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Limping Northbound, but Still Underway!
Sunday, March 29, 0720, Underway in the Treacherous Albermarle Sound, Onboard Griffin.

The diver, Jerald surfaced by the swim platform. He shook his head. "These props ain't like them other ones." He put the spare prop back up on the swim platform. He handed his scuba tank and weight belt to his son and climbed out of the water to check things out.

Here is the reason they call this the ditch. The Alligator-Pungo Canal. 21.3 miles of ditch carved out of the North Carolina marshes and pine forests. At our normal cruise speed, this would be a little over an hour. Today it's closer to 3. We entered the canal with two sailboats ahead of us with a lead of 1/2 and 3/4 miles. After 15 miles and two hours, we finally passed the first one. Tom looked at me and said, "I think we'll pass the next one tomorrow." For speed demons like us, this slow pace is taking some adjustment.

When we were in Jacksonville several days ago, Mike from Jax Propeller loaned us two spare props. They weren't exactly the same size in blade diameter as the old ones, but we had measured the hub and it seemed like the right size. When we left his shop, Mike cautioned us. A caution that is still ringing in our ears. "When you get back to Lighthouse Boatyard have John there make sure these fit."

Here's why that didn't happen: When we got back to Lighthouse with the reworked props, John told us that they had a boat in the lift to finish, then they would haul us. We had to go get gas in the rental car, and stop to pick up lunch. That simple evolution ended up taking 30 minutes. By the time we returned to the boat yard, Griffin was not only out of the water, but the reconditioned props were already fitted to her shafts. I mentioned to the boatyard manager, John, the idea of trying the spares for fit. The lunch hour had just started, and John didn't really understand what I wanted, so I let it go without getting the spares fitted. My logic at the time was that it didn't really matter. If they didn't fit when tested at Lighthouse, we weren't going to drive north in the rental car to pick up some more. So, whether we tried them now or later when/if needed, we were in the same boat, so to speak. In retrospect, there were a lot of other options we could have tried, like meeting Mike on the waterway near Jacksonville to get correct spares. Oh, well. Live and learn.

Sunset over the Alligator River. We still had an hour to go to get to Alligator River Marina.

The spares turned out to be bored for a different diameter shaft. We went in search of props in Belhaven. We found some used 4 bladed 20 X 19 props in the back of a shed. We have 3 bladed 18 x 20s on there now, although one is only a two-blade after our little mishap. With the barnacles knocked off the used props didn't look too bad. Only problem was that they were bored for the wrong diameter shaft. They would need to be bored out. Jerald, the diver, knew a man with a lathe so we negotiated a price, loaded up the props and headed off.

Jerald drove me 20 miles into the North Carolina countryside. It seemed like we were driving deeper into the set of Smokey and the Bandit. We drove down a dirt road and pulled in front of a big corrugated metal building. There were several men standing around. After an extensive greeting ritual of NASCAR results, weather, hunting dog health, fish biting reports, etc. we started to fit the first prop to a huge lathe.

My first inclination that this might not be a good idea was the condition of the prop shop where we had picked up the props. While they had many of the tools and blocks that Robert had shown us in our tour of Jacksonville Propeller, the difference was very apparent. At Jax Prop, while it is a working machine shop with all the dirt and grime that creates, everything was neat and orderly. Everything had a place, and order prevailed. In contrast, this little prop shop was a mess. Pitch blocks were scattered everywhere. Jetskis and model airplanes sat in the way, and a layer of dust covered everything.

This is the infamous Alligator River Marina that played such a big part in our southbound voyage. If you haven't read about that epic adventure, go to the Southbound voyages button for the whole saga.

When we got to the backwoods machine shop, the owner, a nice old guy named John, said that he could only bore out 4 bladed props as he didn't have the chuck for 3 bladed props. I realized that this was not his main business. Building race car engines was his primary focus. He even had a dynamometer in a shed to wring the last once of power from the engines.

Somebody showed up in a pick-up truck to drop off an engine for tweaking before the local racing season starts next week-end. This area is like the Nascar minor leagues and these boys take their racing seriously. It took more than an hour to get the engine out of the truck and into the dynamometer shed. Actual removal took 48 seconds. The remaining 59+ minutes were spent on racing gossip, debates over the relative merits of 153 vs. 168 tooth flywheels, etc. With Zen-like calm I determined not to rush these guys through boring out the prop hub. I didn't want to have them do a sloppy job and feel the vibrations, or worse, for the next 300 miles. Plus, I was paying $400 for the props, plus machining, plus diver.

