By Hal Plotkin
During a dinner with good friends the conversation turned to the upcoming baseball season. In a flash of brilliance, I realized the stadium was very close to a deep-water harbor — I’d been driving there for years and never once thought about taking the boat. I immediately proposed the other couple join us for a day baseball game and everyone quickly agreed.
A Saturday date was chosen, tickets were purchased, and reservations made at a marina for transient space within walking distance of the ballpark. All that was left to chance was nice weather.
Mother Nature was on our side; the weather was perfect for boating and baseball on the day of our planned excursion. We got to the boat about an hour earlier than our friends. I uncovered it and started up the engines, running them for five minutes. I found nothing amiss until I noticed water in the bilge that hadn’t been there six minutes before.
The water was hot, so it had to be from an engine or the hot water heater, but which? I looked around and didn’t see anything leaking, so I moved on to all the hoses and connections, again spotting nothing of concern. Starting the engines again, I found no leaks from either engine but additional water in the bilge. I followed the exhaust lines back to the stern and saw a small water leak coming from a metal muffler associated with the port engine. Similar to one that comes from a stuffing box, the leak ceased when the engine was shut off.
It was time to decide if we were boating or driving to the ballgame. I figured the leak only occurred when the engine was running, so the boat wasn’t in danger of sinking even if it got worse. I could always run on one engine, closing the raw water intake valve to that engine if things got really bad, so I made the call that we’d make the 90-minute trip to the stadium by boat.
The first 20 minutes of the trip was through a five-mile-per-hour area with very little water. Leaving the harbor, I brought the engines up to 3,400 rpm and headed west. After 15 minutes elapsed, I handed control of the boat to my wife and went below. Uh-oh—there was a lot of water in the bilge! I turned on the bilge pumps and waited five minutes. Seeing little new water in the bilge, I felt a sense of relief which I retained through the rest of the cruise. We made the game before the first pitch! Well, almost all of us were in our seats for the national anthem: I stayed aboard to give things a thorough going over.
Decades later my friends and family still count that day as one of our all-time favorites. The team won and everyone had a lot more fun going by boat than in bumper-to-bumper traffic. As for me, I think about that day differently. I should have figured that, despite the bilge being well ventilated, exhaust fumes could have leaked as well as water. I should have called the boat trip out and proceeded to the game in a safe way. Nowadays, I balk at boating if there’s any problem. I know it’s the right call.
