Sea Adventures: Chapter 3.
BOOMERANG
Boomerang is a 26 foot Chris-Craft motor boat (a.k. a. “stinkpot”) with twin gasoline engines which our family chartered for a week in the San Juan Islands. We went in company with another motor yacht Aorangi manned by the Krakauer family, old friends from medical school days, one of several vacations together in the out-of-doors. We cruised, swam, sailed their sailboard and enjoyed the scenery of the islands, rivaled only by Penobscot Bay in Maine. All went well until our final day.
We parted company in Thatcher Pass south of Blakely Island, the Aorangi proceeding directly to the marina and restaurant at the north end of Blakeley, the Boomerang pausing to check a potential anchorage at the south end, to join the others for dinner ashore later. There is a wide bay with good water and no obstructions and it seemed OK.
With Jody steering, Sarah and I as lookouts, we idled out of the bay into Thatcher Pass, watched the fathometer deepen, then pushed the throttles forward. Then there was an impact; the boat rose and settled, another impact, and a third, as I threw the engines out of gear and we slowed to a stop. There was no vibration as I engaged the shafts, but idling again, lifted the engine hatch to see water flooding the compartment.
Sarah wisely had moved life jackets from the forepeak to the cockpit when we had begun the cruise. She issued them as I turned the boat toward shore; as the stern settled the crew assembled on the foredeck and we ran onto the beach. We built a driftwood cradle under the tilting boat as water flooded knee-deep into the cabin.
The radio had been disabled for we could not raise a coast guard vessel we saw in the pass, nor anyone else. Sarah and the girls left to get help and the men stayed with the boat. Teenagers in a jeep picked up the ladies and took them to the marina where they contacted the owner, whose response was “What do you expect me to do?”
He figured out something because about 11 PM a motorized scow appeared with a crew including a diver. With a sling on an A frame, they picked up the stern, the diver identified the holes and tacked on plywood over canvas gaskets and a pump emptied most of the water. They took Boomerang in tow and in a few hours she was hauled out on the dock in Anacortes. The others joined us next day, navigating in fog.
There were three rents in the plywood hull, each three feet long, close to the keel. Propellers and shafts were undamaged. We had struck a deadhead floating vertically just below the surface which had nailed us three times. It was the last charter of the season and the last night of the charter. Insurance covered all repairs; the engines were repaired with alternators rather than generators, and the boat was salvaged intact. We were fortunate to be close to shore or we would have been in the dinghy or worse. Curiously, the owner did not refund the damage deposit. We had saved his boat!
BOOMERANG
Boomerang is a 26 foot Chris-Craft motor boat (a.k. a. “stinkpot”) with twin gasoline engines which our family chartered for a week in the San Juan Islands. We went in company with another motor yacht Aorangi manned by the Krakauer family, old friends from medical school days, one of several vacations together in the out-of-doors. We cruised, swam, sailed their sailboard and enjoyed the scenery of the islands, rivaled only by Penobscot Bay in Maine. All went well until our final day.
We parted company in Thatcher Pass south of Blakely Island, the Aorangi proceeding directly to the marina and restaurant at the north end of Blakeley, the Boomerang pausing to check a potential anchorage at the south end, to join the others for dinner ashore later. There is a wide bay with good water and no obstructions and it seemed OK.
With Jody steering, Sarah and I as lookouts, we idled out of the bay into Thatcher Pass, watched the fathometer deepen, then pushed the throttles forward. Then there was an impact; the boat rose and settled, another impact, and a third, as I threw the engines out of gear and we slowed to a stop. There was no vibration as I engaged the shafts, but idling again, lifted the engine hatch to see water flooding the compartment.
Sarah wisely had moved life jackets from the forepeak to the cockpit when we had begun the cruise. She issued them as I turned the boat toward shore; as the stern settled the crew assembled on the foredeck and we ran onto the beach. We built a driftwood cradle under the tilting boat as water flooded knee-deep into the cabin.
The radio had been disabled for we could not raise a coast guard vessel we saw in the pass, nor anyone else. Sarah and the girls left to get help and the men stayed with the boat. Teenagers in a jeep picked up the ladies and took them to the marina where they contacted the owner, whose response was “What do you expect me to do?”
He figured out something because about 11 PM a motorized scow appeared with a crew including a diver. With a sling on an A frame, they picked up the stern, the diver identified the holes and tacked on plywood over canvas gaskets and a pump emptied most of the water. They took Boomerang in tow and in a few hours she was hauled out on the dock in Anacortes. The others joined us next day, navigating in fog.
There were three rents in the plywood hull, each three feet long, close to the keel. Propellers and shafts were undamaged. We had struck a deadhead floating vertically just below the surface which had nailed us three times. It was the last charter of the season and the last night of the charter. Insurance covered all repairs; the engines were repaired with alternators rather than generators, and the boat was salvaged intact. We were fortunate to be close to shore or we would have been in the dinghy or worse. Curiously, the owner did not refund the damage deposit. We had saved his boat!
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