Switch to 22 Alpha

Our last cruise, from Norwich to Portland where we would winter the boat, should have been an easy cruise. With dockmates John and Joanne, we left at 9 AM on Sunday, October 24. It was a cold and potentially rainy morning but with good company, what boat ride isn't good?

Things went fine until we got into the Sound for the ride from New London Ledge Light to Old Saybrook, just 10 miles.  The boat felt sluggish and as time went on, we couldn't go much faster than 10-11 miles per hour.  Once in the Connecticut River, we checked the fuel filters and they were clean. As we moved up the river, we seemed to have less and less power, down to about 6-7 MPH.  Not good. Finally, while John drove the boat, we went below to check the engines.

Once we opened the engine hatches, we saw a lot of water, so much in fact, that the pulleys on the front of the engines were spraying sea water over the tops of the engines. We looked under the engines for a leak and saw what appeared to be water gushing in from the stuffing boxes or V-Drives. We tried to lower the water level by using a hand pump and that worked,  but not enough to keep up with the flow. I  went up to the bridge and said that beaching the boat was an option that we might have to try. By now we were south of Cobalt. Our GPS had failed. Frances tried to contact our Marina (Portland Riverside), by phone, but there was no one in the office.

Then Frances picked up the mic on the radio and called the Coast Guard. Thanks for having such good judgment, Frances.  They answered immediately and I took the mic from her to answer their questions about our location and postition. In the meantime, our Marina called back and Frances maintained contact with Karen.  This resulted in their preparing the well and sling for our arrival. She then got on the radio (channel 16)  We were told that PRM was on channel 9, so she tried that.

About that time, another boat came on the radio. We coordinated our situation with the Coast Guard and Dream Boat. We were asked to switch to the Coast Guard's exclusive channel, 22-Alpha. Dream Boat's owners were Coast Guard Auxiliary and said that they would take us in tow. I looked behind us to see a beautiful 44-ft express boat.  They had come up north on the river from Haddam Island.  The setup for the tow and the transfer of Joanne and Frances to their boat went smoothly.    Dream Boat towed us up the river to PRM.

John and I sat on the bridge for the tow for about 5 miles to Portland. During that time, our boat's pumps cleared the water out of the bilge completely.  Once at Portland, we restarted the engines and steered into the well where the PRM crew was ready to pull us out of the water.

What happened? The aft bilge pump wasn't working reliably. It could easily have sucked up whatever water had accumulated in our bilge. Where did all that water come from? Probably from the stuffing boxes that I should have re-packed last winter and also from a failure of the dockside water line that we found and fixed weeks before. But we never made sure that all that water was pumped out. Silvertons like ours accumulate water in the center of the boat, aft of the front bilge pump and forward of the aft pump. That's a mistake we won't make again. In fact, as part of our winter to-do list, we'll hot wire both bilge pumps directly to the batteries and bypass the ineffective Silverton switches and fuses.

However, no damage to the machinery was done. The engines, transmissions and V-drives work fine and there is no water in the oil.

Next, we winterize the engines and water system and start working on a new toilet and holding tank.

Not a great way to end the season but we did get to meet two very capable and nice  boaters - both with 100-ton CG licenses and towing endorsements - who saved our bacon.