The boat’s back in the water

Turns out I was pretty sad about pulling the boat out of the water last month. One of the biggest issues was the marina could not get our bill right; every month it was such a struggle. Plus, that marina gets really busy during the summer, and it just all seemed like too much. So we pulled it out and put it in storage, but what’s the use of a boat in storage in the desert?

So we’ve decided to try it again, with a different, much smaller marina. It’s quiet and peaceful out there, and hopefully we’ll manage to get out there some weekends this summer.

But oh, did we have a struggle getting it into the water! Typically we’d trailer it with the Jeep, but we wanted to spend the night in the camper van in the campground out there (the boat’s not quite set up yet for overnighting). The camper van is a big vehicle with excellent towing capacity, and actually tows better than the Jeep does. But the ramp at that marina was so gradual, that we could not, for the life of us, float that boat off the trailer without submerging the back of the van!

John backed the trailer into the water (I’m not very good at backing trailers long distances) and then we switched out drivers so John could wade into the water and guide the boat off the trailer. But it wouldn’t budge. He shoved and shoved. I backed it up another inch or two, and pretty soon the exhaust was blub-blub-blubbing in the water and I was terrified we were going to wreck my precious camper van! I frankly wouldn’t care if we dumped that old Jeep into the lake – we’ve been talking about buying a new 4Runner for at least 5 years. But not my camper van!

He told me to pull forward a little and then back quickly and suddenly brake hard, all the while keeping the rpm really high so the water stays out of the exhaust system, which involves giving it lots of gas and some clutch at the same time at just the right amount of each.

Uhhhh…I’m not a very coordinated person. I don’t usually get brakes and gas pedals and clutches confused, but I’m not usually backing a boat into a lake, with instructions that include “quickly” and “suddenly”. I tried a couple of times, but then I was just like – this is not my forte. The laws of physics have always been a bit non-intuitive for me. (Although after that experience, when the Mini Cooper dealership asked me if I was sure I could drive their manual transmission loaner vehicle while mine was being worked on, I was like, oh yeah, got that nailed.)

Anyway, John took a turn at the wheel and I waded into the water, holding the bow line (and occasionally ineffectively pushing on the boat) while he tried to jerk the boat off the trailer using the physics of momentum.

Pull forward, back fast, brake hard, jerk (blub, blub, rev, rev)…forward again, back fast, break hard, jerk! Each time I was afraid we were going to ruin the van or the boat or both. At first it didn’t seem like we were making any progress, but then I realized the boat had moved an inch. Pull forward, back fast, brake hard, jerk (blub, blub). Another inch, but still not budging. Again. Again. Again. The boat is now crooked on the trailer and had progressed a total of about one foot. John set the brake and got out to help me push. Push-push-nothing. Not floating, not budging. Ugh. Pull forward, back fast, brake hard, jerk! Again and again.

Finally the boat floated with a wild twist off the trailer, and I about couldn’t hold it with the bow line (when something is that heavy, any type of momentum is a lot, even at very low speeds). The boat slid backwards and sideways toward the near dock while the bow spun toward the opposite dock. At first I thought it was heading toward the opposite dock, but then I suddenly realized that although it had spun toward the opposite dock, it was actually moving backwards. I was going to be caught between a moving boat and a dock (not a good place to be), but I didn’t have time to get up onto the dock to fend it off. I managed to jerk the bow in the direction of the dock, which was counter intuitive because I was trying not to hit the dock (and me), but it slowed the spin and brought the boat under control. (John missed all that because he was driving the trailer back up the ramp.)

The boat is now safely in the new slip.

We took it out on the water briefly, but we didn’t actually sail it; we didn’t have time to get the mast and sails set up, which is a big process. We just motored for a bit.

Then coming back in, the outboard motor died, twice. You have no control over a moving boat when you have no motor, because the outboard is what provides steerage. We nearly hit the boat in the slip next to ours. I had to leap out onto the end of the bow to fend off. The same exact thing happened when we were trying to dock it last time when we were pulling it out of the water, and we almost hit a boat tied to the dock, and a couple people on the dock had to help us guide it in.

So that’s it, I am not tolerant of an undependable outboard. (Remind me someday to tell you about Alaska, OMG.) So I’m not going out on that boat again until we do something about the outboard situation. John wants to set up a second outboard, an electric motor for trolling (going slowly dragging a fishing line). That sounds great to me. I can’t abide the noise and smell of the gas motors anyway. Of course the electric trolling motors are limited in speed and distance if you’re actually trying to get somewhere. But it’s a sailboat; we can sail!

I have no idea when we’re actually going to have time to purchase and install another outboard. But meanwhile I can at least be happy that we do, in theory, have a boat on the water.