Want to go for a boat ride?

aerobat77 said:

you are remarkable man fighting your health issues and handling delivery of your boat !

out of curiosity - what open sea conditions you think this boat can handle ? ever tried open ocean with this boat ?

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Thanks, aerobat. The guys who are going along as crew have threatened me with death if I try to do any of the work on the trip. I am going to do the cooking but if I play my cards right and feign feeling ill, they will take care of the cleanup.

I've had the boat in 10'-12' seas on the Columbia River and I know there will be a lot of people who doubt that a river can make waves like that. For those of you who are disbelievers, take a wander to Youtube and look up "Umatilla Days Video 1", then watch #2, #3 and #4. Each video is about 1 minute or so long and they were taken just a few minutes apart.

I have not had this boat in the ocean but I'll be able to report back on how it handles waves in a couple of weeks.

I have seen that video. Water hit the windshield on the bridge. Biggest I have seen on the Ohio here is maybe 3' but that is very rare

when on a big river the current stays against a significant wind the waves can build up nasty . we can have similar cnditions on the outer elbe river from hamburg to the north sea . i talk a river which bevomes several miles wide , +60 feet deep and is used by +1000 feet container ships .

we boat every year on holiday this areas and the open north sea with our tiny 240 and make very sure the weather is kitty only , accepting we may be harbour only for several days .

my experience is every river and the biggest lake is not to compare with open ocean .

i look mainly for wave heights and direction since the same wind force can create different waves depending on direction and how much space they had to develop .

take a careful weather report before going out and enjoy the trip.

best

Well we had planned on leaving the slip at 0845 and we were exactly on that time mark when we departed. All went well even as we cruised toward the area where if there are going to be high winds, they start here. The winds kicked up about a 1.5'-2' chop but not bad. We continued on, rounded the bend at Wallula Gap to the stretch where the winds are usually blowing like the devil. Surprise, surprise, no wind, calm waters, blue skies and a beautiful day to be on the water.

When we got a bit further downriver we spotted about a 32' houseboat that appeared to have been blown up onto the rocks at the shore, most likely by the winds from the prior day. We called it in to the USCG and continued on our way.

I had planned an early departure in case we ran into high winds and waves and had to slow down. As it turned out we were going to arrive at McNary lock about 45 minutes early thanks to the 2+ mph current helping us along. I called the lock on the radio and asked if we could pass through on arrival instead of waiting for the scheduled time. They OK'd the early lockage so we got in and tied up about 45 minutes early. They lowered the water and we were out of the lock in about 15 minutes from when we had tied to the bollard.

When we left the lock we still had no wind and a beautiful day. That was not to last long as we had an engine overheat alarm about 2 miles from the lock. The port engine showed as the hot one so we shut it down. Tom opened the engine room hatch and couldn't even see in because of the heavy smoke/steam. We drifted around for about 30 minutes until he could get into the engine room to inspect the engine.

He found what looked like the source of the leak. A 1/2" 90* "street ell" coming out of the heat exchanger had a length of pipe screwed into the femail end of the ell and there was coolant dripping from the fitting. It looked like there was a possible crack at the threads. Here's the ell he thought was faulty.


Had there been any winds blowing we would have gone into the Umatilla marina rather than risk going back through the lock on one engine. There was no wind so we called the lock on the VHF, explained our plight and asked for another early lockage rather than wait another 3 hours to the next scheduled one. They obliged us so we started back to the lock.

I must admit that my "pucker factor" was extremely high as we entered the lock. I could just see us crashing into the wall and damaging a boat I was about to put up for sale. Then, to top it off, there were 5 people standing on the walkway at the top of the lock watching and waiting to the the big boat smashed to smithereens inside their lock.

As it turned out it took me 3 attempts to get up next to the bollard so Jim could get a line around it. He did and secured us tight to the wall. Thank heaven for bow thrusters. We got out of the lock after being raised to the top and started a loooong journey home, now on one engine and running against the current.

We got home about 6:30 without incident and got Beachcomber secured in the slip. We unloaded a bunch of perishables into dock carts and my wife picked us up. We got home, went for a swim then stuffed ourselves on her wonderful spaghetti with homemade sauce.

I had called the owner of Columbia Marine Center from the boat while we were drifting around. He suggested we take some photos of what we thought was the damaged part(s) and send them to him, and he agreed to meet us down at the boat at 10:00 today.

He spent about 2 hours down in the engine room and found this:


The 1/2" galvanized ell had a pencil lead-size hole in the bottom and that's where the coolant had leaked out. He disassembled it and took the bad part and adjacent parts so he could find replacements.

On the way back all 3 of us decided that we would wait a few weeks before heading back downriver. We all have things on our schedules that need to be taken care of so in a couple of weeks we'll regroup and see how everything looks for the dates for the next trip.

All things considered this could have been a LOT worse. The silver lining is that ell could have given way when we were crossing the bar or 25 miles offshore in the Pacific. It was a beautiful day to be on the water and the day just happened to be turned upside down by a $1 part. That could have been a LOT worse.

