Well I’m making a bit more progress, little by little.  One of the exciting things that happened this week was Creeky’s maiden voyage under her own power.  It wasn’t exactly planned, and I wasn’t exactly ready, but it worked.  I got a call on Monday afternoon from the marina telling me that I needed to move to another dock because they needed to do some construction on my dock.  I asked when they needed it moved by.  They said “this afternoon.”

Eff…  The steering still isn’t hooked up and the prop still drives the boat in reverse when the transmission is in forward.  Not to mention the fact that the boat has never moved under its own power.  Also, I have never maneuvered a boat anywhere near this big, let alone around other more expensive boats.  All I could think about was the unwelcoming greeting I got when I arrived at Admiral’s Hill Marina under tow.

Upon seeing me for the first time, Jim the dock master just said “Oh no, what the hell is this shit?  Boats here have to arrive under their own power, and you signed a form saying that this thing was seaworthy.  Why the hell are you being towed in?!”  I told him the boat ran and drove, but I got towed because the steering had issues and when I got the transmission connected to the prop the thrust was in reverse.  Also, the boat wasn’t registered at the time.  He still shook my hand and told me the codes, but I sensed his frustration and disbelief when he stormed off the dock.

So before I hung up the phone on Monday afternoon I cautiously promised to try to move the boat when I got out of work.  Part of me wanted to ask for a tow, but I really wanted to prove to Jim that I wasn’t lying when I first met him.

The next step was to find some help for the big move.  Brian was headed to New Orleans with Bryan to visit David on his epic motorcycle trip to Panama, but Nikolas was free.  When we got to the boat I checked the engine connections, reconnected the battery, and the engine started right up.  We were off to a great start.  After she warmed up for a bit and all the gauges were in the green, Nikolas cast us off.  I popped the transmission in forward so we could back out of the slip and we were on our way.  Then, just as we got far enough away from the dock for it to count the engine died and Creeky became a 30,000 lb. wrecking ball.

I leaped into the cabin and grabbed my wrenches to see what I could do while we were still out in the open.  I went over every connection and tried to diagnose as quickly as I could.  The engine didn’t seem to be getting any fuel.  Maybe there was an air lock in the system again, I thought.  So I started bleeding the fuel line, but it still wouldn’t start.  As we drifted closer to some nice shiny powerboats on a neighboring dock, I remembered reading in the book Dave gave me that you can run a diesel engine on WD-40.  Off came the air filter, in went a steady stream of the wondrous fluid, but still no dice.

At this point we came to rest against my neighbor Mike’s boat, which Nikolas managed to fend us off from.  After about 20 minutes of fighting the wind and the current we managed to get Creeky back to where we started from, but facing the other direction.  After an elaborate and nerve-racking adventure, all we had managed to do was turn the boat around.  Not quite what we were going for…

But I was determined to overcome this challenge and prove to Jim and myself that Creeky could drive and steer without assistance.  So I dove back under the cockpit to do some more wrenching as Nikolas reminded me that we only had another 45 minutes before we had to leave so he could watch the hockey game.  With the pressure on I got back into turbo diagnosis mode and then noticed that the fuel line had a kink in it, which was just obscured by a cooling hose.  After straightening out the hose and bleeding the fuel line again we made a little progress, and with just a spritz of starter fluid the fuel system primed itself.

With the engine running smoothly again we made the trip flawlessly, and even did a two point turn to dock into the wind.  I have to say that she handled better than I thought she would given her size and weight.  I can’t wait to be able to take her out on her first real shakedown sometime soonish.

The videos below are from Friday morning when I moved Creeky back to her slip.  Jennilee noticed that some people were walking on the boat so I popped up to see what they were doing.  It was Jim and some other guys getting ready to tow the boat over to the other slip.  I asked if they just wanted me to move it and Jim, surprised, said “sure, if you think you can do it.  I didn’t think that thing ran.”  Now with an audience, I fired up the 30 year old diesel and let it come up to temp.  When I gave the go-ahead the guys cast us off and we cruised around the corner to my slip.  No surprises this time.  Just a nice, smooth, nose in docking followed by a “nice job cap’n” from Jim.  Boom, vindicated.