Adventures

Oh man what a friggin mission I had the other day. It was not actually THAT bad but this version will be funnier.

First off there was no sleep. None. Apparently, I did not need any.

Now Saturday rolls around and I am still awake from Friday. I spend the time killing brain cells with the TV and of course putting up the Iguana Music mega play list. The play list website thing was being a pain in the ass by locking up and not giving me an account and shit. Eventually it worked and then I had to create the list. It is not complete.

Anyhow what is not important. At around 8 AM it was time to start getting ready for the boat mission thing. So I leave with a borrowed Dodge Durango 4x4 equipped with a 318 inch cubic inch V8 engine. That is 5 or 5.1 liters or something if you can not deal with volume expressed in cubic inches.

Now this boat is a monster. A 32 foot Whitewater with twin 225 HP outboards and a giant triple axle trailer. The boat also has an engine bracket on it. You do not count the bracket as part of the length, but it does add another 3 feet or so.

So the trailer is a good 35 feet. At least. Maybe longer. And heavy as hell. The load was several tons. At least 3 tons. Probably more.

Now the Durango really is not designed to pull that much. But it was only a short distance and on flat ground. So I had to accelerate slowly. Once at speed, the truck was being pushed by the load on the trailer so the strain was off the engine and transmission.

But have you ever tried to haul close to 40 feet of boat and trailer behind a vehicle? Oh yea and one of the trailer lights is broken. So I was missing one turn signal.

Going straight is easy. Sort of. You have to take the turns VERY wide. If you want to hang a left turn for example, you have to go straight until the trailer tires (all 6 of them - two per axle) clear the curb. THEN you turn sharp to the left and the trailer starts to turn. If you turn the tow vehicle too soon, you are jumping curbs. or getting the trailer hung up on stuff. Like other vehicles, trees, bus loads of nuns, zoo animals, buildings, cruise ships, aircraft, or whatever else is within 100 yards of you.

And going in reverse! Wow that is fun. Now I am pretty much used to my smaller boat and single axle trailer. In a way, the single axle trailer is harder to deal with. With only one axle it can turn faster, so in reverse it is very easy to over correct. Really easy.

So here I am. Going forward is pretty easy, just remember to not get the trailer hung up on anything. But now I have to back the trailer under the boat lift thing. So I start to do this. I was able to do this, but it took a while. I had limited space to maneuver the trailer and vehicle. But I got it. And then I had to park the trailer, which was easy because with no big ass heavy boat on it I could actually see what was behind me.

The boat itself is a slug. In the water it is a slug. At least I thought so. The trim tabs are broken. This is bad. And I think the boat drivers were leaving the outboards trimmed up a little. This made the boat ride bow up. Really, there were times when I was standing by the helm and all I could see was the bow. Sticking up in the air. When this happens the boat is "plowing" and the engines are working harder than they have to. The boat is pretty much displacing the maximum amount of water, and creating the maximum wake possible. I wondered why nobody trimmed the engines down - but nobody did.

Even on a plane, the bow was high. At least I thought so. But the drivers are very experienced and so I just thought "wow, this boat is a pig! It rides bow high and creates a lot of wake. I am glad I am not paying for the gas". I do not know why they did not try to trim the outboards all the way down. This would have made things a little better I think. But I had never gone out in this boat before, and so maybe that is just how she rides? I do not know.

In reverse, the boat does not go anywhere. The props spin, and the water around the boat turns white and foamy - but the boat is not responsive. The engines have 4 blade props which have a smaller pitch than a three blade would have. They are really speed props - designed to give max speed while going forward. But in reverse they do not work as well. But in a boat reverse is not very important. Really in any boat reverse gear does not work so great. But with two engines with 4 blade props churning up the water, the props slip a lot.

Now at slow speeds the boat can do almost anything. I can turn it totally around without using the wheel. Want to make the bow point left while going very slow? Put the left engine is reverse idle, and the right engine in forward idle. The boat will turn to the left without really even going forward. That is cool as hell. It is also pretty easy to keep the boat "on station" meaning in one place without moving forward, backwards, or to either side - without dropping anchor. On my single engine boat this is possible - but it is more difficult. You have to keep turning the wheel and going in and out of forward and reverse gear.

It would be cool as shit if my boat had twin 70 HP outboards with counter rotating props than a single 135 HP outboard. But oh well. Next time I go out in my boat I will see if I can hold the boat stationary over one spot without using the anchor. I probably can - but I will have to work at.

And then after the mission I had to tow the boat back to where it lives, and park the trailer. Being an idiot I messed this up. I pulled up in such a way that the trailer were at an angle, which made it a lot more difficult to get the thing straight and where it needed to be. NEXT TIME (if there is a next time - which really I do not care if there is) I will pull up differently so that the truck and trailer is straight, but off to one side. Backing up then will be a lot easier.

And thus the adventures for the day were over. Once unhooked from everything I was able to go back to the boat launching place, which had a bar. Some people were there hanging out so I had a double gin with some club soda. It was good.

After the mission, I said I did not want to ever tow the beast again. But today I have a little different attitude. It was really not THAT bad. I could do it again. But the other guy that usually tows does a great job - so he can take care of that. No problem. But if I have to, at least I know I can now.