Our first voyage - Glen Cove Marina, North of Conowingo Dam

We've completed alot of the final work since our last posting to this blog. The engine is running, the trailer is finished with the proper supports and the console/electronics are hooked up. In July, we proved the seaworthiness of the boat and now it's time to load up and put it in the water for a real run.

Pulling out of the Tony's barn on our way to Glen Cove Marina

The boat ran well in the water. Everything was very dry on our way up the Susquehanna river. The engine was very strong and Dave was a master driving the boat. 

Dave at the helm of SHO SCIFF

Tim was Dave's first mate

We really stretched the 60 HP motor out and everything in the boat shook. The steering console looked like it was bouncing off the floor and the floor was bouncing hard. We idled back to about half speed and decided that's the right speed for the boat. Much more smooth ride and everything went well on our trip up to Broad Creek. We drove the boat all they way up the creek into really shallow water. The boat rides very high and did a good job in the shallows ...

... AND THEN THE ENGINE STARTED SMOKING. No big deal but it was a bit of a scare for about five minutes. Mostly because we couldn't get it started again. Captain Chesapeake was able to start the motor up and we decided that the motor needed a tuneup since it hadn't been running for a long time. So we headed back.

We found a small leak towards the back of the boat. We're figure out how to fix this over the next week while the engine is in the shop. It will keep things interesting for a while.

Tony (aka Captain Chesapeake) enjoying our first day on the river