Pavati Recovery Lake Powell

[petie6464]

Good. Hopefully he got another big ass fine for being a big dumb ass.

 

[RogerThat99]

I’ve seen those ski race boats with a big rubber ball on the end of a Morse cable that they can pull in and out of the hole while they are racing, from the observer seat.

GN 757 (a Rush hull), has a lever controlled plug that can be operated by the driver, or an observer. The opening is about 2" in diameter. Pull the lever back, and it pushes the plug out to drain quickly. Push the lever forward, and it locks the plug back in tight. It also has a safety pin you can put through it to pock it closed. You can see the plug in this pic. I don't have a pic of the lever setup.

 

[Echo Lodge]

POWELLHEADZ ® on Instagram: "REPOST from @heavydsparks Full recap video of all the damage and thorough explanation of exactly what caused my @pavatiwake boat to sink coming later this week. Can’t believe the amount of insensitive idiots that think

3,179 likes, 61 comments - powellheadz on May 11, 2022: "REPOST from @heavydsparks Full recap video of all the damage and thorough explanation of exactly what caused my @pavatiwake boat to sink coming later this week. Can’t believe the amount of insensitive idiots that think I would...

www.instagram.com

 

[Duramax]

I have a good sunken boat retrieval story.

In 1992, my buddy Alan's jet boat sank in Lake Travis after the 4" rubberized exhaust hose between the manifold and transom outlet failed. The boat had an engine cover, and he didn't know he was taking on water until the outcome was decided and the boat was going down.
________________________________________________________________

This is a long story, but it's a good one.

The boat rescue thread reminded me of the time in 1992 when my buddy blew an exhaust hose and sank his jet bote in 55' of water on Lake Travis. The guy that stopped and rescued Alan and three other people had a fish finder and told him the water depth. He called me quite upset because quotes he had received to find the boat and retrieve it were around $3,000. I told him I would call him back in thirty minutes.

I did some calculations, called him back, and told him I needed $1K for expenses, and we would go get the boat. I bought four plastic 55 gallon drums, attached a harness I made with a carabiner on the top end, and installed a 2" PVC plug with a metal valve stem in the bunghole, leaving the other 1" bunghole open.

I gathered up a 2" electric sump pump and 25' of discharge hose, my Emglo compressor and a 100' hose, a 5 kW generator, three coolers of beer, rope, a tarp, a camera, and headed to Austin. Alan called his cousin, who was a scuba diver. He agreed to meet us on Saturday at the lake with four friends that were also divers.

It was mid October, but still warm. We went to a boat rental at the marina, and I rented a 20' pontoon boat, telling the guy we were going to take our wives out to look at the fall foliage.

I docked the boat at Alan's mom's house on the water at Graveyard Point, put a tarp down on the boat deck, and we loaded everything onto the boat, along with 12 scuba tanks and dive gear for five guys. The boat deck was completely covered by all of the stuff.

We drove out to the site of the sinking, and Alan was in the front of the boat telling me where to go. After a few minutes, he told me to stop, and jumped into the water and swam to try and line up the landmarks he had committed to memory when the boat went down. I was thinking we'll never find the thing. About five minutes went by and he said "This is the place." Yeah, right. I dropped a two gallon bucket I had filled with concrete to keep the boat from moving, and the anchor line attached to it had marks in 5' increments. The water depth was 53'.

The water in Travis is not clear, and visibility underwater is not good. I had prepared a 60' long line marked at 10' increments with a carabiner on one end, thinking our best bet was to search in circles and move around in the area. The line was clipped to the anchor line, the divers went in the water, spread out on the marked line, and went to the bottom.

We watched the bubbles from their scuba gear as they searched, and after the bubbles went about 3/4 of a circle, Alan's cousin popped up on the surface and said "It's right here." I couldn't believe our luck. I thought we would be searching for hours, and it didn't take 10 minutes to find the boat.

We dropped the sump pump and two of the barrels in the water and fired up the generator. The carabiners on the barrels were attached to a line that had been secured to the boat's bow eye, the barrels were filled with water, and they were swam down to the boat and hooked to the bow eye. The compressor was started, the hose was tossed in the water, and taken down to the barrels.

