Installing a Thru Hull Depth Finder Yikes

[curtisv]

You do realize the mast is not quite centered.  The forestay attachment is slightly to port and the backstay slightly to starboard.  That would make for a faster port tack.  Fixing that questionable design choice would be expensive.

Curtis

[HideAway]

A full knot of speed difference is huge if you are sailing a long ways to a specific destination but not so much when daysailing.  We have relied on the gps and its voyage made good feature and estimated arrival times.  Our normal weekend cruise is about 15 miles, usually outside.   My guess is your paddle wheel is somehow fouled or worn.

I have given consideration to the pvc tube dam - may be I should rethink it a bit, but I m still leaning towards cutting the hole.  From what I read hull thickness does play a role as do air pockets.  Going slow on this decision   Matt

[skip1930]

Brac, interesting. Wonder why? Current? skip...is baffled.

[curtisv]

Good point.  A knot is a lot.  And if it doesn't show on the GPS that's not a good sign.

It could be the water flow over the paddle on either tack.  Where is the paddle on your CP23?  Is it near something like a thru hull that could affect how water flows over it?

Curtis

[Bob23]

   When sailing in a current, and when my knotmeter is working, I will regularly get different readings between it and my gps. It makes sense, right? If I'm sailing into a 2 knot current, my knot meter should read 2 knots faster than the gps. Theoretically, anyway. And vice versa.
   My knot meter usually works for about 2 weeks after the boats in the water...seems to get fouled with something or other pretty quick. Not a big deal. In other words, it certainly doesn't detract from the fun! But it is nice to be able to determine current direction and speed.
Bob23

[brackish]

Good point.  A knot is a lot.  And if it doesn't show on the GPS that's not a good sign.

It could be the water flow over the paddle on either tack.  Where is the paddle on your CP23?  Is it near something like a thru hull that could affect how water flows over it?

Curtis

Nothing near it.  If you remove the cover from the port side v-berth compartment just forward of the cabin bulkhead it is directly below the opening.  Probably some fouling or maybe a defect in the paddle wheel that causes it to be variable.  When I had my Columbia 8.7 I used to remove the paddle wheel everytime the boat was going to sit idle for more than a few weeks to keep the fouling down.  That is, however, an exciting operation when done with the boat in the water.

[skip1930]

Well the GPS I think is SOG. Speed Over Ground. And the paddle wheel in theory could register moving forward if tied to the dock bow in to the current.
Though this really never happens does it?

Talk about stupid. On a Friday night dad tosses me the keys to our 7 ton houseboat on the Illinois River at Starved Rock. So me and my high school buddies drive the 100 miles down to the boat in Glenn's orange 1966 Ford Mustang GT convertible. White top down.
Motor about for a weekend on two in-board~outboard 383 V-8's. Had a blast! Found a door on shore and made a ski-board to tow around. Ran her up on the beach at night, ran out the spring lines from behind a spit of land.

Many gallons of gasoline later on Sunday evening heading down stream in a four knot current to home and toward the Starved Rock lock and dam combo, and insight of the fuel dock on the river [not in the SR Marina] a couple hundred yards away, I run her out of gas!! and we are adrift.  Who panicked?

#1. No restart. And we drifted past the fuel dock. And closer to the lock and dam. Damn!
#2. Grab the ground tackle. Thankfully two Danforth anchors.
#3. Start skeching. Toss one anchor. Pull. Toss the other anchor. Pull.
#4. Continue to inch our way back up river with plans of making the fuel dock before night fall.
#5. Considered using the 'dinky' to row the anchors further out for a longer pull. Decided not to leave the boat in the hands of my land lubber buddies.
#6. Needed a stern light so started to fire up the kerosene lantern. The light bulb went on over my head!!
#7. Pour the gallon of extra kerosene for the lamp into the fuel tank thus raising the gas level enough to satisfy the positive [self-priming] fuel pump.
#8. She fired up one 383 V-8 and sputtered up the the fuel dock where I dumped in around 100 gallons of go juice.

Always thinking, but not very well. And all ways care more ground tackle then you think you need! #9. And stick the fuel tank from time to time you knuckle head!

skip.

Ducked behind a 20 foot wide spit of land and run up onto the beach with spring lines set for the night. I can see myself on the starboard side looking astern. Gang plank out.

Same boat different paint job. This is houseboat # 3 or #4. We had five through the years. #5 dad motored down to Fla. when he retired. Here she is going under the highway bridge in Seneca, [opps. Ottawa] Illinois as were heading for Bull's Island. An island hydro mined out for the silica sand to make glass by LOF glass company. Slag piles were great ways to pick up colored glass chunks for yard art. To the left, down a tributary of the Illinois River, the Fox River crosses over the top of the Illinois in a water bridge made for transport during the Civil War with horse drawn barges. Cool!. My dog Bomber points the way to Bull's Island.

