Washington State Parks acquired Spencer Spit and the adjacent uplands in 1981. Theodore Spencer was the original homesteader on the site, and he built a log cabin on the beach in 1917. The original cabin fell to the onslaught of the elements, but was rebuilt on the original site and to original specifications in 1978. Like Spencer's original cabin, the 1978 recreation was built entirely with logs and timbers scavenged from the tide piles on the beach. A visit to Spencer Spit allows an insight into an unspoiled time now vanished from the San Juans. Swinging around the State Park mooring buoys, a boater views the steep, bald, backside of Frost Island, the barren mound of Flower, and relatively unpopulated shorelines of Lopez, Blakely, and Decatur. There are few homes in sight, and no resorts. Spencer Spit commemorates the pre-human eons in the islands, with little evidence of civilized "improvements" on the beach except Spencer's log cabin and the temporary driftwood forts erected by energetic young boys. We hiked around the park, enthralled with an environment so fecund with vitality. When we eventually circled around to where we had beached the Zodiac, Jan wandered a bit farther down the beach to contemplate the myriad forms and colors of the gravel gems. I sat on the starboard tube and examined the intricate dramas in a square foot of sand between my boat shoes. Scores of sand fleas cavorted between the grains, leaping to altitudes 100 times their own height. Other, mysterious, insects burrowed just beneath the grit and granite, while buzzing, monstrous, carnivorous yellow jackets carried away their unlucky or unwary insect prey. Just then, a tiny spider, (no larger than a pinpoint and red as a neon rose), scrambled daringly across the vast, exposed, expanse of a single pebble and disappeared safely beneath another. The red speck of a spider would not, on this day, become a yellow jacket feast. I gathered a few beach pebbles in my hand. To that small red spider, one billionth as large as I, do such pebbles seem a billion times as large? Are they the boulders, the hills, the mountains, and the islands of his crimson-backed world? Such are the questions one can ponder on Spencer Spit. Next time in the San Juans, set aside a day to spend a thousand years on Spencer Spit. |
Boating story
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Boating story
That was very nice. How about some pix?
Gould 0738 wrote: One of the finer places we visited during our abbvreviated cruise: Spencer Spit The oldest drift has smoldered in the invisible slow-fire of radiant summer sunlight. The solar energy that built the living wood reduces the dead. Icy claws of dark winter rains have removed rust red and yellow chunks. After a few seasons, the old logs are softened underfoot, like a luxurious pad beneath a green and grass-gold carpet. Pioneer stalks and stems sense nourishment here. They spring from cracks and creases in the bleached wood bones and reach for the light- until they are eaten by rabbits. Rabbits. There are hundreds of rabbits. Could there be thousands? They are dry thatch brown, driftwood gray, and mottled hues of black, red, and tan. In places, rabbit scat blankets the ground like uniform, coal black peas scattered from a busted crate. They are crazy in the underbrush and among the tidal flotsam, browsing endlessly on tender, emerald shoots and roots. The survivors keep a cautious distance and blend effectively into the ground. They are all betrayed by beaming signal flashes of white posteriors as they lope from feeding to feeding across the open ground. Keen-eyed owls, hawks, and eagles dive on the white flickers to snatch an evening meal. The energy that descended from the sun, (to be absorbed by the grasses and consumed by the rabbits), is carried heavenward again by birds. Birds. Birds abound in the vast salt marsh formed where Lopez Island is creeping inexorably toward its neighbor, (Frost), with the gravelly tentacle of Spencer Spit. Signs prohibit human incursion into the heart of the marsh. Gulls, herons, ducks, geese, and sandpipers gather to feast on sea creatures served up by the wash of the highest tides. Pickleweed, goose tongue, arrow grass, gumweed, stellaria and salt wort proliferate here. The mud has a dark, impregnated, smell- like hot peat moss or an ancient duck pond. Crusted and dry above the mean high tide line, the mud is copper and bronze, slate and yellow: scabs atop a fertile ooze teeming with life. Life. Spencer Spit is defined by life. It is forming, growing, reproducing, dying, and decaying simultaneously and has, therefore, no subjective awareness of time. Exempt from time, life can truly be said to be eternal on the spit. On the south side beach, great harrow rows of eel grass and seaweed toast to crisp and salty hay on a late summer afternoon. The vacant shells of ten thousand clams are crushed by waves and footfall to blend