Break Out Another Thousand.

[ScotWithOne_t]

You may remember my post from last Monday when I bought my boat.

Took it out today on White Bear Lake in MN, and found a nice pile of rocks. I guess the lake is pretty shallow this year, but I didn't know any better. Also had 7 adults in the boat so it was really loaded down. Should have known it was over loaded when it wouldn't get up on a plane (this is with a 5.7L too)

Damage could be worse, but it's kind of like a kick in the nuts to break your new toy within 5 minutes of leaving the boat launch.

Here's some pics of the maimed prop and keel.

[/IMG]

Not too bad. Probably fixable at a prop-shop for hopefully around $100.

I don't think I f'ed up the outdrive, as it ran fine while limping it back to the boat landing. But giving it any more than half-throttle made it kind of... slip. Not sure how else to describe it. I'm guessing that's more from the prop being so bent up than the clutch or drivetrain being messed up. We'll know once I get the prop fixed and run it again.

The keel is what I'm more worried about.

I'm afraid it may have a slow leak... very slow. The inside of the boat below the engine was kind of wet, but that could very well be from people jumping in and out of the boat. When I took the plug out afterward, not a drop came out. I'll still need to get it patched though, I think. Maybe one of those rubber keel-guards would not be a bad idea.

Some nice gouges farther up too, but not down to the bare glass, so I'm too worried about those.

 

[NYBo]

Re: Break Out Another Thousand.

Ouch!

Definitely get the hull fixed. Water can be sucked into the fiberglass by capillary action- not a good scenario. If you decide to fix it yourself, a keel guard will help hide a less than cosmetically perfect job, in addition to protecting you from future mishaps.

 

[robert graham]

Re: Break Out Another Thousand.

That's a rough way to break in a new boat, but at least nobody was killed or injured. Don't you just hate stuff like this!, but it happens to most folks at some time or other...just have to suck it up and go on. Good luck with your repairs.

 

[ScotWithOne_t]

Re: Break Out Another Thousand.

If I had it trimmed up a bit farther it might not have hit at all (except for the keel).

Tell me if I'm wrong in my reasoning here:
My power tilt/trim has a limit switch that prevents you from trimming it up too far when cruising, and you have to hit a second button marked "trailer" to bring it up all the way. I was cruising along slowly with the trim all the way up to the first limit. If I had it trimmed up to the "trailer" height, I may not have hit. But, is it wrong to drive it with it ALL the way up? As long as the intake for the water system is still underwater, I don't see a problem with it, but the prop is partially exposed and splashing around a bunch at that setting.

 

[SS MAYFLOAT]

Re: Break Out Another Thousand.

You are lucky that nobody got hurt. Hopefully you got off lucky as most stainless props with that damge will equal outdrive problems. Broken gears, bent shafts, or cracked housing.

Tip: Always observe where other boats are cruising. Never go where you don't see other boats going at WOT. Get to know your lake. Most have charts that will tell you the depths and objects underwater to be concerned about. I always research a lake that I have never been to. It prevents what has happened to you. Sorry to hear about your misfortune......SS

 

[blifsey]

Re: Break Out Another Thousand.

That's a bummer! For the keel, you need more than a keel guard...get the glass fixed. As mentioned, a keel guard might cover up the repair but I would not rely on it to keep water out.

You should not use the boat with drive into the "trailer" zone. There is a shaft with u-joints connecting the motor to the drive. When into the trailer zone, the angles on the u-joints are too extreme and can damage them. I always lower drive past the trailer point before even cranking engine.

With a 5.7L, I would think your boat would get on plane even with 7 on board. Did you have drive all the way down when starting out?

EDIT: You mentioned it feeling like the prop was slipping. There is a rubber hub between drive prop shaft and prop that is made to slip if you hit something like you did. It is a sacrificial part that hopefully keeps the damage from reaching the internal parts in the drive.

 

[NYBo]

Re: Break Out Another Thousand.

I think Merc tells you to limit it to 1200 RPM with the drive tilted beyond the trim range. A lot of stress on the u-joints due to the extreme angle.

 

[ScotWithOne_t]

Re: Break Out Another Thousand.

I think Merc tells you to limit it to 1200 RPM with the drive tilted beyond the trim range. A lot of stress on the u-joints due to the extreme angle.

Noted.

I wouldn't drive it fast at all with the trim all the way up. Mostly I'd use it for getting out of really shallow areas, or after beaching it.

 

[blifsey]

Re: Break Out Another Thousand.

I think Merc tells you to limit it to 1200 RPM with the drive tilted beyond the trim range. A lot of stress on the u-joints due to the extreme angle.

Could be...I've always heard not to run it at all in the trailer position. If I'm in water too shallow for that (like leaving campsite) I just use a telescoping pole to push into deeper water.

