Bill Upchurch
Member II
Recently my son and brother and I were coming in from a nice day of sailing out of Los Angeles Harbor and were motoring in the West Channel towards our slip at the Cabrillo Beach Yacht Club. We were just abeam of the fuel dock when the boat started shuddering. I put it in neutral and idled the engine and the shuddering stopped. I was still a long way from the slip, so I tried forward again with about a quarter throttle and the shuddering once again was agressively present. I nursed the Golden Girl and finally got it into her slip. After checking everything we could think of, motor mounts etc., we assumed something was fouling the prop. My brother, who is in his 60ties and weighs about 260 was getting ready to strip down to his underwear and check out the prop, when I saw a guy in a wetsuit a couple of boats over and asked him to take a look. He happened to work for the company that does our bottom cleaning so he didn't mind. I was thankful because I didn't think I could ever erase the image of my brother in his underwear from my mind. The diver found a large brown trash bag wrapped around the prop and shaft and removed it.
It was a nice inexpensive solution to a scary,to me, problem (the shuddering).
It was a nice inexpensive solution to a scary,to me, problem (the shuddering).