[C320-list] Grounding
Scott Thompson
surprise at thompson87.com
Wed Jun 23 11:10:18 PDT 2010
We got back from a week on the boat Sunday night. On Sat afternoon my
attention wandered as we left the West end of Knapps Narrows and next
thing I knew I was out of the channel, hard on the bottom. (Warning to
other Chesapeake boaters -- stay close to marker 4 when coming through
the West side of the Narrows this year. I wasn't very far from it.)
Very concerning to see the depth sounder reading 4.0.
I was able to pivot the boat back towards deeper water, but could not
get off, and called BoatUS for a tow. They arrived in less than 30
minutes and pulled us out a short distance into deeper water. ($491 for
the tow, by the way, so the BoatUS insurance paid for itself this year!)
During that time we were bouncing gently on the bottom in 1-2 foot
sees. Normally I wouldn't be too concerned except the rudder was
aground also once I got the boat turned around, and I'm sure it was
dragged through the bottom at least a little bit getting off. The
bottom was probably a mix of sand and mud -- mostly the latter. I was
bouncing for maybe 45 minutes total.
Afterwards I saw no signs of water coming into the boat and steering
seemed normal. I'm curious what others would do in this situation in
terms of follow up. Should I be getting the boat hauled for a survey?
What do insurance companies want under these circumstances? (I haven't
called them yet.)
One other thing. I ran the engine pretty hard trying to get off, in
shallow water obviously, and probably sucked in some silt. The engine
was then left to idle while we waited for the tow and while we were
towed off. However, shortly after that (ahead slow, doing the
paperwork) the engine overheated with no water coming out the exhaust.
We shut it down and hoisted sails and I spent the rest of the afternoon
with the engine while the crew sailed the boat. I could find no damage
to the impeller (but replaced it anyhow) and no blockages. With the
outlet hose disconnected the water pump produced copious amounts of
water. I took the end off the heat exchanger and confirmed that all of
the tubes were clear by poking with the end of a straightened out coat
hanger. I was able to blow air through the heat exchanger easily, and
also through the hose from heat exchanger to exhaust elbow. Eventually
I got water flowing through the system again by just running the engine
hard for a few minutes. I suspect it was a priming problem, but don't
know why it overheated in the first place. Any thoughts on what might
have happened?
p.s. I was very fortunate to have replaced the audible engine alarm
just the day before this happened. My old one has been failing slowly,
and I switched from the 24v part to the 12v part as recommended by
others on this list. What a difference! The new one will wake the dead.
--
Scott Thompson
Surprise, #653
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