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Had a great trip with my brother and friends yesterday. Caught a limit of snapper, a beautiful wahoo and some dolphin. Beautiful blue water rip 15 miles off South Pass.



Here's a picture of Decoy at Port Eads:



With the river being so high, there are sand bars in places that there are usually channels. We found one of them on the way down river and went from 28 mph to zero in a very short distance. My first thought was we just destroyed a beautiful boat. After assessing the cuts and bruises, we turned to surveying the boat. The bow was in 4 inches of water and the stern in about 1.5 feet. I was sure we had ripped the running gear off of the boat. The current was very strong, so I had my brother hold my feet and I stuck my head under water and felt the shaft, struts, rudders and wheels, and much to my amazement, everything seemed to be in tact. While I was diving under the boat, Trey, a charter captain with Voodoo Charters stopped to help us. Due to the shallow water all around the boat, i was very skeptical that we could pull the boat off with out damaging the running gear. After lots of pushing and some slow and careful towing by Trey, we were able to get the boat off of the sandbar. We watched the bilge closely were surprised that it was dry. After much discussion, we started the engines and ran the boat and, again, much to our amazement, everything ran great with no vibrations. So what would you do? We decided to go fishing. Boat ran great and we caught lots of fish. This boat really is a tank!

I do have a question about ZF gears. There is a knocking/vibration When I shift the port engine into gear. The noise is only when I am at idle speed and goes away once I advance the throttles. Any idea what this is? This transmission has always sounded a bit rougher than the starboard side, so the knocking may or may not be a result of the grounding.

Also, I need a source for a new back window. (see picture below) Frame seems fine, I just need the glass.

JR

Nice trip, Jack, congrats. I used to tell people running the river: "don't cut corners".
Any constuction activity at Port Eads?
If you're ever in the Tickfaw area and want to pick your boat up to check her for anything you're welcome to use my lift.

Damn Capt. Jack, a miracle no one got hurt, including the boat. South Pass is tricky at best, but when the water is high you have to be real careful and "read the water" and stay in the current - current scours out the sand bars - one of the worst spots is on the east side by marker #10 where a sand bar extends halfway across the pass....another is a mile or so north of there on the west bank, same sort of thing. Always stay on the outside of the bends, even the very slight bends....the bars tend to build up on the inside.

ZF's tend to rattle at low speed, and your port gear is running in reverse and will rattle more. My port rattles like hell at idle in or out of gear and smooths out as soon as the rpm go over about 1000 or so. D0n't woory about it if all is smooth at speed.

Nice wahoo.

The window comes out real easy, frame & all. Take it to any glaas place and they can replace the glass. Obviously use safety glass.

UV

good job all around...luck counts!

Nice hoo great eating...guess you were meant to go fishing that day..glad all went well no one hurt...oh yeah its a tank...BH

no harm, no foul !
glad all worked out....and nice fish
Is your boat one of the final "silver anniversity" boats made ? They had that striping.

The rattling at or near idle speed is ususally the torsional dampener between the engine and the transmission. ZF went to a Vulkan Torflex dampener a few years back that eliminated the rattle.

My old engines had the old style and made some racket. I was told to bump up the rpm to where is was quiet and not let it rattle for long periods. They had over 2000 hours on them when I sold them.

If you ever have to pull the engines for any reason, I would install new dampeners. The old style uses springs in lieu of rubber pads and I have heard that they can come apart.

Eddy G.

Andre,

Wow, thanks for the offer. Two of my brothers are going to take the boat out on Sat. and do some snapper fishing. They are going to bring a snorkel and inspect the running gear and bottom. We ran over 100 miles the other day and everything worked fine, but just for peace of mind I want them to take a look at the bottom and running gear.

Eddie and Uncle Vic, thanks for the information on the gears. That makes me feel a lot better. I'm going to bring the boat back up to New Orleans later in the summer and have Laborde Products take a look at alignment and the ZF gears to make sure everything is OK. They are the ones that installed the engines.

Thanks again,

JR

Couple more pics:

Jack, glad to hear things are no worse for wear. I have two friends fishing the Cajun Canyons who also ran aground in different places. One wasn't so lucky with substantial running gear issues, the other I think is ok.

Tom,

We saw a beautiful 46 Merritt named Billy B from Freeport, Tx. anchored in South Pass Tuesday night. I hope that was not one of the boats that hit bottom. Guess we were in good company.

JR

Andre,

Forgot to reply to your question about construction activity at Port Eads. Yes, they are working around the clock on the marina. They also have some test piles driven on the bank of South Pass where the scales used to be. Not sure what they have planned there.

I'll keep you posted on the progress down there.

JR

My brothers went down South Pass again on Saturday and the boat ran fine. They jumped into the water with mask and snorkel and inspected the running gear and bottom, and everything is fine. They spent the night down there and discovered that the A/C pump sucked in some sand and burned up. They said it was a long warm night. Great trip with another nice wahoo, a limit of red snapper and lots of dolphin. Here are a few pics:





You can just make out the broken back window behind Cal in this pic:


JR

Great pictures there Jack,

I heard that most of the passes like , South & Tiger and Redfish passes are silted in other than Southwest pass.

Alot of the larger tournament boats from the Canjun Canyons last weekend supposely hit bottom in places that were in the middle of the channels. Really tricky over there right now from what I understand.

DQ