My Trip To Winter Storage

[RGrew176]

Last week on Wednesday the weather for my trip to winter storage was perfect. There was little to no wind. That made getting out from my dock on 1 1/2 engines a lot easier. My port transmission is stuck in forward so handling the boat it tight quarters is challenging.

This trip began at the crack of dawn.

Sunrise over Trouts Yacht Basin in Bolles Harbor off Lake Erie. It was a still windless morning. Perfect for maneuvering a boat on one engine.

As normal most of the time the trip began with a trip over to the fuel dock. I had previously put in my fuel stabilizer so all I had to do was fill both tanks.

$272.00 later and just under 80 gallons my tanks were full and I was ready to go.

Heading out the channel into a flat and calm Lake Erie for my trip across the lake to my destination. It was just a perfect beautiful day for a boat trip. The temperature rose to 70* and the sun was shining brightly.

I throttled up to 3000 RPM running 14 MPH a bit slow for that setting. I am thinking that I probably have a good collection of zebra mussels on the hull. As I was travelling across the lake my speed gradually rose to about 18 MPH as I sloughed off the zebra mussels.

It was a 2 hour trip. I found an open dock at the marina and plan to have the boat pulled this week hopefully. She will be winterized and when they have winterized all the other boats there they will fix my port side transmission.

Looking forward to next season. Hoping to launch April 1, 2017 if all goes as planned.

 

[RGrew176]

Saturday November 5th dawned clear and cool. As the day wore on and the Sun arose it turned out to be a beautiful day. The temperature rose to 70* a nice warm November day. It was windy with winds out of the west at about 14 MPH. Still it was a great day for a final boat ride.

I got onboard and warmed up my engines. Then I backed out of the slip for one final ride up the Detroit River. I headed up the canal and out onto the river. It looked like this.

Heading up-river this is the Detroit Edison Trenton power plant.

Looking further up-river you see the Grosse Ile free bridge one of two bridges on and off the island.

Once I drove up-river about a mile or so I turned back downriver and headed towards Humbug Marina where I had the appointment to be hauled out for the winter.

In the hoist prior to being loaded onto the trailer.

On the trailer to be hauled to my storage position.

On the hard. Winterized and waiting for them to pull and repair my port side transmission.

Waiting for the repairs to be completed then shrinkwrap and wait until spring.

Looking at the bright side only 4 months till spring. I am hoping for an April 1st launch if spring permits.

 

[southkogs]

Nice run Rick. Cool pictures. All the time I lived in the area, the only times I was ever actually on the Detroit River was on the Boblo boats

Good luck with the transmission.