2 mishaps I had that caused damage My Fault??

[Russ]

1) No reverse power. You need to figure this out. If it tilted up out of the water, it shouldn't. If there is a "lock" that isn't locking, find it and fix it. I've thrown mine into reverse and it stops the boat on a dime. I've even testing this on open water. Not a 20mph, but at 5-6 and throwing it in reverse. It stops, prop stays down, no caviation, no lack of bite, it stops, quickly. One of the benefits of a light boat, reverse thrust will slow you down. Now I agree with one of the "tips" from the other thread, "Never approach a dock faster than you're willing to hit it." Reverse thrust is our only brake, but don't count on it. Best to assume you don't have reverse and approach docking with that in mind.

Now I tend to go with the panic reverse throttle sucked some air theory. I'm not familiar with the throttle on the Etec, but is it possible it wasn't in reverse and was in neutral gear? My Suzi is hard to put in neutral, but it can be done and run high revs and go no place.

2) My opinion is if the dagger was full down and you hit something, it pinched in the dagger trunk and cracked it. That dagger is paper thin glass and easily damaged. If not this day, some other day, but I think you hit something somewhat soft. If you think of the forces, it's consistent with damage from hitting something that was blunt. Pulls the dagger back in the trunk and crunches the trailing edge up against it. No impact damage, it's from pulling back in the trunk. I would expect similar damage if you motored really fast with it down.

Easy to fix, not critical. It doesn't look like it should keep you from sailing, but as mentioned some Marine Tex and it will be stronger than new.

I also don't see any evidence you are doing anything wrong. Keep it down if it works as long as you are in deep water, no reason to think it will hit anything. Performance wise, full down is not always desirable, but if you enjoy sailing with a balanced helm, go for it.

--Russ

[BOAT]

Yeah Russ - I usually only pull the board up when on a beam reach - I pull it up half way. I pull it up all the way when sailing with the wind.

As for hitting something soft - we do have a treacherous shoal break in my harbor at the mouth - in fact the way we spot our little harbor from a distance is by looking for breaking waves on rocks - they are 5 feet high, they are INSIDE the harbor and you can see them a mile away.

I could have come in too close to the shoal and dragged a little in the sand - but the approach to my harbor is a beam reach so the board is not all the way down in most cases - I may have missed this one. I do recall coming in through 'green' water at the mouth last week. Hmmmm.

I will definitely check out the revers thing - that is just a strange thing because I have hit reverse many times and usually it stops us so fast we fall down if we are not holding on to something - it's very troubling.

[Divecoz]

Hahahaha Marine Tex Is your Friend.. It is mine anyway.. I have some on board as it can be used underwater as well. Making a funny sound.. Yep ventilating is a different sound than what is normal.. Hard to describe though.

Captain Dog Camper you are a life saver - I just called Mike at West Marine here in Oceanside and he says he has the putty in white right there at the store.

Thanks GREATLY for that tip!

[BOAT]

I pulled away from the Dock at the Jolly Roger last week on memorial day and I was parked right where that big cabin cruiser was and as I motored forward the boat would not leave the dock cleanly! It just scraped along the dock all the way on my starboard side to the end even though I had the wheel turned to port. Later I realized the problem was that the dagger-board was NOT down so there was no pivot to turn the boat on.

I really thought I damaged the boat that day - but as it turned out all the scrapings on the side of the boat were just rubber stains from the dock - they rubbed right out with fiberglass cleaner.

I'm also the only guy with a brand new boat with no scratches on the raccoon stripes yet - so every day on the water is another opportunity to make me sweat. Someday when I really do take on some real damage I will no longer need to sweat all these little incidents anymore and I can just enjoy. That's the downside of having a shiny new looking boat.

[BOAT]

Yep ventilating is a different sound than what is normal.

By the way guys - I went outside today and grabbed the bottom of the motor cuz the boat is on the trailer - and I pulled and yanks on it real hard and i could not get it to raise up.

Hmmmm - Not being a power boat or submarine skipper at any time I'm a bit weak on this ventilation / cavitation stuff - it's a puzzle to me. I do not like it.

[K9Kampers]

Hmmmm - Not being a power boat or submarine skipper at any time I'm a bit weak on this ventilation / cavitation stuff - it's a puzzle to me. I do not like it.

Vent / cav is nothing to get hung up on, they are just terms that describe specific things. Look them up online as you would any other sailing / boating term, but don't fret it.

A fact of your experience, as you stated, is that you had many beers. IMHO, impaired driving is impaired driving whether behind the wheel of a car, boat, or jetliner. What happened this time is likely a result of impaired reactions & interpretations to normal or askew conditions. Not preaching or judging, as I've BTDT.

