Remember that show….
"That Was The Week That Was", or abbreviated TW3? Many of you are probably not old enough to remember it, but was a great show, basically a highlight of the prior week’s activities and headlines.
Well this past week could be titled “That Was The Cruise That Almost Was”. Let me explain.
My wife and I took my boat down 235 miles on the Columbia River to Portland, OR to have some canvas work done. That was about a month ago. We met with the canvas guy who, by the way, had done canvas work for me twice before and I knew the quality of his work and he was priced right. He said it should take him about 2-3 weeks to have it all done. I gave him a deposit and we drove home.
TYEE Yacht Club, in Portland, was kind enough to let me keep my boat at their docks because we have reciprocal moorage privileges with them, but that usually entails a 2-3 day stay. They went way beyond the call of duty to let me keep it there that long.
Then, after repeated calls with the canvas guy he finally said that he would not have the job done by the time we needed to pick up the boat so he would arrange (on his nickel) to drive up here and complete the job after I got the boat home.
So Saturday morning a friend who had agreed to help me bring the boat back and I drove to Portland to retrieve it. We got to the boat just fine, got our stuff unloaded without issues. I fired up the engines and they both started just fine. Now, keep in mind that the place where TYEE had let me keep the boat did not have power available, so the boat had been there for a month without being hooked to power. I had this fear that we’d get down there and the engines wouldn’t start, but that was all for naught.
But what we didn’t have was any 120V power, nor did we have any 12VDC or 24VDC power to the instruments, no VHF, no chart plotter, etc. But what we did have was a good chart book and I’d been up and down the river a few times before so was pretty familiar with its twists and turns.
We thanked the commodore of TYEE for extending their hospitality and pulled out, intending to go a couple of miles downstream to another yacht club (Columbia River Yacht Club) to fuel up. We got in and tied to their fuel dock only to realize that the instructions to their fuel pump controls were on my cell phone which was still in the rental car which, in all the confusion about not having power, we had forgotten to take back to Enterprise. This gets better. So Dave stayed with the boat, my plan was to call him with the codes as soon as I got my phone so he could fuel me up.
So, as luck would have it there was a boat from TowBoatUS there fueling up. I begged and pleaded with him for a ride up to TYEE so I could return the car. He agreed and gave me the ride, I tipped him $20 for his kindness and I returned the car. I called Dave, he wrote down the codes and all was right with the world. Well, you know those guys from Enterprise, the “We’ll pick you up” guys, when I got there with the car and asked for a ride back he said he couldn’t but if I called Uber he’d take the Uber charge off my rental bill. That worked for me.
So back to the other CRYC, only to face another issue. CRYC’s fuel dock can’t be reached from land. Only by boat, but my boat was already at the fuel dock. So we found a willing boater who gave me a 100yard lift from one dock to the fuel dock.
Meanwhile Dave had pumped ~330 gallons of diesel into the boat, we fired up the engines and headed out. Our original plan was to make the noon upstream lock at Bonneville, which was about 30 miles upstream against about a 4kt current. So we headed out, running on plane, headed for the dam.
Oh, and did I mention we had no VHF? But I did have their phone number so I called them, explained the situation to them and told them we’d be there by 3:00, the next upstream lockage. We got there right at 3:00, I called them on the phone and told them we were there, got the green light to enter and got in and tied up without any issues.
After a fast ride up, we left the lock right at 3:30 and headed to The Dalles, OR where we were going to spend the night. It’s a 45 mile run and we got there right at 5:30. 45 miles in 2 hours meant we were running at 22.5kts Speed Over Ground. Not too bad figuring we were fighting the current.
So, for this next bit of fun and games, here’s an overhead shot of The Dalles YC docks. I’ve stayed here before and it’s been great. Not so much this time.
