Watch for Debris on TRL this July 4th

[justpushplay]

The wife and I went for a 3 hour cruise yesterday on the Sea Doos. We put in by our dock on Point 7 south of Kimberling City, and took a leisurely cruise to Baxter Marina. Around 3PM at Baxter, we came across this thing floating about 150' offshore. I towed it to the shore to prevent people from hitting it at speed. We saw plenty of smaller stuff during the cruise, but with the upcoming holiday wave action, I'm sure there will still be plenty of flotsam to avoid. BTW, there were a couple of Cobalt's at the Baxter Marina Grill just after 3PM, anybody from cobaltchat?

Michael

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[posloke123]

Yeah down toward the dam there is a lot of smaller stuff but not much that large. Usually the big stuff comes in on the tributaries - Long Creek is bad about that. I'd hate to hit that running 25 at night.

[tgrace98]

I’ve been here since last Thursday and the only place I’ve really seen debris is down past big cedar right before you go into Arkansas. But the fastest west I have been so far is the kimberling city bridge.

[justpushplay]

Yes, the debris did seem to get bigger as we approached the Baxter area. I can't imagine the noise your outdrive would make hitting that thing at a 45 degree angle at 50 mph! My understanding is that a duo prop is not very efficient as a chipper/shredder :-0

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[posloke123]

I backed into a stump at idle the first year we had the boat. It killed the engine but started up and ran fine. That fall when I pulled the drive, I saw that it had twisted the input shaft. I try to avoid stumpy areas and watch for logs.

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[Bigghauss]

Yowsers! I wonder what kind of force would need to be applied to twist the splines like that? I don't recall those shafts being a 'sacrificial' part of the system, but I could be wrong. Did the hit blow up your prop? Clearly nothing seemed afoul as you went the whole season on it. Dang.

[posloke123]

Yowsers! I wonder what kind of force would need to be applied to twist the splines like that? I don't recall those shafts being a 'sacrificial' part of the system, but I could be wrong. Did the hit blow up your prop? Clearly nothing seemed afoul as you went the whole season on it. Dang.

Nope. Amazingly it ran from May until October when I pulled it out. No prop damage or anything. I am assuming it happened when I backed into that stump at idle. After I bought the boat I took it to 'the' marina on TRL (which shall remain unnamed) and had the drives serviced. I assume they would have spotted that with the drive off (maybe not???). If it was okay when they serviced the drives it must have been from the stump. I didn't hit anything else that year. I was surprised too.

[justpushplay]

I've seen that sort of spline twist on a car transmission input shaft, but only on very high horsepower setups. Maybe that IS a sacrificial part. I was told that the rubber and aluminum engine coupler on our old OMC King Cobra/460 Ford was considered the sacrificial part. Of course I learned that after after I spun the splines out of the coupler. The input shaft survived unscathed.

[BigGib]

LOTO was really bad this weekend, reminded me of boating on the Mississippi!