REVERSE thrusting is less like braking and more like semi-controlled deceleration. Impaired-panic reverse can seem like something else. Next time out, before stopping for beerachos, experiment with full blast reverse vs. short reverse thrusts (like pumping the car brakes) to get a feel for how each performs / sounds.

[K9Kampers]

...and as I motored forward the boat would not leave the dock cleanly! It just scraped along the dock all the way on my starboard side to the end even though I had the wheel turned to port. Later I realized the problem was that the dagger-board was NOT down so there was no pivot to turn the boat on.

Daggerboard or not, a slight current or breeze could be enough to push a boat to the dock in the way you described. Consider using a spring line for docking maneuvers.

LINK

[Highlander]

Their is a mod some where but I could not find it for ur D/B it is basicaly a piece of plastic piping glassed into the top rear section so when it is fully deployed it has more suport & that shrp edge is also not then digging into ur D/B trunk I have some small damage to my D/B just due to sailing in very rough conditions it is also near the top section I only sail with my D/B down all the way when heading into the wind most times it is only down 2-3 ft

J

[BOAT]

I set up a spring line on the aft cleat the day I had my "beercheros" incident, but the line slid away from me and fell in the water and I could not grab it in time (thus the drifting into the boats to the rear) if I had not let the spring line slip through my fingers none of the stupid blast forward blast backwards stuff would have happened. Yeah, I like spring-lines a lot but they no worky unless you hold on to them. I have been getting a lot more clumsy as I get older.

[BOAT]

Highlander - that pipe idea on the back of the board is genius - I'll try to scour the mod section to see it I can find it. I really think the damage to the board was caused by rough water, not that tiny little 'tap' i got at the launch ramp. Also, the damage on the board is not indicative of a one time event - it looks more to me like numerous chippings and grindings like something was nibbling at it a little at a time.

That's not a one time event damage - i think that's a lot of hard knocks in rough water. Like I said - the water I have here is all I got and it's all I've known since I was a little kid. I expect this boat to be able to take the pounding - if it can't I need to mod it up - I remember posting one of my very first posts on this site about my concern about beefing up the boat so it could take the heavy pounding that is pretty much common here. (I think I'm understanding now why there are almost ZERO MACs here where I am.)

I will not be deterred - If highlander can turn a MAC into a Clipper I can turn 'boat' into a PAC boat. I just need to address all the weaknesses.

The daggerboard mod sounds like a start. I was thinking of riveting a stainless sleeve around it too, but I would rather go with whatever had worked for others.

[mastreb]

So unless I'm mistaken, you have an ETEC-60 that's new and has power tilt/trim. There's no way that motor came out of the water on a sudden reverse. I've done full throttle sudden reverses with that motor routinely, in Oceanside harbor, and it works just fine. Something else was going on, like you had a pinched fuel line or water in your gas, or something. There's only an "up" lock on these motors, no down.

What I'd recommend you do next time you're on the water and prior to the ale is get up to six knots and do a hard reverse to try to replicate the condition, because you do need to find out if/why you weren't stopping.

I love the beer here in San Diego as well, and while I'm no fan of impaired operating of any vehicle, I will say there's a huge difference between 5 knots and 75 mph in terms of risk to innocent people's lives so I'm a bit more forgiving of drinking and sailing than drinking and driving.

[BOAT]

Truth be told I really had not had much beer - it was just what I wife said to rationalize my bad driving. Still I will be the first to accept responsibility for any possibility of impaired judgment but i must tell you that of the many many times I have made that maneuver (sudden blast of revers thrust to stop) it's always works quite well. I am extremely puzzled why it did not work on that particular occasion.

I had no problem 15 minutes after that negotiating the dock at the launch ramp and the conditions were MUCH tighter there because there was a crowd of boats coming out of the water and going in at the time I got there. I backed up SEVERAL times to let other boats out of the ramp and I had to change my choice of dock four times within just 3 feet of landing! No problem!

I am really at a loss on that one - the cavitation / ventilation thing sounds like what I experienced based on how the guys described it but honestly I have no experience with that kind of thing so I can't really confirm or deny.

You can be sure I will test it out many times the next time I'm in the water!!

[Johnacuda]

I don't suppose there was any way that your trailing springline caugth the prop for a bit?

[BOAT]

No, I has fished it out of the water while I was still drifting backwards. One problem is that I am using standard dock lines and for spring lines your really supposed to use longer lines.

[bscott]

Check out www.powerthruster.com This really enhances reverse thrust and slow speed maneuvering--no negatives that I can tell. After I installed one on my she also jumped up on plane quicker.

Bob