 

[ScotWithOne_t]

Re: Break Out Another Thousand.

That's a bummer! For the keel, you need more than a keel guard...get the glass fixed. As mentioned, a keel guard might cover up the repair but I would not rely on it to keep water out.

You should not use the boat with drive into the "trailer" zone. There is a shaft with u-joints connecting the motor to the drive. When into the trailer zone, the angles on the u-joints are too extreme and can damage them. I always lower drive past the trailer point before even cranking engine.

With a 5.7L, I would think your boat would get on plane even with 7 on board. Did you have drive all the way down when starting out?

EDIT: You mentioned it feeling like the prop was slipping. There is a rubber hub between drive prop shaft and prop that is made to slip if you hit something like you did. It is a sacrificial part that hopefully keeps the damage from reaching the internal parts in the drive.

Is the rubber hub easy to replace once the prop is off?

I don't know why it was so sluggish. I would have expected 7 adults to be no problem with the 5.7L. It got up to 45mph at 4200 rpm (during test-drive) on the river with 3 adults. Today, I don't remember exactly, but it seemed like it couldn't get much over 3000... maybe 3500. I attributed it to being loaded with close to it's max payload of 1200 lbs + a full tank of gas. Can't remember where the trim was. I think it was down most the way. I remember it speeding up some when it trimmed it up some, but I didn't go fast very long since it was an unfamiliar lake, my first time out, and the bouys were coming up in the distance.

I feel like such an idiot now. Good thing we were going slow. The whole boat came to a screeching halt. My mother-in-law ended up on the floor.

We were going through a channel between a sandbar and a small island. There were white bouys near the tip of each converging sandbar/rockbar. I figured, okay... stay clear of them, and sail between the middle of both of them, staying as far away from either as possible. Got right about even with the bouys and I looked in the water. Looked to be about 2' deep and rocks on the bottom. Before I could say "oh s**t" we hit.

 

[Summer Fun]

Re: Break Out Another Thousand.

Iboats does sell depth finders . . Do you have one ??.

Those pics brought tears to my eyes.

 

[NYBo]

Re: Break Out Another Thousand.

Is the rubber hub easy to replace once the prop is off?

This needs to be done by the prop shop.

We were going through a channel between a sandbar and a small island. There were white bouys near the tip of each converging sandbar/rockbar. I figured, okay... stay clear of them, and sail between the middle of both of them, staying as far away from either as possible. Got right about even with the bouys and I looked in the water. Looked to be about 2' deep and rocks on the bottom. Before I could say "oh s**t" we hit.

This is why a chart of the area is invaluable.

 

[blifsey]

Re: Break Out Another Thousand.

Some props have the hub built into them and some it is made to slide into prop before putting it onto the prop shaft. So, yes, either way it is easy to replace.

Stuff happens...just learn from it. Several years back when GA was in middle of severe drought I did something similar. I was pulling son on kneeboard and went into a cove, half-circled and was headed back out. All of a sudden the boat stopped dead. Son rolled off knee board and stood up in waste deep water (maybe 2.5' given his age/size then). I totally destroyed an aluminum prop. Luckily, the drive and skeg where OK. This was on July 4th when we were going to stay until dark to watch fireworks and it was about 2pm. Ended up loading our boat back on trailer spending day/evening with friends on their boat. I did save a lot of fuel that day Later that summer, COE put out additional warning buoys all over the lake. And yes, I had a working depth gage but still managed to find the bottom. Knowing lake was low, I should've stuck in main channels.

 

[ScotWithOne_t]

Re: Break Out Another Thousand.

My boat has a depth-gauge on the dash. Wasn't paying close enough attention. I think I need one of those GPS gadgets that shows your the lake map with depth contours and stuff.

I'm sure I'll be super paranoid about shallow water now.

On top of everything else, we tried to pull into a different launch to inspect the damage a the dock (just to make sure we weren't taking on water and the outdrive wasn't falling off or something) and it got super shallow there too. Got the boat stuck in the mud and had to jump out and push. This was like 150' from the dock... I have no idea how anyone could launch there with anything other than a lightweight aluminum fishing boat. Anyway, we jump out into 2' of water and 2' of mud. So now the water's up to my waist, and the mud is up to my knees. Fun trying to slog through that crap to push the boat out where I can actually start the engine again.

After I got home, my neighbor was telling me how he heard just the other day on the news not to go on that lake because the water level is so low this year.

 

[xeddog]

Re: Break Out Another Thousand.

Going to new places can be . . . uh . . . "interesting". I had just put a new engine in my 1987 Beachcraft 215c. My wife and I took one run out on the river locally to check everything out and see how things were running.

