September 02, 2006
I'm sick of whining, and miss when I would write about things I (at least) thought were funny. This may not be a funny story, but it makes me chuckle and remember better times...
As I might have said before, my last year of graduate school I lived on the beautiful Gasconade River. My buddy Flanders and I had gone in halvsies on a river boat. The boat was originally what was known as a Shoal Runner. They were amazing boats, but way, way out of our price range. My first living experience with the Gasconade River took place a couple years before we bought the house that I loved before I made the horrible move to California. Oops. I'm sounding negative. One of my neighbors had salvaged a Shoal Runner that some moron had buried into the hillside when he misnegotiated the shoal. Shoal Runners have a Chevy 350 inboard, but he felt that that didn't put the thrust where it needed to be. He used to build boats (ironically enough on the lake where my parents live), and had some experience with these things. He "acquired" the wrecked boat, and contacted a buddy of his with the ability to issue him a new license for the boat. It's all about who you know sometimes. He rebuilt the boat, and put this awesome 115 HP, in-line six, outboard jet on it. He had searched until he found that exact motor. That's what he wanted for this boat. I talked to him a couple of times about the boat when I saw it was for sale. He said we should take it for a spin, so we did.
Before this, we had taken a trip up the river in a little Coleman fiberglass boat with a 6 HP motor. In the shoals, we couldn't move with the motor going full bore. We left early in the morning to get to the fishing hole we wanted, and it took virtually all day. We fished for less than an hour before we had to start back towards home to get there before dark. Jet boat? We got there in fifteen minutes, and I learned a lot from him on how to read the river. Frankly, I got really good at it.
Once we moved, it took closer to 30 minutes. It was a wonderful ride, though. In the summer, before the water level died down too much, and the tree leaves saturated the water, it was a relatively easy trip, if you could read the river. Seeing the stump in the water with the expected deep water where the river had carved out the ground around it, and cruising through there with a last minute turn... going through a shoal where the deepest water was only a few inches, punching the throttle and carefully turning through it without letting the hull dig too deep into the water... It was awesome. However, before one could reach Boiling Springs, one had to negotiate a wide and rather shallow part of the river that was littered with large rocks. It was like a mine field. During the winter, summer, and spring, it was generally easy to navigate. A keen eye could see where the water ruffled around a rock, and regardless of speed, it could be navigated. Fall was a different issue. The water was low, and leaves clogged the jet.
Flanders, our buddy Tim, and I scooted up the river one beautiful Fall day. The leaves that were still on the trees were gorgeous, and we only had to stop every 15 minutes or so to scoop out the jet intake. The live well was filled with ice and beer (we had low expectations), and everything was right in the world. We entered the mine field, and the water was low enough that the tops of the rocks were often visible. No problem, we only need a few inches of water to shoot through... as long as the jet can suck water... We were struggling a little with the jet intake, but I shoved the throttle and we started our journey. God only knows why we were determined to go to Boiling Springs, but that was our goal. The stretch was of dangerous territory was about 100 yards long. We had made it safely through about 2/3 of it before BAM. I hit a rock. The boat bounced, slowed, and I retuned the lift and gunned it. We were back on top of the water, and made it to where we wanted to go.
As usual, we turned on the trolling motor and started fishing and talking (the real reason we went out). We drifted down the river completely unconcerned about anything. We carefully negotiated our way back through the mine field, and were approach an area where we thought we'd pull up to a gravel bar and hang out for a while to play in the water, and scare the fish that were ignoring us anyway. Buddy Tim was in the boat, and innocently said, "should there be this much water in the boat?" No. Six inches of water in a boat is generally a bad thing. I had apparently put a hole in the boat. The area where the inboard use to pull water was covered in one piece of aluminum without reinforcement. The welded edges stuck out a bit, and that appeared to be right where we hit the rock. We stupidly laughed our butts off. What else were we going to do? We moved the boat around and turned on the pump. In about half an hour we had the water mostly pumped out.
It was good timing. It was late in the afternoon, and a decent time to try to go home. We left the pump on, and went at full speed back to the house. We looked like idiots when we got back to the launch area. We backed the trailer down into the water while one of us kept the boat going at full speed in circles. No worries. We got the boat out, and continued laughing about my screwup.
Some good friends had recently purchased a factory building that at the time housed an aluminum fab house. They hadn't moved the aluminum people out, yet, and they were able to get me in for a quick weld job. It cost me $25. And then I was back on the water...