We finally got back to the lathe. We messed around for 30 minutes trying to get a bunch of miscellaneous pieces to work at truing up the prop in the lathe. We ended up with two choices. Either the hub was going to be off-center and wobble around, or the blades were going to be off-center. I decided enough was enough. Neither was an acceptable choice. We said our extensive good-byes and got back in the car to head back to Griffin.

My new plan was to fit the one remaining old propeller to the port shaft, and head north like a single screw trawler. Jerald jumped in the water and fitted the port prop, we finished refueling, and got underway.

With one prop, and nothing on the other shaft to create drag, we are able to go 8.6 mph. If you remember from before, our planning cruise speed is in the 18-20 mph range depending on fuel load and waves. Flat out Griffin is capable of 24 mph.

The problem with only one engine is two-fold. The first is speed. We do not have enough power with one screw to lift the boat up out of the water and get on plane. That means our top speed is severely limited. The second problem is maneuvering. The one engine we have is not on the centerline of the boat. It is off to the port (left) side. When we start up from a dead stop, even with full left rudder, she wants to turn hard to the right. When we slow down and put the engine in reverse, the engine drags the bow hard left.

The key to maneuvering is to remember that with engine and rudder I can turn hard to the right, and barely at all to the left. Once at cruise speed, there is enough water flow over the rudders that this isn't much of a concern.

We cruised north at a painfully slow pace of 8.6 mph. Our goal was the next marina north from Belhaven, a distance of 50 miles. Destination, Alligator River Marina, the scene of considerable adventures on the southbound trip involving 45 mile high speed ambulance rides, etc. You can read about it at www.GriffinUpdates.com in the Past Voyages section.

The sun set. 7 miles to go to get to Alligator River Marina. We called ahead on the VHF. The basin was nearly empty and they would be waiting for us on the pier. We dropped the mast and snuck under the Alligator River Bridge and turned in.

The wind on our beam started us rolling like crazy in the dark. Tom was rigging lines. We wanted to have everything ready so when we got to the pier we could throw over a spring line and I could go ahead easy on that and snug up against the pier. We entered the breakwater and the waves died down. We eased in to the lee of the truck-stop building and coasted up the pier. Miss Wanda's husband was waiting. He and Tom made the lines fast. No problem.

We ate in the diner, showered and went to sleep for a pre-dawn departure.

Sunrise over the Alligator River. Sunrises and Sunsets are equally beautiful. We are getting to see plenty of both underway on this voyage.

This morning we were up at 0500, underway at 0530. Our goal is to get 100 miles north of here to Hampton. Joe and Jeff and the folks at Hampton Marine Services have done a lot of work on Griffin since I got her. We are going to leave her there for a couple weeks while we get new props from Mike and have the engines gone over and the fiberglass brought back to a new shine.

If we make it to Norfolk, we will pass mile 0 of the ICW. Hampton is 15 miles north of there. Originally, two months ago when I started planning this trip, my goal was to get to Hampton and leave Griffin there for maintenance. When we started making good time, Tom and I decided to do a Cannonball Run and go all the way home to Annapolis. Well, we are back to the original plan, and that may be a little bit of a stretch.

On a final note on the propeller that broke. Inside the blade at the break, the internal electrolyze corrosion is readily apparent. While there were minor surface indications of this corrosion, neither the two prop shops who have worked on these props or I could have known the extent of the internal corrosion. I should have replaced them before, but I am trying to figure out the optimum props for this boat/engine combo and didn't want to spend the money without knowing that I would be getting the right props. It's all part of the adventure, figuring out what to do, and how to adapt to everything that happens out here on the Waterway.

We have a few restricted opening bridges and a lock to get through to get to Norfolk. With our condition and restricted maneuvering we decided to go through the Albermarle and Chesapeake Canal and save the Great Dismal Swamp for another time. Thanks for the input!

Stand-by for Update #11. Will we make it to Mile 0. I think you already know the answer, but what happens in the meantime. We have to live it before we can write about it.

Warm Regards,

The Griffin Crew, Jon & Tom

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