and bind the agates, the quartz, the granite, and the sandstone into a low-sloped bastion that will surrender to, yet endure the tides. Naked skeletons of wicked winter's windfall victims are tossed ashore beyond any high tide lines discernable on a laconic, September day. The forest browns surrender to whites and the whites before long to silver. Greens will morph to grays among the drift. Drift. The oldest drift has smoldered in the invisible slow-fire… We put in at Spencer Spit State Park, off the east shore of Lopez Island, in mid-September. Past Labor Day, we had no difficulty securing one about two dozen mooring buoys sited on the north and south sides of the spit. The buoys here could easily be full during peak season, but there is ample room for prudent anchoring. Once secured to a buoy, our GPS read 48.32.37N and 122.51.35W. We rowed ashore. The vivid grandeur of the natural environment is evident well out into the bay. It would seem almost criminal to fire up a noisy outboard motor. Washington State Parks acquired Spencer Spit and the adjacent uplands in 1981. Theodore Spencer was the original homesteader on the site, and he built a log cabin on the beach in 1917. The original cabin fell to the onslaught of the elements, but was rebuilt on the original site and to original specifications in 1978. Like Spencer's original cabin, the 1978 recreation was built entirely with logs and timbers scavenged from the tide piles on the beach. A visit to Spencer Spit allows an insight into an unspoiled time now vanished from the San Juans. Swinging around the State Park mooring buoys, a boater views the steep, bald, backside of Frost Island, the barren mound of Flower, and relatively unpopulated shorelines of Lopez, Blakely, and Decatur. There are few homes in sight, and no resorts. Spencer Spit commemorates the pre-human eons in the islands, with little evidence of civilized "improvements" on the beach except Spencer's log cabin and the temporary driftwood forts erected by energetic young boys. We hiked around the park, enthralled with an environment so fecund with vitality. When we eventually circled around to where we had beached the Zodiac, Jan wandered a bit farther down the beach to contemplate the myriad forms and colors of the gravel gems. I sat on the starboard tube and examined the intricate dramas in a square foot of sand between my boat shoes. Scores of sand fleas cavorted between the grains, leaping to altitudes 100 times their own height. Other, mysterious, insects burrowed just beneath the grit and granite, while buzzing, monstrous, carnivorous yellow jackets carried away their unlucky or unwary insect prey. Just then, a tiny spider, (no larger than a pinpoint and red as a neon rose), scrambled daringly across the vast, exposed, expanse of a single pebble and disappeared safely beneath another. The red speck of a spider would not, on this day, become a yellow jacket feast. I gathered a few beach pebbles in my hand. To that small red spider, one billionth as large as I, do such pebbles seem a billion times as large? Are they the boulders, the hills, the mountains, and the islands of his crimson-backed world? Such are the questions one can ponder on Spencer Spit. Next time in the San Juans, set aside a day to spend a thousand years on Spencer Spit. |
Boating story
That was very nice. How about some pix?
The group doesn't support photos. I have eight or nine rolls of film to sort through, and scan the "keepers". Possibly this evening. Send me a request, (so I don't have to try to remember otherwise), and I will send you a zip file with a few photos from Spencer Spit. Same for anybody else, of course. |
Boating story
Just post them on a binary newsgroup and post a link.
alt.binaries.pictures.fishing is one group. Bill "Gould 0738" wrote in message ... That was very nice. How about some pix? The group doesn't support photos. I have eight or nine rolls of film to sort through, and scan the "keepers". Possibly this evening. Send me a request, (so I don't have to try to remember otherwise), and I will send you a zip file with a few photos from Spencer Spit. Same for anybody else, of course. |
Boating story
That will be great. I will post them on my website and set a url so
anyone that wishes can see them. Capt. Frank Remove REMOVE from my email address. To prevent email address harvesting my evil spiders. my " address is under attack by the mad virus spammer. Your message may not get through. http://www.home.earthlink.net/~aartworks Gould 0738 wrote: That was very nice. How about some pix? The group doesn't support photos. I have eight or nine rolls of film to sort through, and scan the "keepers". Possibly this evening. Send me a request, (so I don't have to try to remember otherwise), and I will send you a zip file with a few photos from Spencer Spit. Same for anybody else, of course. |
Boating story
Just post them on a binary newsgroup and post a link.
