Sethie and I got sick of working so hard on the prop and decided to take Thursday night off and try out the boat on the Duck. We'd been noodling around this idea for a while.
The main concern holding us back, is that we would hit shallow spots and not be able to make it back up stream to the launch and end up having to drag the boat by hand. I can testify that it's not fun pulling a boat upstream with a rope.
We had no problems going downstream. We have a depth finder so we were able to map things and generally avoid shallow spots. Fortunately, the boat is able to run in about foot of water, so we have a lot of mobility.
However, we did run into a few scary moments going upstream. We'd purposely not gone too far, because I didn't want to go any further than I thought I could drag the boat back. Although, when your going downstream, it doesn't look as far as when your looking upstream, facing the prospect of a long drag.
About 1/2 back, the engine died. I tried to restart, but just got a clicking sound similar to the sound it makes when the battery is dead. This was definitely worrisome. It didn't make any sense though. The engine had been starting fine, and the battery still had enough power to run the trolling motor. I decided to open up the engine case and poke around. I'm glad I did, because as I looked closer, I noticed that the starter gear had gotten bound up with the flywheel.
It was a relief to know what the problem was, but we faced another. We had no tools. I tried banging on it with the anchor, but it had no effect. I was getting close to giving up when I found and old broken shaft from a screw driver. It was just long enough to pry the teeth apart and let the starter gear fall back into place.
After that the motor started right up and we were on our way. As we motored up the river, I started comprehending how difficult it would have been if we hadn't gotten the motor started. We probably would have been dragging all night. As it was, we made it back to the truck just before dark.
