CR CRUISER
Seaman
- Joined
- Nov 19, 2009
- Messages
- 64
You know Ol' Murphy, "Whatever can go wrong........"
On Tuesday I flew down to Point Roberts with a customer to pick up his new-to-him 30' Commander. Nice boat, in good condition that had complete mechanical and hull surveys done. Twin Volvo AD41 diesels and Duo-Prop legs.
We did the 5 hour trip home with no problems other than unexpected 3-8 foot following seas. During the trip I was teaching him about boat handling and navigation and he was picking it up well for a relatively new boater. It was blowing pretty hard by the time we arrived home so he let me dock the boat in his slip. Let's just say that we walked away unharmed so it was a successful docking. It's a big, wide boat with lots of windage so it does blow around quite a bit.
The next day a boat hauler was to meet us at the ramp to haul it out and trailer it to the dealer for a full service. It was still blowing 10-15 knots but he wanted to try his hand at manouvering around the marina to the ramp. I was showing him how to work the 4 separate throttle and shift levers to turn and manouver.
So he gets it lined up just about perfectly to tie up at the dock at the launch ramp. He's doing really well concidering the wind is pushing us towards the ramp. Just before I was ready to jump out on to the dock with the mooring lines, I told him to put both drives in reverse to stop our headway. That's when everything went bad. We were still going at a fairly good clip, not slowing down. I'm thinking the wind has caught us. I told him to give it some throttle while still in reverse to stop the forward momentum. It started going faster forward and was only 20' from the concrete ramp. Suspecting an issue with the shifter controls, I yelled at him to kill the motors. I jumped for the dock and got a mooring line around a cleat but not before the bow hit the rough concrete ramp.
It turns out that the port shift cable broke and left the drive in forward even though the shifters were in reverse. He wound up with a good chunk of gelcoat gone off of the bow and a scrape along the side when a fender flipped up onto the dock. Not to mention our rattled nerves.
Thanks Murphy! The cable couldn't have failed while we were out in the wide open and practicing manouvering. No, it had to break at the worst possible moment.
"Whatever can go go wrong, will go wrong at the worst possible moment."
On Tuesday I flew down to Point Roberts with a customer to pick up his new-to-him 30' Commander. Nice boat, in good condition that had complete mechanical and hull surveys done. Twin Volvo AD41 diesels and Duo-Prop legs.
We did the 5 hour trip home with no problems other than unexpected 3-8 foot following seas. During the trip I was teaching him about boat handling and navigation and he was picking it up well for a relatively new boater. It was blowing pretty hard by the time we arrived home so he let me dock the boat in his slip. Let's just say that we walked away unharmed so it was a successful docking. It's a big, wide boat with lots of windage so it does blow around quite a bit.
The next day a boat hauler was to meet us at the ramp to haul it out and trailer it to the dealer for a full service. It was still blowing 10-15 knots but he wanted to try his hand at manouvering around the marina to the ramp. I was showing him how to work the 4 separate throttle and shift levers to turn and manouver.
So he gets it lined up just about perfectly to tie up at the dock at the launch ramp. He's doing really well concidering the wind is pushing us towards the ramp. Just before I was ready to jump out on to the dock with the mooring lines, I told him to put both drives in reverse to stop our headway. That's when everything went bad. We were still going at a fairly good clip, not slowing down. I'm thinking the wind has caught us. I told him to give it some throttle while still in reverse to stop the forward momentum. It started going faster forward and was only 20' from the concrete ramp. Suspecting an issue with the shifter controls, I yelled at him to kill the motors. I jumped for the dock and got a mooring line around a cleat but not before the bow hit the rough concrete ramp.
It turns out that the port shift cable broke and left the drive in forward even though the shifters were in reverse. He wound up with a good chunk of gelcoat gone off of the bow and a scrape along the side when a fender flipped up onto the dock. Not to mention our rattled nerves.
Thanks Murphy! The cable couldn't have failed while we were out in the wide open and practicing manouvering. No, it had to break at the worst possible moment.
"Whatever can go go wrong, will go wrong at the worst possible moment."
