Great to get back home to the States after a few weeks in the Atlantic and Mediterranean areas. I sure missed my C-Brat time while away. Then, attempting to get my body clock back in the States, I go for my C-Brat fix a bit early...ish... around 4am....central. ...and I read the Power Mover link with a post by Jody....and his flashbacks which brought me back to some of the great times my C-Dory boats have brought me... via flashbacks. Now, part of this was the simple "American Ingenuity" coming out in the Power Link post that got my flashbacks going. So, here goes.
American Ingenuity & my C-Dory Boats:
Sitting in a large conference room one hot, humid, Alabama morning, temps outside about 90ish, humidity about 90ish….typical August morning….I was listening to some boring O6 give a death by Power Point briefing (sorry Dusty and Charlie..and any other O6’s here I missed) on something he knew nothing at all about…other than he was using us as his practice guinea pigs as to be prepared to brief the 2 star the next morning….Sure hate I missed that. You know the feeling and sounds….the voice just fades to a rumble…sort of like the diesel motor on our tow rig at 70 mph crossing the Bad Lands and flats of South Dakota & Montana areas…..Purrrrrrrrrrrrr My mind drifts in its usual way to my boat…and Lake Martin which was in line for that afternoon and the next 3 days. Suddenly my mind burst back to life…as I look at the TV stand holding up one of the TVs over in the corners for us working folks to see….and BINGO! That would work to hold a normal window AC unit up to the aft window on the TomCat, “FreeByrd.” So, after the briefing was over those that lived thru it, went get back to living life. I was in my garage with the 1x3’s and skill saw just a buzzing. And, in about 3 beers and 57 minutes….I was off to Lake Martin….with the M1ACWUS in the truck…with cooler, thru Home Depot to pick up a 5,000 BTU window unit. That acronym stands for M1: Model 1, ACWUS…AC Window Unit Stand… pronounced AC-Wus of course.
It worked great as well as the back porch pool umbrella did to knock the sun off the cockpit area…life was good!!
About 4 boats rafted up for the night, and we had AC in Butter Fly Cove that night for post hot showers and “moon-risers” were enjoyed, (as apposed to sun-downers).…75 degrees, and about 50% humidity. Sweet…and no insects!!! FreeByrd’s cabin was full on into the night.
The next day, we had been ridding the noodles in the water for about two hours, (ask Rick, Donna, & the Brigners about that)… laughing at how red-neck the prototype looked, but it worked…no screws or bolts in the boat, and we decided to have another round or two of beers, after all, it was about 8:30am, and in about a half hour, some of the families kids and wives would be there to join us, and they start counting. They did that on the kid weekends and we loved it cause the kids, dogs, cats and all just made the family complete, and the cove came to full bloomed life!!!. Elimae and others would have loved Butter Fly Cove.
Now, the American Ingenuity and flashback…that did not go as smooth…sort of like the trip down the driveway with the power mover and the boat. After getting C-Byrd and getting a “portable…” 9.9 hp 4 stoke kicker… I have to have a better way to get the “portable” motor from the top of the parking lot hill at Kowliga Marina (yes, the same place that the Hank Williams song was written), and down to the docks, about a 1/8th mile long concrete sidewalk with about a 5-9% grade on it that you had to be careful on when it was wet… So, the M2 version was born…by simply using tie straps to mount it to a hand truck, as to “engineer” a kicker motor cart. BINGO.
It worked great….until… the very top heavy unit with motor mounted (sorry, no pictures…as I only did this once…then bought a new main motor and sold that #$%@ “portable” kicker.) along with me picked up speed coming down that graded sidewalk…. Only to find the one, single, piece of gravel on the sidewalk….which was a wonderful momentum buster…for "one" of the "two" hand truck wheels....to the point it initiated an involuntary 180 turn-about….of the kicker carrier….thus, thrusting that brand new kicker forward, and me placing my body between the side walk and the fast falling kicker….which landed square on my chest, knocking every last bit of air from my lungs, and there I was, red-neck down, no air in the lungs, nobody around… head spinning a bit, that what the hell just happened thought drifting thru my mind…. And, of course, the cell phone starts ringing in my pocket. Well, it was an Angle to come save me. Not really an true Angle, but, it was my trusty old Sergeant First Class… (I called him JT) talking as they do ... ”Sir…are ya there? I think I hear ya breathing a bit….but you are not saying anything…Did I catch you at a bad time??? Well, I managed a grunt. Not much of one. But, enough to keep the call going. JT followed by Damn, are ya alright? Ya need Help. It seemed about 10 more questions came out. Rhetorical at that point of course. Ya know, I always thought JT talked slow, but that day, at that time, when I was attempting to get some air from my toe nails or anywhere else in my body I could find some, I thought he was from Brookland NY rather than lower Alabama. I got out a second grunt with a weak “I’m good JT”… Well, to take the SFC out of it… let’s just say he said something in the order of… “you do not sound like it…where are you, I am on the way.” I told him I was at the bottom of the hill at the marina nurturing my “portable kicker” back to life and that was not easy. He laughed, hung up, and in about 10 minutes faster than he should have been able to make it from the office down the country roads….he drove his truck down the hill straddling the steep sidewalk, got out slinging a 6-pac telling me not to worry, there is more in the truck but he could tell by the way I sounded on the phone that this one would get us started. By that time I was breathing fine, but just remained on the ground, helping the motor of course. We exchanged some pleasantries’…in SFC language and worked on the newly purchased first aid kit he brought us, cleaned me up a bit, got the motor mounted on the boat where it stayed until I sold the $^&#* “portable” motor.