alt.binaries.pictures.fishing is one group. Bill They're in the email to Frank Hopkins. He has offered to put them on his wep page and post a link. Thanks, Capt. Frank! |
Boating story
The pictures are up. I had to chew on them a bit to make them fit into a
hard drive, but they are still plenty big. The URL http://www.home.earthlink.net/~aartworks and take the link to Gould's voyage pictures. Gould 0738 wrote: Just post them on a binary newsgroup and post a link. alt.binaries.pictures.fishing is one group. Bill They're in the email to Frank Hopkins. He has offered to put them on his wep page and post a link. Thanks, Capt. Frank! |
Boating story
Wow!
Super nice job, Capt. Frank! Most sincere thanks. :-) |
Boating story
Wow, very nice.
I want to be on that trawler in the first picture. "Capt. Frank Hopkins" wrote in message ink.net... The pictures are up. I had to chew on them a bit to make them fit into a hard drive, but they are still plenty big. The URL http://www.home.earthlink.net/~aartworks and take the link to Gould's voyage pictures. Gould 0738 wrote: Just post them on a binary newsgroup and post a link. alt.binaries.pictures.fishing is one group. Bill They're in the email to Frank Hopkins. He has offered to put them on his wep page and post a link. Thanks, Capt. Frank! |
Boating story
Wow, very nice.
I want to be on that trawler in the first picture. Me too. And as soon as the busted engine deal gets sorted out, I will be again! :-) |
Boating story
That's yours?! Geez, I got all mixed up as to who owns what.
Oh man, that is a sweet ride. What is it? "Gould 0738" wrote in message ... Wow, very nice. I want to be on that trawler in the first picture. Me too. And as soon as the busted engine deal gets sorted out, I will be again! :-) |
Boating story
That's yours?! Geez, I got all mixed up as to who owns what.
Oh man, that is a sweet ride. What is it? 36' 1983 Sundowner Tug. Built in Taiwan. Single diesel (past tense). 8.5 kt cruise, about 2 gph. We think it's almost perfect for the Pacific NW waters- but ask 100 people to describe the "perfect" boat and you'll get at least 90 different answers. :-) |
Boating story
On Thu, 02 Oct 2003 13:42:13 GMT, "Paul" wrote:
Wow, very nice. I want to be on that trawler in the first picture. ======================================= Uhhh, I have it on good authority that the engine needs major work... All kidding aside, nice pictures Chuck. Thanks for sharing. |
Boating story
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Boating story
Anytime I can help :) Really nice pix too. I plan to post a few more on
the St. Johns before doing a trip through the Intracoastal down to St. Augustine and the ancient city there. I will have to take the pix down size a bunch more as earthlink is bitching about excess server space. (Welllllll everything together IS a total of 7 meg and they only allow me 5.) Capt Frank http://www.home.earthlink.net/~aartworks Gould 0738 wrote: Wow! Super nice job, Capt. Frank! Most sincere thanks. :-) |
Boating story
Well then ... I will try not to assault you with a bazillion questions but
.... well I'm lying, here are a bazillion questions: I think I do remember you talking about your diesel, you're replacing that right? I think you said you thought it had been underpowered from the beginning -- I might be wrong, sorry for my crappy memory. How many hours did you have on it. I notice that it "only" gave you 20 years of service. You said it's "almost" perfect. What would make it perfect? For you I mean and I don't mean little stuff that might be broken, I mean what you do look at and continually say "I wish ..."? What is the difference between a tug and a trawler? I know the visual difference between the actual working boats (the 18" rub rail on the tug being a dead giveaway), but I have to admit that your tug looks like a trawler to my inexperienced eye. 8.5kt so then it's a true displacement hull, not a "semi". As an experienced boater what would be the limit of your exursions? I mean, at what point would you say, "that I will not do"? Single engine, my fear of fears. Do you have a wing engine? How do you deal with that, or does it even bother you? Again with the single engine but not on the redundancy side, what about maneurverabilty? Bow thruster? That's a big ol' boat to be tucking into a tight slip and I imagine a big keel on it. Love to hear your thoughts on that. And this is no question but as you know we bought our first boat this summer. It's a planing hull, 30' long and a bunch of fun but we have quickly learned that while plane and WOT is fun, we are a definitely a 10kt couple. We love to piddle along. While our next boat (the ever-present next boat) may be a planing hull for reasons I won't bore you with yet, we are without question headed for a full displacement trawler. It may be a decade before we get there but I would love to hear your input on the matter if you have the time. "Gould 0738" wrote in message ... That's yours?! Geez, I got all mixed up as to who owns what. Oh man, that is a sweet ride. What is it? 36' 1983 Sundowner Tug. Built in Taiwan. Single diesel (past tense). 8.5 kt cruise, about 2 gph. We think it's almost perfect for the Pacific NW waters- but ask 100 people to describe the "perfect" boat and you'll get at least 90 different answers. :-) |