Stay tuned.

Sounds like your great crew and preparations are paying off. Just remember Murphy’s law and you will be in a land yacht soon.

Glad to hear everyone is safe and sound..

Happy you got back safe.

You know this is just your boat "Saying don't sell me".

The lengths you go to prolong the adventure...

Thanks for all the comments. For a cruise like this one, if time allows I spend months doing the planning. A big part of that is picking my friends who I would like to be part of the crew. Some times things go as planned, some time they don't. When they don't is when the pre-planning pays off. You can't plan for everything as we learned on our short cruise, but having the right people in your crew is important. I felt OK with turning the helm over to either of them and on a long trip that's important.

sdarc said:

Happy you got back safe.

You know this is just your boat "Saying don't sell me".

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sdarc, it's funny you said that. As we pulled out of the slip my wife was on the dock taking a video of us leaving. You can hear her crying in the video, and when she finished it she sent it to me in a text with the caption: "I've changed my mind. Bring her back to me."

Little did she know that we would be back in the late afternoon with her baby.

glad you all are safe and the damage is only limited.

let me quote myself :

aerobat77 said:

when you launch your motorhome at the boat ramp into water , how much time do you suspect it to swim , so how much time will you have with it on the water ;-) ?

i think you will return to boating after a break !

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maybe you reverse decision to sell this boat ? ... ;-)

Good write up and glad it ended well. I"m curious about the part that failed, a galvanized elbow. That sounds and looks like something that would be in an old house instead of an engine room. Did CAT deliver the engine that way or is it a DYI repair by a previous owner?

sbw1, Thanks for the comment on the outcome of the trip. As to that street ell, it's an original Cat part delivered on the engine to SR who put the engine in my boat. I suspect what happened is that 25 years of water flowing through that fitting just wore it down. Water does that, ya know. Check out the Grand Canyon.

Quite the adventure. You said it’s a $1 part. Hmmm. Sorry but it’s a boat. You must be talking 1 boat buck ($1,000). There is no such thing as a $1 boat part.

if this is cat oem i,m also a bit surprized .

i was last year on a commercial pusher with twin MAN,s V12 and the crew showed me the engine room . the engines were +40000 hours ( no joke ) and running without issues . all engine piping looked solid as hell .

so either cat,s differ in supply quality for a commercial or a pleasure craft or cat,s are competing in the commercial league ...well , you know ...

C'mon guys, I'd bet money Cat didn't make the part. They bought it from a supplier. And I'm betting the total cost for that part and the adjoining parts (nipple and connector on the other end of the nipple) won't cost much more than $10.

You guys must not have the same kind of relationship with your mechanics as I do with mine. I'll let you know what the parts cost is when it's all done.

the costs of this part may be peanuts , no question .

but this 10$ part sits in the primary cooling and has the potential to fail the engine when you need it or wreck it due to overheat , that is why i,m wondering .

I have it on good authority that Richard Threthewey from This Old House installed that part when he was doing a plumbing remodel at the CAT factory.

Gofirstclass said:

C'mon guys, I'd bet money Cat didn't make the part. They bought it from a supplier. And I'm betting the total cost for that part and the adjoining parts (nipple and connector on the other end of the nipple) won't cost much more than $10.

You guys must not have the same kind of relationship with your mechanics as I do with mine. I'll let you know what the parts cost is when it's all done.

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It’s amazing how small parts have such major impact sometimes. I had corrosion on a 6 inch ignition wire once. Caused the engine to stall for a split second at idle and caused the engine to briefly injest water and hydrolock. Busted the starter and had a 500 tow plus new starter. Over one boat buck for a 50 cent part on an all in basis.

On the road again,
just can't wait to get one the road again,
going places where I've never been before

Well, y'all know the rest of that old tune.

We've been over a month getting the boat fixed and fixing our schedules so we could take off for Seattle again.

Well today Jim, Tom and I struck out for Seattle. We left the slip at 9:30, right on schedule. It was windy and as we got down the river a few miles we were running into 4'-5' waves with spray washing the boat from one end to the other. We got to McNary lock about 10 minutes early and that gave us time to set fenders and lines.

After passing through the lock we headed on down river. I was feeling kinda pooped so I turned the helm over to Tom and took an hour nap on the aft seat on the bridge. That felt REALLY good. We got into Arlington, OR right at 5:00 and got tied up with a lot of help from the wind.

After a quick cold one we hiked up into town and had some mediocre burgers for dinner, then back down to the marina.

Now I gotta tell you if this writing seems a bit disjointed it's because I didn't sleep much last night and other than today's nap I'm feeling sleep deprived.

So, with that thought in mind I'm going to sign off and hit the hay. I only took one photo today so I'll try to post that tomorrow and will continue this sorry tale when we get further down river.

Tomorrow's agenda includes two locks and 55 miles of river travel to the town of The Dalles, OR. Hopefully by this time tomorrow I'll be more awake and will be able to write stuff that makes sense.

Nightey night.

Safe travels...