Great Lakes to Inland Rivers

Beardstown-Grafton Harbor, Il

We rode down the Illinois River after an early start. Being cleated to the towboat was like anchoring out with no power or water. We use one pound propane cylinders for a two burner Coleman camp stove for cooking, a SS percolator for coffee, and a Little Buddy heater (not this trip). We store the bottles in a 4 inch sewer pipe PVC container tethered outside the boat on the swim platform and replace the plastic caps with brass gasketed screw-on caps for safety

We’ve been amazed how little development (houses) there are on the banks of these rivers. Lots of heavy commodity industries loading barges, but no waterfront homes. Also there are long stretches of just trees. There is a lot of interaction with towboats, but the bottom line is make your boat motions so it’s clear to towboat skippers that your intention is to stay far out of their way. We believe send/rx AIS is absolutely essential for safety in these areas. They must swing wide into the outside of bends. Anticipate that, slow to SSMW and make a VHF call (13 or 16 depending on the river) for their meeting preferences.

What Broke:

The last ten miles of the Illinois river before Grafton was a nightmare of semi-floating logs and debris. We cruise at the minimum solid planing speed of about 22 MPH with all four eyes hard on the water and pointing to floaters. Eileen was driving when we hit something underwater in the channel in 23 charted feet of water that threw up the lower unit(s) hard . Neither of us saw anything on the surface and her eyesight is far better than mine. We stopped and raised the props, and didn't see any obvious damage. However, when I took the stick I couldn’t get to the 18 MPH planing speed despite 3600 RPM, which should get us to over 25 MPH. We limped into Grafton Harbor off plane and discussed the symptoms and likelihood of one or both props having spun hubs due to striking an underwater log. We asked Dr Google and experimented with getting the raised props close enough to the marina dock that I (or preferably someone stronger) could pull the props. We knew any mechanic would want the boat on the trailer, which is 750 miles away. It was so upsetting that we went to Taco Tuesdays and rewarded ourselves with three superb tacos each and a margarita (the first in at least 10 years). Later, the AGLCA Harbor Host dropped by and recommended a nearby marina with an excellent service department. He’s been the TowBoat US captain and agreed that the ‘spun hubs’ theory was most likely. Worse case scenario, we could go fetch the rig in NY and load up at the public boat ramp next to Grafton Marina. But that would be so sad!

Eileen’s AA battery Oral B toothbrush turns itself on when it feels the urge but won’t turn on for her. We didn’t bring the receipt for a warranty replacement, and a trip to the post office would exceed the cost of a new one. Getting some propulsion is a slightly higher priority.Läs mer