Boating story
I think I do remember you talking about your diesel, you're replacing that
right? I think you said you thought it had been underpowered from the beginning -- I might be wrong, sorry for my crappy memory. No, the boat has not been underpowered from the start. Since the engine presently develops ZERO horsepower, one could say it is underpowered now. Putting a lot more horses on the wheel would just dig a bigger hole under the stern. 165HP is plenty for a boat like this- if you doubled the HP you'd pick up maybe a knot and a half. How many hours did you have on it. I notice that it "only" gave you 20 years of service. Just a bit over 3900. Bad luck took this engine out a few thousand hours early. Bummer! You said it's "almost" perfect. What would make it perfect? For you I mean and I don't mean little stuff that might be broken, I mean what you do look at and continually say "I wish ..."? Little things. I don't care for the deck scuppers. Wife would rather have a centerline bunk...(she claims I pin her against the wall). A little more weight in the bow. An aft head. Nothing ultra serious. A boat is like a woman, as much as you love her, there are always a few minor things you'd change if you could....(and vice versa I know for a fact). What is the difference between a tug and a trawler? I know the visual difference between the actual working boats (the 18" rub rail on the tug being a dead giveaway), but I have to admit that your tug looks like a trawler to my inexperienced eye. It's a matter of styling. The hull form is pretty well identical between a tug and a trawler. Trawlers *usually* have a flying bridge, and tugs *usually* do not. List exceptions here....... ........... ......... ......... ........... ............ etc. Tugs typically have a false stack as a styling element. (Mine doubles as a propane locker). A tug will have strong design emphasis on the interior helm, and often a dedicated pilothouse. Many trawlers give very short shrift to the interior helm (or leave it off entirely) and put all the eggs in the flybridge basket. The primary helm is usually the lower helm on a tug with a flybridge....less likely to be true on most trawlers. 8.5kt so then it's a true displacement hull, not a "semi" No, it's a semi. It runs at displacement speeds, but it lacks several design elements required to qualify it as a full displacement vessel. It has squared off chines....big give away. It does not have an elevated or rounded transom. It does have a nifty keel, and a big rudder protected by a skeg like a proper displacement hull. Most, but not all "trawlers" are semi displacement. For example: Grand Banks is a semi displacement hull, while Willard is a full displacement design. Look carefully at those two boats and the difference will be rather apparent. As an experienced boater what would be the limit of your exursions? I mean, at what point would you say, "that I will not do"? My boat is adequate for coastal cruising in reasonable weather. Suits me fine, since I don't have the time for passagemaking and I have too much respect for the forces of nature to waggle my middle finger at seriously snotty conditions. On the occassions when we have been caught out in bad weather or I have underestimated the sea state and left port anyway, the boat has always served us very well. I literally trust this boat with my life, but I don't press the envelope, either. Single engine, my fear of fears. Do you have a wing engine? How do you deal with that, or does it even bother you? We've been towed in three times. Once when my stupid instructions to my wife (who followed them to the best of her ability) resulted in a severed torque shear on the shaft. (Towed by a sailboat -shame of shames- into Friday Harbor). Once when the tranny gave out and we coasted into the fuel dock.....