Day 2 - July 9th, 2008
Well, he was off to a rocky start on the second day of motoring down the Cumberland River - at mile marker 71.5 he ran the boat aground! -- for those who do not know "running aground" means the bottom of the boat or keel gets stuck in mud,rocks or whatever is the bottom of the type of water you may have your boat in -- it can be very serious and very nerve racking for the boat owner.
Graham said the depth of the water changed very quickly from about 40ft to 5ft in a matter of seconds. It happened late afternoon and he spent at least a good hour or two working the boat to get it unstuck. I'm actually glad I was not around to witness this b/c I'm sure Graham had a few choice words about the situation. Fortunately, he was able to get everything movin' again with no damage to the boat.
This is one of the things Graham fears most about sailing because it's happened to him in the past with major damage to the boat. He was actually taking a girl out on a date to sail around Percy Priest Lake when he ran aground for the first time. He wasn't able to get out of this one and part of the keel broke off of his boat. They had to sit there and wait for a tow boat to come get them so it didn't turn out to be such a great date -which is a good thing for me ;)
Actually, one of the projects that he had to do while the boat was out of the water was to re-attach the part of the keel that had broken off. Yes, Graham went back to where he ran aground in the lake and fished out the rest of his keel in order to eventually put it back together. Such dedication!
Anyway, it was too late that evening to motor on down the river so he decided to re-anchor in another spot. This didn't make for an easy night since two different barges passed close by - one around 11pm and another at midnight. Needless to say, he didn't get a good nights sleep and was up early to move on to hopefully more favorable conditions.
** Answering Questions
Just wanted to answer a question that I had in an email which others may be wondering about -
- What is Graham's final destination?
The plan is to motor down the Cumberland River, Tennessee River and The Tombigbee Waterway coming out in Mobile, AL into the Gulf of Mexico. His friend Chris DiCroce will join him in Mobile to sail around Florida to the East Coast. Possible stops along the way would be in Tampa, Key West and Wilmington,NC. I plan to join him along the East Coast to go North and hopefully meet up with my brother & sister-in-law around Delaware/Maryland/Virginia.
The total length of time this might take is dependant on weather, boat issues, stops, etc - but estimating around 2-3 months of time.
No comments:
Post a Comment