The diver put the air hose on the valve stem on the barrel bungholes, and the compressed air pushed the water out of the small bunghole. When one barrel was emptied and the other was about half empty, the boat headed for the surface. A huge mass of air bubbles from the small bungholes on the barrels appeared as the water pressure decreased, turbulence roiled the surface, and suddenly the two barrels and the bow of the boat blew into view.

By this time, about ten boats had anchored around us, along with a couple of sheriff's deputies in their grey whaler with a small tower and light bars. The deputies were very cool, keeping the scene under control and enjoying the show.

As we were attaching the other two barrels to the transom eyes, a PWC came flying up to the pontoon boat, and attached to it was the owner of the boat rental. The pontoon boat was covered with all sorts of equipment and eight people, and looked like it was engaged in a Discovery Channel show. He wasn't happy, and said "You better have this boat back at the 4:30 due time, and if it's not clean you're gonna pay for a detail." He was pissed I had lied about why we rented the boat.

We filled the other two barrels with water, attached them to the transom lift eyes, and blew the water out until the boat was sitting level three feet under the water. A tow line was rigged, and we slowly headed for the boat ramp.

At the ramp we backed the trailer in deep, and managed to get the bow on the back of the bunks with the trailer winch. I rigged the sump pump and began removing the water in the boat, and as it got lighter, we pulled the boat onto the trailer. In 30 minutes the water was pumped out and the boat was secured on the trailer.

During this time the pontoon boat was at the dock, and Alan's cousin and his friends were removing our equipment and cleaning the boat. We got it back to the rental dock at 4:15, which saved us from paying another half day rent charge.

We took the boat to the house, drained the block, and filled it with diesel fuel. Since it had been underwater for a week, I decided it would be a bad ideas to start it. The interior in the boat was just six months old. All of the cushions were intact, and it was undamaged. Over the winter the engine was rebuilt, the interior was dried and restapled to the plywood, and in March the boat was back in the water.

Remember above I said I took my 35 mm camera? The photos were going to be great, and I would be posting some of them, but when Alan loaded the film on Saturday morning, he didn't put it on the takeup reel correctly.

But overall, success! Finding the boat ten minutes after starting the dive was pretty much a miracle. I had no idea how to raise a sunken boat, but my hillbilly boat retrieval plans worked out perfectly. All in it cost $750.

A few months later, I took one of the PVC caps with the valve stem I had made for the barrels to a trophy shop. The cap was mounted on a desk plaque, and on a play with a popular movie title of the time, the brass plate inscription under it read "ALAN AND RON'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE."

It certainly was. I gave it to Alan on his birthday.

That is a fantastic story!!

 

[sirbob]

Having had a boat sink in Havasu and watched the guys get it up and on the trailer in what seemed like 30 min. with 2 guys working. Watching that video made me think those guys had no idea what they were doing.

That video was all about content - it is not a lesson in how to retrieve a boat. HAHA.

 

[jetboatperformance]

about 15 years back a young guy bought in his Miller 18' Jet for a Place diverter .... fast forward a week after I get a call from an angry Dad .."You guys just worked on my Sons Boat and It sunk at Nacimiento" Josh and I opted to go on the recovery barge , the boat was off the end of Heritage cove and Dip creek at that time they (the owner brought in/hired an "ice diver" out of Santa Barbara (or so he called himself) . He left the recovery barge in what appeared to be a dry suit with lines attached , as the boat was sinking the Kid had the sense to throw out a ski rope . The diver by chance "felt' the rope at about 100 feet down , the depth then was about 160' feet . The diver said the bottom 20 feet was pure muck and it was incredibly cold . Somehow they attached a cable to the bow hook and raise the boat to the surface (pulled the drain plug and began to tow/drag it to the marina about a mile away , the further it went the more water came out , when they got it to a shallow beach , the trailer was backed in and the boat was winched up on it. I wanted to see what happened and went to the jet, laying in the bilge below the transom overhang was the Jet drive cleanout cover (which we did not nor did we have reason to take off (for place nozzle install) , I took it to the old man , stuffed in his chest and went home

(the operator said the winch on the barge "would pull the ass out of the earth)

 

[traquer]

My plugs and wrench always go into that little pocket thing on the port side by the rear bench. I don't like cup holders since someone's kid or whatever could see the plug and play with it.