The following week, we went to New Melones Reservoir for a day of fun. As soon as we launched we started to take a trip around to look at everything. Cruising at about 3000 rpm (roughtly 25 mph) about 200 yards from shore. We were looking around and having a good time when all of a sudden we felt a small "bump" like we hit something small. I looked at my depth finder and the ground under the boat had risen from off the bottom of the scale (it was set for 60 feet) to "bump" depth and then immediately sent back down.

But the boat was still running well and seemed to be ok so we went about our way. Later that day, I decided to make a WOT run for a little bit. Reached about 3500 rpm and the boat just started acting sluggish. It wasn't running bad or anything like that. It just didn't want to go any faster. I had been having some carb issues so I just thought it was the carb.

When we got the boat back out of the water at the end of the day, I noticed the prop. One blade was perfect, the next one was missing about 1/4" from the tip and the tip was bent a little. The third blade had a nice little chunk taken out of it. The skeg was undamaged. Were we lucky or what!

Wayne

P.S. I hope this software reduced the image size.

 

[Dave.Mishchenko]

Re: Break Out Another Thousand.

Depending on the features of your depth finder you may be able to set an alarm to go off when the depth falls below a threshold that you set.

You might also want to check the propeller shaft with a dial indicator to ensure that it was not bent.

 

[roscoe]

Re: Break Out Another Thousand.

Yeah, you should have been able to get up on plane.

Last week, was out on an 18 year old 2050 Bayliner with a 305, 6 people in the boat, one on the tube, boat planed.

 

[ScotWithOne_t]

Re: Break Out Another Thousand.

Yeah, you should have been able to get up on plane.

Last week, was out on an 18 year old 2050 Bayliner with a 305, 6 people in the boat, one on the tube, boat planed.

Hmm.. I wonder what my problem was then. Maybe I was trimmed down too far, and had 3 people sitting in the bow area. The motor seems to be running strong.

I didn't really have enough time to play around with it. I hit the rocks literally like 5 minutes after leaving the slow-zone around the launch.

 

[MacPointMan]

Re: Break Out Another Thousand.

yea thats not good. Hurts looking at those pics. Thankfully no one got hurt. I had a similar issue on an outing at Lake Jackson. Slowly tooling around a couple of coves looking at some of the lakeside houses. about 100 feet from this marshy island i looked back and saw brown coming up from behind the boat. Just when I started heading for what I though would be deeper water she started bogging down in the mud.

Trimmed her up and got out of there. Funny thing is that Lake Jackson and most other lakes in the North Ga area are all at full pool. Thankfully nothing bad happened and the lake bottom is just mostly mud. Could have been loads worse. I am not too worried about my prop because I am going to reporp her next season as the prop that came with the boat is pretty chewed up. She still gives me upwards of 35 mph with three adults and one child on board.

I should have had the dealer include a new one in the sale but I figured I got them to include a Bimini Top and come down on the price more than $500 I wasn't going to push my luck.

hope you get her fixed soon and it doesn't cost you an arm and a leg. Would love to see the process and the cost involved.

MacPointMan

 

[calvinman]

Re: Break Out Another Thousand.

Ouch! tough break Scot, I feel for you. A depth finder is fine, but it will not warn you of rocks ahead of the boat.

I think that I would put an insurance claim in, get it fixed by the pros, your bottom end may be damaged as previously stated, look for oil leaks, check oil for milkyness(is that a word?) and drain a little from the bottom plug if it has been sitting for a while to look for water that has settled to the bottom of the leg.

SS props are nice but they sure telegraph all the stress of an impact up into the prop shaft and bottom end. Try turning the prop over by hand and see if the shaft is still true.

We boat in a lake(a river system) that has ever changing water levels due to hydro electric dams. The lake has rocks in places that you would never dream of and if you do not sit around the campfire at night listening to the long time users of the lake you will not know where these rocks are.

I bought myself a sidescan sonar and if we are going into uncharted territory, we do a pass with the side scan, if it looks clear we will go in a little further and do another side scan and keep doing this until we have "cleared" the whole area. If we do find rocks or shallows I mark it with the built in gps. Shallows do not show up very well with sidescan however so we still take it easy with someone riding the bow on lookout.

Of course there is no substitiute for a good map of the water you are in as someone else pointed out.

I do not understand why you couldn't get her to plane, it should have no problem with that many people aboard.

From the look of the prop I would say you did what my daughter did a few weekends ago, she got caught up in some rocks, couldn't get out, so she put it in reverse and made sure she killed the rock she hit going forward(she sure was upset), no real harm done though(So far so good) exept for my 4 blader aluminum that is, luckily she was trimmed up and idlleing(make sure you only idle at full up/out trim) at the time, and some one quickly threw her a rope and pulled her out of the rock pile before the bottom end could thrash around in the rocks for too long. It seems the water was just high enough to spare my fiberglass thank goodness!

And at the end of the day, thank goodness no one was hurt!

Oh yea, nice boat Scot.

Calvi