[/SIZE][/FONT][URL="https://s25.postimg.cc/rhqfxqrfj/The_Dalles_YC.jpg%5b/img"][FONT=Calibri][SIZE=3][COLOR=#0563c1]https://s25.postimg.cc/rhqfxqrfj/The_Dalles_YC.jpg[/img[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT][/URL][SIZE=3][FONT=Calibri]][/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=3][FONT=Calibri]We needed to reset our fenders so I went into neutral on both engines, stopped in mid-river and both of us went below to readjust the fender heights. As I was doing that I looked up and we were headed quickly toward the south shore which was a rock breakwater outside the marina. I ran up to the upper helm and tried to back us away from the rocks but couldn’t get the port engine to respond. It either was in forward gear or if I tried to bring it to neutral, it shut off. I fiddled with it for a couple of minutes and after deciding there was no other option, we headed into the marina. [/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=3][FONT=Calibri]As luck would have it, there was a party going on right on the docks where we had to pass by. Oh, and did I mention that I had to come in under power to maintain both engines running, and we were coming in HOT as they would say in Top Gun? The people at the party started yelling at us to slow down. I tried to explain as I roared by that I had an engine malfunctioning and couldn’t slow down. Also, there happened to be two wakeboard boats tied to the docks right in front of those two corner boat houses. [/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=3][FONT=Calibri]Half the people on the boathouse docks were still yelling for us to slow down, the other half were yelling “Don’t hit my frickin’ boat” and a few others were yelling other stuff. The distance between those two corner boat houses and the rock breakwater is about 60’. The distance between the boat houses and the docks is about 100’. In that short space I did two FULL 360* circles while trying to get the boat slowed down and under control. Now the yelling had changed to “HOOOOOLLLLYYYY SHHHHIIIITTT” as in “were gonna see one helluva crash here”. [/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=3][FONT=Calibri]I finally got the boat under some semblance of control and managed to get between the docks and the rock breakwater and headed toward the open end that’s east of the docks. We did two more FULL 360* turns in that space (it’s about 125’ from the docks to shore) before I finally got the boat slowed down and turned parallel to the long dock where we side tied for the night. Here’s what that looked like….[/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=3][FONT=Calibri][IMG]https://s25.postimg.cc/4t18y62bz/The_Dalles_YC_2.jpg
So, being the prudent mariners we were, we first cracked a beer except it was a warm beer because there was no refrigeration working on the boat. We tried to hook up to shore power. They had a 50A 240VAC connection but we couldn’t get anything out of it. The GFI breaker didn’t trip but there was no power. A guy came over from the yacht club and told us we basically were out of luck because they had rewired the docks to comply with the new power regs and nothing had worked since they rewired it. Great.
Then we started troubleshooting to see what we could figure out what we could do. We ended up hooking up a connection to their 30A 120VAC connection and hooked a regular extension cord to it and brought it into the boat, but as soon as I tried to plug it into a wall socked the GFI on the dock tripped. So we just used the extension cord to charge up the cell phones and plugged in the ice maker so we’d have some ice.
I talked with my mechanic on Saturday evening and he couldn’t give us any real troubleshooting ideas. We called a friend from our yacht club who drove down Sunday morning to pick us up and bring our sorry butts home. So to make a long story short, we are back home and the boat is still in The Dalles.
The boat is going to be there for awhile because Friday my wife and I are boarding a jet to Zurich for a 2 week Viking River Cruise that will eventually drop us in Paris for 4 days there. I gave the mechanic my phone number so he could call me if he needs to get in touch with me.
So what an adventure this trip turned out to be. I’m actually a bit happy to be heading out of town for a much needed vacation, but there’s a part of me that’s going to be worried about what’s going on with the boat.
Life is good.
"That Was The Week That Was", or abbreviated TW3? Many of you are probably not old enough to remember it, but was a great show, basically a highlight of the prior week’s activities and headlines.
Well this past week could be titled “That Was The Cruise That Almost Was”. Let me explain.
My wife and I took my boat down 235 miles on the Columbia River to Portland, OR to have some canvas work done. That was about a month ago. We met with the canvas guy who, by the way, had done canvas work for me twice before and I knew the quality of his work and he was priced right. He said it should take him about 2-3 weeks to have it all done. I gave him a deposit and we drove home.
TYEE Yacht Club, in Portland, was kind enough to let me keep my boat at their docks because we have reciprocal moorage privileges with them, but that usually entails a 2-3 day stay. They went way beyond the call of duty to let me keep it there that long.
Then, after repeated calls with the canvas guy he finally said that he would not have the job done by the time we needed to pick up the boat so he would arrange (on his nickel) to drive up here and complete the job after I got the boat home.
So Saturday morning a friend who had agreed to help me bring the boat back and I drove to Portland to retrieve it. We got to the boat just fine, got our stuff unloaded without issues. I fired up the engines and they both started just fine. Now, keep in mind that the place where TYEE had let me keep the boat did not have power available, so the boat had been there for a month without being hooked to power. I had this fear that we’d get down there and the engines wouldn’t start, but that was all for naught.
But what we didn’t have was any 120V power, nor did we have any 12VDC or 24VDC power to the instruments, no VHF, no chart plotter, etc. But what we did have was a good chart book and I’d been up and down the river a few times before so was pretty familiar with its twists and turns.
We thanked the commodore of TYEE for extending their hospitality and pulled out, intending to go a couple of miles downstream to another yacht club (Columbia River Yacht Club) to fuel up. We got in and tied to their fuel dock only to realize that the instructions to their fuel pump controls were on my cell phone which was still in the rental car which, in all the confusion about not having power, we had forgotten to take back to Enterprise. This gets better. So Dave stayed with the boat, my plan was to call him with the codes as soon as I got my phone so he could fuel me up.
So, as luck would have it there was a boat from TowBoatUS there fueling up. I begged and pleaded with him for a ride up to TYEE so I could return the car. He agreed and gave me the ride, I tipped him $20 for his kindness and I returned the car. I called Dave, he wrote down the codes and all was right with the world. Well, you know those guys from Enterprise, the “We’ll pick you up” guys, when I got there with the car and asked for a ride back he said he couldn’t but if I called Uber he’d take the Uber charge off my rental bill. That worked for me.