Graduate school rocked...
As I might have said before, my last year of graduate school I lived on the beautiful Gasconade River. My buddy Flanders and I had gone in halvsies on a river boat. The boat was originally what was known as a Shoal Runner. They were amazing boats, but way, way out of our price range. My first living experience with the Gasconade River took place a couple years before we bought the house that I loved before I made the horrible move to California. Oops. I'm sounding negative. One of my neighbors had salvaged a Shoal Runner that some moron had buried into the hillside when he misnegotiated the shoal. Shoal Runners have a Chevy 350 inboard, but he felt that that didn't put the thrust where it needed to be. He used to build boats (ironically enough on the lake where my parents live), and had some experience with these things. He "acquired" the wrecked boat, and contacted a buddy of his with the ability to issue him a new license for the boat. It's all about who you know sometimes. He rebuilt the boat, and put this awesome 115 HP, in-line six, outboard jet on it. He had searched until he found that exact motor. That's what he wanted for this boat. I talked to him a couple of times about the boat when I saw it was for sale. He said we should take it for a spin, so we did.
Before this, we had taken a trip up the river in a little Coleman fiberglass boat with a 6 HP motor. In the shoals, we couldn't move with the motor going full bore. We left early in the morning to get to the fishing hole we wanted, and it took virtually all day. We fished for less than an hour before we had to start back towards home to get there before dark. Jet boat? We got there in fifteen minutes, and I learned a lot from him on how to read the river. Frankly, I got really good at it.
Once we moved, it took closer to 30 minutes. It was a wonderful ride, though. In the summer, before the water level died down too much, and the tree leaves saturated the water, it was a relatively easy trip, if you could read the river. Seeing the stump in the water with the expected deep water where the river had carved out the ground around it, and cruising through there with a last minute turn... going through a shoal where the deepest water was only a few inches, punching the throttle and carefully turning through it without letting the hull dig too deep into the water... It was awesome. However, before one could reach Boiling Springs, one had to negotiate a wide and rather shallow part of the river that was littered with large rocks. It was like a mine field. During the winter, summer, and spring, it was generally easy to navigate. A keen eye could see where the water ruffled around a rock, and regardless of speed, it could be navigated. Fall was a different issue. The water was low, and leaves clogged the jet.
Flanders, our buddy Tim, and I scooted up the river one beautiful Fall day. The leaves that were still on the trees were gorgeous, and we only had to stop every 15 minutes or so to scoop out the jet intake. The live well was filled with ice and beer (we had low expectations), and everything was right in the world. We entered the mine field, and the water was low enough that the tops of the rocks were often visible. No problem, we only need a few inches of water to shoot through... as long as the jet can suck water... We were struggling a little with the jet intake, but I shoved the throttle and we started our journey. God only knows why we were determined to go to Boiling Springs, but that was our goal. The stretch was of dangerous territory was about 100 yards long. We had made it safely through about 2/3 of it before BAM. I hit a rock. The boat bounced, slowed, and I retuned the lift and gunned it. We were back on top of the water, and made it to where we wanted to go.
As usual, we turned on the trolling motor and started fishing and talking (the real reason we went out). We drifted down the river completely unconcerned about anything. We carefully negotiated our way back through the mine field, and were approach an area where we thought we'd pull up to a gravel bar and hang out for a while to play in the water, and scare the fish that were ignoring us anyway. Buddy Tim was in the boat, and innocently said, "should there be this much water in the boat?" No. Six inches of water in a boat is generally a bad thing. I had apparently put a hole in the boat. The area where the inboard use to pull water was covered in one piece of aluminum without reinforcement. The welded edges stuck out a bit, and that appeared to be right where we hit the rock. We stupidly laughed our butts off. What else were we going to do? We moved the boat around and turned on the pump. In about half an hour we had the water mostly pumped out.
It was good timing. It was late in the afternoon, and a decent time to try to go home. We left the pump on, and went at full speed back to the house. We looked like idiots when we got back to the launch area. We backed the trailer down into the water while one of us kept the boat going at full speed in circles. No worries. We got the boat out, and continued laughing about my screwup.
Some good friends had recently purchased a factory building that at the time housed an aluminum fab house. They hadn't moved the aluminum people out, yet, and they were able to get me in for a quick weld job. It cost me $25. And then I was back on the water...
Graduate school rocked...