So, our boats bring us many opportunities to laugh at ourselves and some of our ideas and attempts….but hey….at least we can go down saying “ I tried…rather than it can not be done.” Cheers to the C-Brats!!
Byrdman…back home and back in C-Brat land. It is great to get back.
American Ingenuity & my C-Dory Boats:
Sitting in a large conference room one hot, humid, Alabama morning, temps outside about 90ish, humidity about 90ish….typical August morning….I was listening to some boring O6 give a death by Power Point briefing (sorry Dusty and Charlie..and any other O6’s here I missed) on something he knew nothing at all about…other than he was using us as his practice guinea pigs as to be prepared to brief the 2 star the next morning….Sure hate I missed that. You know the feeling and sounds….the voice just fades to a rumble…sort of like the diesel motor on our tow rig at 70 mph crossing the Bad Lands and flats of South Dakota & Montana areas…..Purrrrrrrrrrrrr My mind drifts in its usual way to my boat…and Lake Martin which was in line for that afternoon and the next 3 days. Suddenly my mind burst back to life…as I look at the TV stand holding up one of the TVs over in the corners for us working folks to see….and BINGO! That would work to hold a normal window AC unit up to the aft window on the TomCat, “FreeByrd.” So, after the briefing was over those that lived thru it, went get back to living life. I was in my garage with the 1x3’s and skill saw just a buzzing. And, in about 3 beers and 57 minutes….I was off to Lake Martin….with the M1ACWUS in the truck…with cooler, thru Home Depot to pick up a 5,000 BTU window unit. That acronym stands for M1: Model 1, ACWUS…AC Window Unit Stand… pronounced AC-Wus of course.
It worked great as well as the back porch pool umbrella did to knock the sun off the cockpit area…life was good!!
About 4 boats rafted up for the night, and we had AC in Butter Fly Cove that night for post hot showers and “moon-risers” were enjoyed, (as apposed to sun-downers).…75 degrees, and about 50% humidity. Sweet…and no insects!!! FreeByrd’s cabin was full on into the night.
The next day, we had been ridding the noodles in the water for about two hours, (ask Rick, Donna, & the Brigners about that)… laughing at how red-neck the prototype looked, but it worked…no screws or bolts in the boat, and we decided to have another round or two of beers, after all, it was about 8:30am, and in about a half hour, some of the families kids and wives would be there to join us, and they start counting. They did that on the kid weekends and we loved it cause the kids, dogs, cats and all just made the family complete, and the cove came to full bloomed life!!!. Elimae and others would have loved Butter Fly Cove.
Now, the American Ingenuity and flashback…that did not go as smooth…sort of like the trip down the driveway with the power mover and the boat. After getting C-Byrd and getting a “portable…” 9.9 hp 4 stoke kicker… I have to have a better way to get the “portable” motor from the top of the parking lot hill at Kowliga Marina (yes, the same place that the Hank Williams song was written), and down to the docks, about a 1/8th mile long concrete sidewalk with about a 5-9% grade on it that you had to be careful on when it was wet… So, the M2 version was born…by simply using tie straps to mount it to a hand truck, as to “engineer” a kicker motor cart. BINGO.
It worked great….until… the very top heavy unit with motor mounted (sorry, no pictures…as I only did this once…then bought a new main motor and sold that #$%@ “portable” kicker.) along with me picked up speed coming down that graded sidewalk…. Only to find the one, single, piece of gravel on the sidewalk….which was a wonderful momentum buster…for "one" of the "two" hand truck wheels....to the point it initiated an involuntary 180 turn-about….of the kicker carrier….thus, thrusting that brand new kicker forward, and me placing my body between the side walk and the fast falling kicker….which landed square on my chest, knocking every last bit of air from my lungs, and there I was, red-neck down, no air in the lungs, nobody around… head spinning a bit, that what the hell just happened thought drifting thru my mind…. And, of course, the cell phone starts ringing in my pocket. Well, it was an Angle to come save me. Not really an true Angle, but, it was my trusty old Sergeant First Class… (I called him JT) talking as they do ... ”Sir…are ya there? I think I hear ya breathing a bit….but you are not saying anything…Did I catch you at a bad time??? Well, I managed a grunt. Not much of one. But, enough to keep the call going. JT followed by Damn, are ya alright? Ya need Help. It seemed about 10 more questions came out. Rhetorical at that point of course. Ya know, I always thought JT talked slow, but that day, at that time, when I was attempting to get some air from my toe nails or anywhere else in my body I could find some, I thought he was from Brookland NY rather than lower Alabama. I got out a second grunt with a weak “I’m good JT”… Well, to take the SFC out of it… let’s just say he said something in the order of… “you do not sound like it…where are you, I am on the way.” I told him I was at the bottom of the hill at the marina nurturing my “portable kicker” back to life and that was not easy. He laughed, hung up, and in about 10 minutes faster than he should have been able to make it from the office down the country roads….he drove his truck down the hill straddling the steep sidewalk, got out slinging a 6-pac telling me not to worry, there is more in the truck but he could tell by the way I sounded on the phone that this one would get us started. By that time I was breathing fine, but just remained on the ground, helping the motor of course. We exchanged some pleasantries’…in SFC language and worked on the newly purchased first aid kit he brought us, cleaned me up a bit, got the motor mounted on the boat where it stayed until I sold the $^&#* “portable” motor.
So, our boats bring us many opportunities to laugh at ourselves and some of our ideas and attempts….but hey….at least we can go down saying “ I tried…rather than it can not be done.” Cheers to the C-Brats!!
Byrdman…back home and back in C-Brat land. It is great to get back.