So back to the other CRYC, only to face another issue. CRYC’s fuel dock can’t be reached from land. Only by boat, but my boat was already at the fuel dock. So we found a willing boater who gave me a 100yard lift from one dock to the fuel dock.
Meanwhile Dave had pumped ~330 gallons of diesel into the boat, we fired up the engines and headed out. Our original plan was to make the noon upstream lock at Bonneville, which was about 30 miles upstream against about a 4kt current. So we headed out, running on plane, headed for the dam.
Oh, and did I mention we had no VHF? But I did have their phone number so I called them, explained the situation to them and told them we’d be there by 3:00, the next upstream lockage. We got there right at 3:00, I called them on the phone and told them we were there, got the green light to enter and got in and tied up without any issues.
After a fast ride up, we left the lock right at 3:30 and headed to The Dalles, OR where we were going to spend the night. It’s a 45 mile run and we got there right at 5:30. 45 miles in 2 hours meant we were running at 22.5kts Speed Over Ground. Not too bad figuring we were fighting the current.
So, for this next bit of fun and games, here’s an overhead shot of The Dalles YC docks. I’ve stayed here before and it’s been great. Not so much this time.
[/SIZE][/FONT][URL="https://s25.postimg.cc/rhqfxqrfj/The_Dalles_YC.jpg%5b/img"][FONT=Calibri][SIZE=3][COLOR=#0563c1]https://s25.postimg.cc/rhqfxqrfj/The_Dalles_YC.jpg[/img[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT][/URL][SIZE=3][FONT=Calibri]][/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=3][FONT=Calibri]We needed to reset our fenders so I went into neutral on both engines, stopped in mid-river and both of us went below to readjust the fender heights. As I was doing that I looked up and we were headed quickly toward the south shore which was a rock breakwater outside the marina. I ran up to the upper helm and tried to back us away from the rocks but couldn’t get the port engine to respond. It either was in forward gear or if I tried to bring it to neutral, it shut off. I fiddled with it for a couple of minutes and after deciding there was no other option, we headed into the marina. [/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=3][FONT=Calibri]As luck would have it, there was a party going on right on the docks where we had to pass by. Oh, and did I mention that I had to come in under power to maintain both engines running, and we were coming in HOT as they would say in Top Gun? The people at the party started yelling at us to slow down. I tried to explain as I roared by that I had an engine malfunctioning and couldn’t slow down. Also, there happened to be two wakeboard boats tied to the docks right in front of those two corner boat houses. [/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=3][FONT=Calibri]Half the people on the boathouse docks were still yelling for us to slow down, the other half were yelling “Don’t hit my frickin’ boat” and a few others were yelling other stuff. The distance between those two corner boat houses and the rock breakwater is about 60’. The distance between the boat houses and the docks is about 100’. In that short space I did two FULL 360* circles while trying to get the boat slowed down and under control. Now the yelling had changed to “HOOOOOLLLLYYYY SHHHHIIIITTT” as in “were gonna see one helluva crash here”. [/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=3][FONT=Calibri]I finally got the boat under some semblance of control and managed to get between the docks and the rock breakwater and headed toward the open end that’s east of the docks. We did two more FULL 360* turns in that space (it’s about 125’ from the docks to shore) before I finally got the boat slowed down and turned parallel to the long dock where we side tied for the night. Here’s what that looked like….[/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=3][FONT=Calibri][IMG]https://s25.postimg.cc/4t18y62bz/The_Dalles_YC_2.jpg
So, being the prudent mariners we were, we first cracked a beer except it was a warm beer because there was no refrigeration working on the boat. We tried to hook up to shore power. They had a 50A 240VAC connection but we couldn’t get anything out of it. The GFI breaker didn’t trip but there was no power. A guy came over from the yacht club and told us we basically were out of luck because they had rewired the docks to comply with the new power regs and nothing had worked since they rewired it. Great.
Then we started troubleshooting to see what we could figure out what we could do. We ended up hooking up a connection to their 30A 120VAC connection and hooked a regular extension cord to it and brought it into the boat, but as soon as I tried to plug it into a wall socked the GFI on the dock tripped. So we just used the extension cord to charge up the cell phones and plugged in the ice maker so we’d have some ice.
I talked with my mechanic on Saturday evening and he couldn’t give us any real troubleshooting ideas. We called a friend from our yacht club who drove down Sunday morning to pick us up and bring our sorry butts home. So to make a long story short, we are back home and the boat is still in The Dalles.
The boat is going to be there for awhile because Friday my wife and I are boarding a jet to Zurich for a 2 week Viking River Cruise that will eventually drop us in Paris for 4 days there. I gave the mechanic my phone number so he could call me if he needs to get in touch with me.
So what an adventure this trip turned out to be. I’m actually a bit happy to be heading out of town for a much needed vacation, but there’s a part of me that’s going to be worried about what’s going on with the boat.
Life is good.