(had to get from the fuel dock to our slip). And then once again a couple of weeks ago when the BIG ONE befell my poor Perkins. It would be accurate to say that we have been towed in well under 1% of the times we have been underway in the boat. I don't think it would be realistic to expect better reliability from twins, despite the higher fuel and maintenance costs. Again with the single engine but not on the redundancy side, what about maneurverabilty? Bow thruster? Bow thruster, shmuster. :-) With a big old rudder, the boat comes with a built in stern thruster. You learn what the boat does in reverse. Mine backs to starboard, so if I can I try to dock on the starboard side. Put the bow up near the dock at a proper angle, and then take off way with a touch of reverse......pulls the stern right over to the dock easy as can be. Getting away from the dock is just the reverse- you get the stern out first and back away until you have room enough to swing the stern and power forward. You learn to steer with the stern, like the old timers. :-) It's even possible to steer in reverse. I usually set wheel hard to port so the rudder offsets the prop walk. Then it becomes a balancing act between the prop and the rudder. If the boat is following the rudder too much, I raise the RPM to increase the prop walk. If it's following the prop walk too much and not the rudder, I throttle back or even come out of gear so that the force exerted by the rudder exceeds the force exerted by the prop. I routinely turn that 36 foot boat, plus swim step, 180 degrees at the end of a fairway about 60 feet wide every time we come in to our marina. Our dock is just under the promenade atop the bulkhead, and unless its well after dark or raining heavily, there is typically an audience when we dock. It's fun to hear the comments. "Look how well that boat spins around! He must have two engines!" "Naw, I think that's a single- he has to have a bow thruster to do that!" I just smile. The secret is momentum. Once I get the boat turning I let it momentum carry it through the turn without powering forward. Most of the time, we finish the turn with the hull lined up exactly with the face of the float. That's "most" of the time.......sometimes I manage to look like I've never docked a boat in my life. :-) When it's windy or there's a strong current running, you do have to think your way to the dock. What direction shall I approach from? Will the wind/current slam me against the dock all night or set me off a foot or so? If I'm only stoping for lunch, etc.......will I be able to get *off* the dock if the wind or current continues or gets worse? I frankly enjoy that process. Yeah, if I had a couple of monster twins I could just forget about working within nature's rulebook and bullhead on through.....but that wouldn't be as much fun. |
Boating story
Well thanks for taking the time to reply, especially in such detail.
Next next boat trawler! "Gould 0738" wrote in message ... I think I do remember you talking about your diesel, you're replacing that right? I think you said you thought it had been underpowered from the beginning -- I might be wrong, sorry for my crappy memory. No, the boat has not been underpowered from the start. Since the engine presently develops ZERO horsepower, one could say it is underpowered now. Putting a lot more horses on the wheel would just dig a bigger hole under the stern. 165HP is plenty for a boat like this- if you doubled the HP you'd pick up maybe a knot and a half. How many hours did you have on it. I notice that it "only" gave you 20 years of service. Just a bit over 3900. Bad luck took this engine out a few thousand hours early. Bummer! You said it's "almost" perfect. What would make it perfect? For you I mean and I don't mean little stuff that might be broken, I mean what you do look at and continually say "I wish ..."? Little things. I don't care for the deck scuppers. Wife would rather have a centerline bunk...(she claims I pin her against the wall). A little more weight in the bow. An aft head. Nothing ultra serious. A boat is like a woman, as much as you love her, there are always a few minor things you'd change if you could....(and vice versa I know for a fact). What is the difference between a tug and a trawler? I know the visual difference between the actual working boats (the 18" rub rail on the tug being a dead giveaway), but I have to admit that your tug looks like a trawler to my inexperienced eye. It's a matter of styling. The hull form is pretty well identical between a tug and a trawler. Trawlers *usually* have a flying bridge, and tugs *usually* do not. List exceptions here....... ........... ......... ......... .......... ............ etc. Tugs typically have a false stack as a styling element. (Mine doubles as a propane locker). A tug will have strong design emphasis on the interior helm, and often a dedicated pilothouse. Many trawlers give very short shrift to the interior helm (or leave it off entirely) and put all the eggs in the flybridge basket. The primary helm is usually the lower helm on a tug with a flybridge....less likely to be true on most trawlers. 