Who knew such a heavy ark of a boat could push up so f-ing hard?
These days, the cage on Compass Rose's propeller area makes an excellent garden sculpture and place for pea vines to climb up. Its intended purpose, though, was to prevent rope and buoys from becoming entangled on the propeller shaft and rapidly creating a many layered bale of gnarled and fused plastic fiber around this important vessel component.
The cage, made of rusted cast iron and even sturdier barnicles, also looked like something out of Game of Thrones, rather than a hydro-dynamically efficient part of a marine propulsion system.
My first cruise last June on Compass Rose was at a stately pace; statelier than expected by several knots. This spring, I gathered my courage to take off this maritime equivalent of training wheels in hopes of going faster. Based on how it looked, I would've thought getting rid of the cage would make the boat leap out of the water and run like Forrest Gump with his leg braces off.
As a result of my bravery, I may have picked up one nautical mile per hour truth be told. I also managed to back over my own buoy last week and picked up my very own many layered bale of gnarled and fused plastic fiber around this important vessel component.
Having this extra cargo necessitated bringing the boat alongside of the Steamboat Wharf, tying up and waiting for the tide to go out in order to clean her up. Ryan came down and helped with some maintenance tasks, and later, he and Megan cleaned up the hull and attacked the fierce tentacles of the many layer plastic fiber bale.
The watched tide never rises, so after staring at it a while, I went home. When we came back, the davit, or metal arm that holds the hauling block/pulley had lodged itself under the massive wharf timbers and was completely deaf to my hysterical profanity insisting it dislodge. The timbers were even less reasonable. Megan and I hopped up on the starboard washboard hoping to tip it far enough to slip out. I tried a monkey wrench and every other metal lever I could lay hands on.
Orris and Erin showed up to lend their support by joining us on the washboard, and got the vessel moving to and fro all to no avail. We were seriously stuck.
I've not felt that particular sort of panic before, having the boat stuck and the tide remorselessly inching higher. That panic turned to brickshitting as I watched the wheelhouse frame and fiberglass begin to open up and part ways. I saw the lobstering season over before it really got into high gear. As I wrestled with the stuck davit, I saw fingers amputated or my skull getting caved in from the thing finally letting go with me too close to too much pent up energy and heavy metal items.
The last resort was to fire up the boat, put her in gear and yank her loose, which, duh, I should've done in the first place.
After safely getting out of the inner harbor, Megan and I went out to clean up and test the hauler. I hauled up a pair of traps which didn't pull the wheelhouse apart after all.
Some nervous observation over the next day of hauling and several trawls through boxes of metal this and that in my barn, the Owen barn and Clayton's shop presented some solutions. A couple of 90° braces here, fresh screws there, tighten the steel plate holding the works together and a very stout piece of stainless steel running vertically up the length of the unhappy places and I think it's at least as sturdy as before the mishap.
As much as the rotten spot on the wheelhouse frame has bugged me since I bought the boat, it may have acted as a sacrificial crumple zone and helped absorb some of the force.
I will probably not stop looking at the cracked places, but for now, we're good again.
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