11-3-19
I'm returning from another delivery. Im glad to say it was an uneventful and pleasant trip. I got an email last week from another Northwest delivery captain, Ray McCormack saying he couldn't move a boat he had scheduled because something had come up. Ive known Ray for a while. He started delivering boats a few years after I got into it and quickly surpassed me in his yearly work. I keep telling myself that I need to learn from his skillful self promotion. Ive always thought that unless you live with your mom you cant make a full time job out of delivering boats…at least in the NW, but Ray has shown that is not true (pretty sure he doesn’t live with his mom). Anyway I was glad to get the call and the glowing recommendation didn't hurt.
The boat, I was told, was a Silverton 40 but it turned out to be a Silverton 35. This modern powerboat with over 700 horse power looked like a jacuzzi designer had designed boat. There was a covered flybrige and lots of mirrors in its two staterooms. .
First look at weather.
The job was simple. Meet the Canadian delivery captain in Friday Harbor and deliver the boat to Astoria where the new owner would pick the boat up and take her to her new home 100 miles upriver. I usually deliver sailboats because that is where my background lies but occasionally I am asked to move powerboats. There are a few differences in delivering powerboats and sailboats. The big difference is that when you are under power in a sailboat it is slow and when you are under power in a powerboat it is often quite a bit faster. Most of the time when you are delivering either type of boat you are under power. I bid my jobs by the calendar day and therefor I often make more moving sailboats. Which brings me to the next difference
Powerboat owners are not afraid to spend money. A boat like this burns about a gallon a mile which means the captain’s day rate is only a part of the bigger equation of boat ownership.
got stories?
First, I look at the weather, then, after requesting a recent survey I calculate the range of the vessel. After that I can get a sense for the trip plan and which fuel docks I will have to go into. Then I look at the distances and calculate the time underway and last I look at the tides to see when it is safe to cross whatever bars I will have to negotiate. Oh.. and then I look at fuel dock hours. The last is very important in the “Offseason”.
The boat was supposed to be in Friday Harbor at 10 am to clear customs. A Canadian delivery captain was bringing it over the border from the brokerage that had sold the boat to pass off to me where I would take it to Astoria. The boat arrived at 11 and the Canadian delivery skipped asked me to walk up with him to the customs office so he didn’t have to walk the paperwork back down. He was in his late 60s i’m guessing and told me he had two bad knees. This was painful for both of us because I needed to get out of FH by noon at the latest to have any chance at making the Neah Bay fuel dock 85 nautical miles east of FH before they closed and we were already running late.
12:30 and we are underway. The fuel gauges read half a tank and I figured we could make Neah Bay.
The sun was out and the wind was blowing no more than 5 knots from the southeast.
Not long after we cleared Cattle Pass I was no longer confident we could make Neah Bay. We were already nearing the 1/4 tank mark on the gauges. I remembered that Callum Bay has a fuel dock and though I wouldn’t risk taking a sailboat into its shallow marina it would work for a powerboat. I called ahead and it just rang. Next call was to a hotel in Callum Bay where I was told the fuel dock closed the first of the month for the season. Port Angeles fuel dock would be in our wake soon so I called them next. After a brief discussion with my crew we decided it was worth missing the Neah Bay fuel dock that night to fuel in PA and be confident we could make the next dock. I’m not used to making a wake that jet skiers dream about and I admit I felt a little guilty throwing the waves we did on the way to the marina entrance 6 miles inside the huge harbor that is Port Angeles. Fueling up we added $800 of fuel and we were gone again up on step and out to the Strait of Juan De Fuca. The water was perfect and still ebbing a little. We were going 15 knots at 2500 RPM and fighting the urge to raise the RPM to make the Neah Bay fuel dock before they closed. An hour before sunset when they were supposed to close I called ahead to confirm. Again no answer.
Neah Bay is a really cool spot and has been a regular stop for me and my past crew both on deliveries and cruises. It is located on the Makah Native Reservation. It is a healthy fishing port and the last stop without a bar for 100s of miles. Not only does it not have a dangerous bar it doesn’t have a fun bar or any alcohol available what so ever. It is whats call a dry reservation. This makes it an even better last stop before the ocean as the crew has the tendency to overdo it the night before they head to sea, which only makes things worse.
8 am at the fuel dock and we are told that no one can fuel us until it is light out because there are no lights on the dock. This is strange because it is both light out and we were told we could fuel up at 8 am. Its 9 and we are fueled up and underway. We calculated that we burned 1.75 gallons a mile at 2500 PPM. We are leaving later than planned to make the Columbia River Bar and we will have about 30 gallons to spare when we get there. Now in my earlier days delivering yachts, I would have risked it to stay within my bid but my experience has taught me to give the lee shore a wider berth. The bid of a three day delivery was based on a 15 gallons per hour at 15 knots which comes from my experience delivering yachts bigger than the one we were on and therefore already had leeway built into the plan. I called the owner told him about the burn rate and that we were heading for West Port and the next fuel dock. I was glad to hear he was okay to pay another day underway and a little upset to hear that he knew about the burn rate, saying that the mechanic who did the buyers survey told him that the injectors wernt’t atomizing the fuel efficiently and needed rebuilding.
Our experience with the fuel dock in Neah Bay inspired us to not only look up the fuel dock hours in West Port but to call and confirm. It’s a good thing we did because even though the website for the fuel dock said that they were open to 5 the guy who answered the phone told me that they were only going to stay open till 4. I told him that at our current RPM we would arrive at 15 till. He then asked how much fuel we were getting. 200 gallons I said. “I can’t stay open late for so little fuel” he said. Well, it was time to see what this boat could do. 3400 RPM and we were going to make it. if not, they were closed for the weekend and we would have been stuck, my crew would have had to leave and we would be f*(%#) .
With the right crew anything is possible.
Thanks Mark!
As you would imagine there isn’t much going on in West Port in the offseason but unlike Neah Bay and other harbors on reservations, West Port had bars! An early night and we were cruising south to the biggest and most dangerous bar on the West Coast; The Columbia River Bar! After an uneventful crossing, we passed the boat off to the very happy new owner.
Thanks Wade. Best review ever.