8.5kt so then it's a true displacement hull, not a "semi" No, it's a semi. It runs at displacement speeds, but it lacks several design elements required to qualify it as a full displacement vessel. It has squared off chines....big give away. It does not have an elevated or rounded transom. It does have a nifty keel, and a big rudder protected by a skeg like a proper displacement hull. Most, but not all "trawlers" are semi displacement. For example: Grand Banks is a semi displacement hull, while Willard is a full displacement design. Look carefully at those two boats and the difference will be rather apparent. As an experienced boater what would be the limit of your exursions? I mean, at what point would you say, "that I will not do"? My boat is adequate for coastal cruising in reasonable weather. Suits me fine, since I don't have the time for passagemaking and I have too much respect for the forces of nature to waggle my middle finger at seriously snotty conditions. On the occassions when we have been caught out in bad weather or I have underestimated the sea state and left port anyway, the boat has always served us very well. I literally trust this boat with my life, but I don't press the envelope, either. Single engine, my fear of fears. Do you have a wing engine? How do you deal with that, or does it even bother you? We've been towed in three times. Once when my stupid instructions to my wife (who followed them to the best of her ability) resulted in a severed torque shear on the shaft. (Towed by a sailboat -shame of shames- into Friday Harbor). Once when the tranny gave out and we coasted into the fuel dock.....(had to get from the fuel dock to our slip). And then once again a couple of weeks ago when the BIG ONE befell my poor Perkins. It would be accurate to say that we have been towed in well under 1% of the times we have been underway in the boat. I don't think it would be realistic to expect better reliability from twins, despite the higher fuel and maintenance costs. Again with the single engine but not on the redundancy side, what about maneurverabilty? Bow thruster? Bow thruster, shmuster. :-) With a big old rudder, the boat comes with a built in stern thruster. You learn what the boat does in reverse. Mine backs to starboard, so if I can I try to dock on the starboard side. Put the bow up near the dock at a proper angle, and then take off way with a touch of reverse......pulls the stern right over to the dock easy as can be. Getting away from the dock is just the reverse- you get the stern out first and back away until you have room enough to swing the stern and power forward. You learn to steer with the stern, like the old timers. :-) It's even possible to steer in reverse. I usually set wheel hard to port so the rudder offsets the prop walk. Then it becomes a balancing act between the prop and the rudder. If the boat is following the rudder too much, I raise the RPM to increase the prop walk. If it's following the prop walk too much and not the rudder, I throttle back or even come out of gear so that the force exerted by the rudder exceeds the force exerted by the prop. I routinely turn that 36 foot boat, plus swim step, 180 degrees at the end of a fairway about 60 feet wide every time we come in to our marina. Our dock is just under the promenade atop the bulkhead, and unless its well after dark or raining heavily, there is typically an audience when we dock. It's fun to hear the comments. "Look how well that boat spins around! He must have two engines!" "Naw, I think that's a single- he has to have a bow thruster to do that!" I just smile. The secret is momentum. Once I get the boat turning I let it momentum carry it through the turn without powering forward. Most of the time, we finish the turn with the hull lined up exactly with the face of the float. That's "most" of the time.......sometimes I manage to look like I've never docked a boat in my life. :-) When it's windy or there's a strong current running, you do have to think your way to the dock. What direction shall I approach from? Will the wind/current slam me against the dock all night or set me off a foot or so? If I'm only stoping for lunch, etc.......will I be able to get *off* the dock if the wind or current continues or gets worse? I frankly enjoy that process. Yeah, if I had a couple of monster twins I could just forget about working within nature's rulebook and bullhead on through.....but that wouldn't be as much fun. |
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