Rudder or not

We anchored east of Jacksonville for the night of Friday, February 1^st.  It was a quiet night and comfortable with just blankets.  Saturday morning saw us making the south into the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway (AICW).  As a reminder for those not familiar with the ICW, It is sort of a two lane water highway just inshore of the ocean.  It is made up of connected rivers, streams, canals, marshes, etc.  The two lane width is marked by red and green markers most of which are only visible in the daylight.  They perform the same duty as the solid white lines on today’s highways.  If you go outside the white lines on a highway, you’re in the ditch or worse.  If you go outside the ICW markers you are aground on mud or sand or rocks or….  Much of the ICW is dredged between the markers to give enough depth for boat traffic.

Around 12:30 pm, as we are motoring along, a faster sailboat contacts us on the VHF to say they will pass us on our port side.  I favor the starboard side of the channel and have sufficient depth.  And then I don’t.  A sand or mud bar has extended into the channel and we are once again aground.  It is a soft grounding but though I tried several times we cannot get off.  Timing is about half way between high and low tide with the tide falling.  We need 5.7 ft to float and the depth gauge shows 5.1 ft and dropping.  We could sit tight and wait for the tide to come back in to lift us but that could be 7 or 8 hours, by which time it would be very dark and not wise to be moving in the ICW.  So, at 1pm, I swallow my pride and call TowBoatUS.  In Florida, membership in their service is worth its weight in gold even if you never use it. 

We are told assistance will arrive in about an hour.  So, we have lunch and sit back to wait.  No rain, little wind and the temperature is almost comfortable.  The boat is sitting upright and solid, until it isn’t.  At about the 45 minute mark of our wait, she tips to the starboard side which is towards shore.  We would be rail down into the water if there was water on that side.  That is how our towing service finds us when he arrives.

To free us, he ties on amidship on Submit and then cleats off to his stern, just 10 feet or so from us.  He then fires up his large engine, puts it in gear and uses his prop wash to wash away the mud under our keel.  It takes a while but eventually Submit begins to settle down into the hole he has created.  She straightens up and then heals to about 30 degrees to port.  After more propeller dredging and tugging at the bow we are free.  However, the dredging did not make it back to the rudder and there is a lot of pressure on the rudder.  Once free, everything seems to be working properly so we tip our rescuer, sign the forms and continue on. 

A couple hours later we drop anchor for the night and, after shutting everything sown, hear water running into the bilge.  It is not a lot, but it is a steady stream.  The source turns out to be from the spot where the rudder enters the hull.  The rudder shaft passes through the hull and into a fiberglass tube which is attached to the hull.  On many older boats the rudder tube/hull joint can be problematic.  Ours has not. 

We are able to easily keep up with the leak with our bilge pumps.  The bilge fills about half way over a period of several hours and then we pump it out.  Even so, having a leak in a boat is not good and it could get worse.  We decide to have it repaired, but it is not really an emergency and it is a weekend so we continue south hoping to find sunshine.

We have been very lucky with bridges.  We have arrived just in time to pass through each of the bridges which must be opened to let us through.  As we are congratulating ourselves on our good fortune, there is a notice on the VHF from the Coast Guard.  A bridge in the Daytona area has a fire on it and all vessels are prohibited from approaching it even though it is so high we could easily pass under.  We end up dropping anchor in the channel and having lunch while the problem is cleared, flashing lights everywhere.

Westland Marina in Titusville can put us in a slip Tuesday evening and haul us out Wednesday morning.  

Titusville friends keeping an eye on us.

The rudder and steering assembly seem fine.  Bobby is recommended as a fiberglass magician and comes to the boat Saturday morning.  He will return Wednesday to grind away the old tabbing, etc, and rebuild the joint heavier than ever.  Tentatively we will launch Thursday the 14^th and being back in the water will be our Valentine’s day gift.