Spring warning

[Phasma]

My buddy from a few slips down has a 39 Sea Ray hard top cruiser. He had a few guests on the boat and decided to run from Grand Haven to Muskegon for dinner. As he left the pier head at Grand Haven he put her up on plane and suddenly heard a loud clunk and rattles. He suddenly spotted a floating tree pop up behind the boat. With the water levels so high the rivers are stripping the river banks of dead fall trees and floating them down river to the lake. His starboard prop, prop shaft, strut, and rudder were destroyed. His damage will be thousands of dollars. Fortunately his insurance should cover most of it but he will be without his boat for awhile.

 

[sbw1]

Trees come down the Grand River every year. Some good south west and north west winds will deposit them on beaches during the coming days. There are lots of gill nets in the water too in that area north of the pier that you need to be on look out for.

 

[spikedaddy99]

Had that happen in the Menominee River a few years ago. Just bent a prop for me. It was as I was just throttling up to plane for the 1st time of the year. What a bummer. M

 

[Stee6043]

Makes me want to stay in my slip until mid-June

I brought my boat down the Grand River from storage a few weeks back. I spotted a handful of large trees making their way down the river.

If any of you guys dinghy into Grand Haven from the "back roads" around Grand Valley Marina there is a 50'+ tree currently (as of last Sunday) blocking half of the train trestle passages. That same tree was trapped at the 31 bridge the week prior.

Good times...

 

[Gofirstclass]

I HATE it when that happens. We're always on the lookout for stuff in the river though there isn't a lot after the first big runoff.

 

[Woody]

The odds of hitting something greatly increases if you've just had your props in for a tune up...it's just the way it is.

 

[M Prod]

That sucks. Logs are a constant threat here in the PNW. The logging industry uses tugs to move floats made up of thousands of logs, through the waterways here all the time. Naturally they lose logs. And then spring runoff is always fun. I always have to watch closely and even when I do I’ve had to cut the throttles and shift to neutral on multiple occasions for the occasional one I can’t see till it’s too late. Like it’s said up here, it’s not a matter of if, but rather when you will eventually hit one. I’ve been in situations where it’s like motoring through a mine field.

That’s also why pods are generally frowned upon upon here.

 

[Phasma]

There is a 30 foot tree tied to the end of the river side peninsula of a Grand Isle as well. Somebody towed and tied it to a piling

 

[MikeBravo]

I was heading on plane to the Anclote channel near Tarpons Springs, FL when all of a sudden a big bang and my starboard engine died. Would not restart. Puttered into the dock and left it for the mechanic to look at the next day, Monday. Got a call that Monday afternoon, the prop, strut and half the shaft were gone. There was also a large gash in the hull where the prop came off. He said I was very lucky that the prop did not go through the hull, I would have sunk. Never saw anything in the water.

 

[jsed]

Lots of stuff in the water. Watched a fishermans cart, gear, and net get washed off the north pier in Grand Haven Saturday after a large wave washed over the pier. I'm afraid its going to be like that most of the summer with the high water levels. Fun stuff...