Success

Jack came over bright and early Saturday morning and checked the boat over. We towed the boat over to the public ramp and put it in the river. Everything went smoothly. The engine started right up and Jack gave me a quick course on the rules of the boating road on the way down the river. We pulled up to my dock where Laura and my sister Mary were waiting, all smiles. Laura came for a ride, but Mary didn't want to try it just yet. (Mary gets motion sick in rocking chairs.)

Laura went out to the boat supply store later that morning and bought a couple more life preservers and one of those tubes that you tow behind a boat. I towed Charlie and Gordon around on the tube that afternoon and the boat performed flawlessly. Later on Charlie, Gordon, Laura and I all started out for a ride up the river. We went to Poca, a few miles from home, and Laura asked, "Do you think we could go all the way to Saint Albans?" "Why not?" was my reply. Charlie drove for a while. I told him, "If you need to slow down, just rotate the throttle lever toward the back." He rotated the throttle lever toward the front.

When we got to Saint Albans I said, "You know, we really don't know how much gas is in the tank." The gauge was reading sometimes full, sometimes ¾. We pulled up to the gas pump at Wendell's Marina, under the Nitro/Saint Albans bridge, but they were closed. We decided to press on to Dunbar and gassed up at the Lock Six Marina. It took $31 worth, or about 16 gallons. It was getting dark on the way back so I plugged the rear running light mast into its socket. We made it home with no problems. The trip took around two hours, including the various stops. It would have been about 40 miles by car. Pretty ambitious for a shake down cruise, but it all worked out fine.

The following weekend was the Labor Day holiday. My younger sister, Geneva, and her family came down from Pittsburgh, Laura's younger brother Tim and his family came down from Ravenswood and Dottie came down and was finally able to take a ride in her boat. Mary and Jack also dropped by, but Mary still wasn't ready for a ride. We gave rides, towed all takers on the tube, and had a good time all around.

The following Saturday, my friend Bill came over and He, Laura and I boated all the way to Charleston. On the way back we had dinner at Huck Finn's Restaurant, which is located on a barge at Lock Six Marina. Bill took over the controls on the way back and I talked him through pulling up to the dock. I was about to grab one of the mooring ropes and called back to Bill to go ahead and cut the engine. All of a sudden I watched the dock that I was reaching for take off in the opposite direction very quickly. Bill had deduced, quite logically if you think about it, that if pushing the go lever forward makes the boat go faster and pulling toward the rear slows it down, then pulling it all the way back must be the way to stop it. He figured out his error quickly enough and no harm was done. I had filled the fuel tank prior to the trip and filled it again after we returned to try and get an idea of the boat's fuel consumption. We used roughly 5 gallons per hour running at 3000 to 3500 RPM and 25-30 MPH.

In the following days I started noticing some shiny stuff in the water behind the boat. At first I thought it was gasoline splashing out the fuel tank's vent fitting, but before long I recognized the aroma of gear oil. The outdrive was leaking again. I decided to pull the boat out of the water as soon as possible to check it out.

Next: Failure

Index