GroupWBench

Our little sailboat has a swing keel. That means there is a five foot long 600 pound fin that can raise up so we can get it on a trailer easily. In the down position it hangs straight down. With it down, it keeps the boat from blowing over in the wind. In the down position it reaches about seven feet down, so we try to avoid shallow spots.

We found out today about a shallow spot. Actually it was a tree stump left from fifty years ago when they finished the dam and flooded the valley to create Canyon Lake. We avoid the areas where we can see a few dead trees reaching out of the water.

Ivy spent almost an hour doing all the easy stuff driving the boat and having me do all the hard work she usually does. It left me with even more appreciation for all of the work she does as I sit with the tiller in my hand. I was more than ready to take the helm back when she decided she'd had enough.

Later, we were sailing along and Ivy pointed out a little place we need to repair on the sail. As we were looking at it we heard and felt a bump. I wondered what we could have run into. We were at least 150 feet away from the stumps near the shore across the cove from our marina. A moment of looking around confirmed that we weren't moving at all. I jumped up and lowered the outboard into the water while Ivy cut the sails loose to flap in the wind. The engine was kind to me and started right up. I put it in reverse and gave it the gas. Nothing happened. We just sat there making bubbles off the back end of the boat. I put it in forward, but turned the engine to push us in a tight turn. If we went straight ahead, we would have headed for the visible stumps. After a couple of minutes we were motoring into the wind and away from sneaky trees. We never saw the stump that got us, despite a clean lake and plenty of bright skies and sunshine.

Fortunately, we were going pretty slow when we found that stump. Nothing appeared broken and the lake water was still outside the boat where it belonged. We went to the mooring balls near the marina for lunch which turned into even more excitement. The outboard decided to give me some excitement by dying just as we got to the ball. As we drifted towards the nearby rocky shore, Ivy scrambled down and grabbed our anchor from all the stuff piled in the little back storage area. We managed to get it set before exploring the rocks with our keel. That gave me time to troubleshoot the engine and get us over the the mooring ball. After lunch we decided we'd had more than enough excitement for the day and took the boat back to our slip. (Without further crisis - Yay!)

I raised and lowered the keel to be sure that everything was ok. The bolt that goes in to keep the keel from slamming up if the boat gets tipped up was a little difficult to remove.

Hmmm – looks like it absorbed a bit of the impact. I think I know a part of the lake to stay well away from in the future.