[HideAway]

Skip

Sheeesh that was close!

On our last cruise we had to motor more than we planned so I sailed into the anchorage and reluctantly started the motor to set the anchor.  It caught the first time.  Upon refilling the tank from my jerry jug the only gas left was in the carb - the tank was dry   Matt

[skip1930]

Sketch not to scale...these tows are 15 barges big. About 150 foot x 90 foot x 14 foot deep per barge...give or take. That's a lot of water and it's pushed up into these little 20 foot wide spits of land that we tie behind. It's so cool to watch all the water rush in, rush out and slowly fill up the 'cut' again floating the out drives out of the mud. At times all the water flows a hundred foot away from the boat.

NEVER NEVER  cross the wake of a tow boat until it's at least 3/4 mile away from you. Otherwise you and your boat will end up going around in circles totally out of control...even with two 383 Chrysler's churning away at 3200 rpm's maxed out with the four barrels standing wide open turning huge pitched 5 blade matched ss props.

skip.

[crazycarl]

skip,

love your story!  i live about 15 miles north of the mighty illinois and when i had my deep v, i did a lot of walleye fishing on her.

in '04 our friends rented a houseboat and invited us to go along for 4 days.  we were tied up at bull's island in ottawa when in the middle of the night our friend had an anxiety attack and couldn't sleep.  she woke us up because the boat started to move.  her husband and i looked out the stern to see a tug pushing 8 fully loaded barges, and most of the water, up river. 
the boat dropped 10 feet to rest on the bottom.  we realized the water would return and got the women to shore just in time to see a wall of water hit the boat and snap a 3/4" dock line securing the stern to a tree. we still had bow lines attached to shore, but the boat was heading for my deep v that was now sitting on the sand between the houseboat and the trees. 
i grabbed what was left of the broken dock line and wrapped it around a stump that had previously been submerged.  the stump began to pull out, but held long enough to hold the houseboat and keep it from slamming into the fishing boat. 

we laughed about our misfortune the next morning until tom ran the houseboat into a submerged cement wing dam that was not on the charts provided. 

i love the river, but i'm afraid tom and sharon will never return after that trip!


i have plans to sail the entire length of the illinois in stages on our 15'r.  some day...

                                                                                carl

[skip1930]

crazycarl thanx, I was wrong. You are right. That bridge in the picture is down stream of Bull's island in Ottawa not Seneca, I forgot.

On 19-July-196[9?], my dad's birthday...the parents and me and dog Bomber, on this houseboat pulled into Vicksburg and bought a hotel room with a TV so we could watch astronaut Neil Armstrong bounce around on the moon! That was something. It was so hot and miserable that the guy who owned the hotel insisted that Bomber dog come inside to enjoy the A/C down in the hotel lounge. I think he bought us dinner...after the dog and pony show on the moon we continued down the Mississippi to New Orleans, where we stayed at the 'Hotel of Two Sisters' in the French Quarter.

On the way home, somewhere up stream of Alton, Illinois [where the Illinois plugs into the Mississippi at Pierre Marquette State Park] on the way back we were locking through and the lock master recognized the houseboat and handed dad a letter he had been holding for a few weeks. On the letter was a colored Carola drawing of our houseboat addressed, "To Mr. Craig Weis, some where on the Illinois river." It was from my high school girlfriend, Laurie who was smart enough to realize that the boat would have to lock through at some lock and dam. We averaged one mile to the gallon and took three months to do the 'down and back' trip.

Now that's a story...skip.  We always liked to tie up for the night BEHIND a spit of land. Once we were stern-out on the actual river. It was pitch black out. We were playing cards and dad felt something was not right. Jumping up he slid open the sliding back door, stood on the engine covers, leaned out past the rail and just a few foot away drifting past at 4 knots was a empty barge. If that hit us...that was scary indeed. Next morning the tow stormed by chasing down his errant barge stuck on the sand at the next river's bend.

[zimco]

HAS ANYONE TRIED PUTTING THE TRANSDUCER IN THE BILGE SUMP?

THAT WOULD GET THE TRANSDUCER AS LOW AS POSIIBLE.

LON

[HideAway]

Zimco- it would have to be an in hull type - glued to the bottom - I think some 19s have them but when I looked at how hard it would be on our 23 I thought better of it.  Matt

[skip1930]

HAS ANYONE TRIED PUTTING THE TRANSDUCER IN THE BILGE SUMP?

Why would I want to know the depth at the back of the keel? And that's where the bilge pump, beer and ice go.

skip.

[zimco]

HAS ANYONE TRIED PUTTING THE TRANDUCER FOR THE DEPTHSOUNDER IN THE BILGE WITH A LITTLE WATER?

LON