Depart: Kingston Municipal Marina 8:25
Arrive: Shattemuc Yacht Club 3:20
Distance: 52 nm
We decided to try to make it all the way home tonight if weather and current allowed and set out as early as we could get ourselves on our way. The day started out being a perfect travel day. Part way home we encountered a disabled boat that drastically changed our day and our plans.
Pictures of Kingston as we prepare to move on to our next stop ...
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| Leaving the Kingston Municipal dock |
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| On Rondout Creek |
As we traveled through the Hyde Park area on the Hudson River, we saw several very large homes. After miles along the water covered in thick forest, we saw a nicely manicured lawn. I could tell it would be a large home that had decided to cut a swath through the trees to get a view of the river.
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| Boat House to go with the home above |
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| What other properties looked like ... surrounded by trees! |
In the Poughkeepsie area we passed under the Walkway over the Hudson and saw people strolling along enjoying the view. Surprisingly, we saw a car crossing over the pedestrian-only bridge!?
We saw boat as well as train traffic traveling on / along the Hudson.
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| Freighter on the Hudson River |
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| Freight Train on the edge of the Hudson River |
As we approached West Point, we were making good time and had decided that we would make a try for home given the pleasant weather and swift current going our way.
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| At West Point "BEAT AIR FORCE" |
Our plans changed abruptly!!! Clark noticed a boat drifting in the water and the woman on board waving her hands as if in distress. He slowed the engine and motored over to see if they needed assistance. Oh my, did they ever!
I figured this might prove interesting when we got ourselves close enough to yell over to them. I asked if they needed help, and they replied, "Do you know where we can find a tow boat?" "You need to call Sea Tow", I told them. They had no VHF radio, so Clark called on our radio and got Sea Tow. We gave the distressed boat Sea Tow's phone number, and we gave Sea Tow their number.
The folks on the disabled boat said that their engine had belched smoke and then just stopped. The woman kept asking if she should try to restart the engine. Both Clark and I told her that was a bad idea unless she had figured out what was wrong and addressed the problem. Eventually she ignored our advice and tried to start the engine. It did nothing! I was worried it might do something regrettable!
As we approached their boat, we saw a line hanging from the side of their boat, so we assumed they were anchored. When I asked them to be sure, they said, "No. We don't have an anchor." Damn! We couldn't leave them afloat in the Hudson drifting towards the rocks along the shore.
We had to stay with them until they were safe or else tow them to a dock. They wanted us to tow them to Newburgh. We were going in the opposite direction. Clark said that would take us hours out of our way. We offered to tow them south. They balked at the idea. We found ourselves at an impasse.
While we figured out a plan of action, I found a long line to throw to them to secure their boat to ours. We needed to tow them away from the rapidly approaching shore to further out in the Hudson. They had no idea what to do with the line I threw.
The woman that apparently owned the boat sent her male companion, who appeared to know less than nothing about boating, out to the bow of the boat to grab the line. He wrapped it around the cleat per my direction. Unfortunately, he did not tie it in any way; he just sat there holding it in place with his hands over the cleat.
Meanwhile, the woman who owned the boat talked to Sea Tow and nearly had a fit when she heard how much they would charge. She told them she would call them back, and more discussion between us and them ensued regarding what we would do with them.
Clark was calling every place he could find to see if he could drop them somewhere. We sat directly in front of docks at West Point and could see Garrison Yacht Club on the other side of the river. Clark talked to someone at West Point who said he would have to contact security and get back to us. When he tried Garrison Yacht Club, he got no answer. He continued to look for alternate places.
While Clark looked for a viable solution, the woman decided that we should tow their boat to "Billy Joe's" on Front Street. When I looked it up on Google, it came up as a barbecue restaurant with a deck overlooking the Hudson. We had never heard of it, and Clark could not find it listed as a marina anywhere. (It turned out to be some place in Newburgh. We had already told her we would not go to Newburgh.) We tried to explain to her that we could not go just anywhere in our boat since it has a 4' draft. She had no idea what we were talking about and clearly thought we were being unreasonable.
To tow them somewhere, Clark decided to tie them to our starboard side (as opposed to towing behind us) to give us more control over depositing them at a marina. Because of the direction of the current, Clark maneuvered their boat to our starboard side by walking the boat around our bow - all the time worried about fending off their boat to prevent it scraping the paint off the side of ours. Finally we got them tied to our side.
I noticed as we did this maneuvering that the woman who owned the boat had disappeared into their small cabin space in the bow of her boat. It took me a while to figure out that she went in there because she was seasick. Crawling into an enclosed space with no view of the horizon and very little airflow is about the worst thing she could have done.
She must have felt pretty poorly because at one point she announced that she was going to call 911 for help. Her male companion told me her plan, and I warned that, with no life threatening situation, it was a very bad idea to call 911. While hiding inside her boat, she did call Sea Tow and agreed to pay their exorbitant rate to tow her someplace.
As I stood fending their boat away from our boat (I worried that their bouncing would rip our fenders off our boat), I talked to the man a bit. I asked if they had life jackets on board. He said, "No. Not even them." I said, "You need life jackets and an anchor." He replied, "Why do we need an anchor?" Totally amazed, given their current situation, I said, "To stop the boat from drifting onto the rocks!" "Ahhh!" was his reply. I dug out two of our guest life jackets and gave them to the man. I said he could keep them.
Meanwhile, Clark got a call back from the Garrison Yacht Club. That person suggested, as did the dock master at West Point, that the boaters drop an anchor and wait for Sea Tow. We had to reiterate to everyone who made that sage suggestion that the boat in distress had no anchor. Given that bit of unwelcome news, Garrison Yacht Club reluctantly said they could tie up to their face dock but could not come into their marina for liability reasons.
Given the news that we had a place to deposit them, Clark set out across the river at the slowest speed our boat could travel to get there. Even so, their boat bounced along beside ours like we were speeding. We had three fat fenders holding them off the boat, but I gave assistance and held their boat rail to keep them away and relieve the stress of the wave action and prevent the action from ripping the fenders off our boat along the way.
When we got to the bulkhead where the yacht club said they could tie up, I had to talk the poor man on board through every step of the way - moving fenders (and tying them to the cleat - not just wrapping the line around and leaving it), tying a line to the wall, and walking it up to the front cleat of their boat. It did not help that English was pretty clearly not his first language. As he finally got his line secured, I untied their other ratty line from our boat and threw it onto their deck.
As we pulled away, the woman on board looked quite sick and weakly thanked us for our help. I stressed that she needed to call Sea Tow to tell them we had dropped them at the yacht club because Sea Tow had been told they were waiting in front of West Point for a rescue. Watching her lack of action, I seriously doubted that she would make that call. Regardless of that, we waved goodbye and went on our way.
Later, I did not notice as I was below, but Clark said he passed Sea Tow and spoke to the captain on the radio. He knew that the distressed boaters were at Garrison Yacht Club, so they either called him or he saw us towing them across the river. Either way, we at least knew that help would be there for them soon.
I thought that we had spent well over an hour with these folks. Clark said no - just a half hour. "If so", I said, "that was the longest half hour of my life!" Clark checked his ship's log and saw that it had been about one hour of time we spent bobbing with them on the Hudson. It felt even longer!
Since we lost that hour of precious travel time assisting these people (I hesitate to call them boaters.), we decided we had no choice but to find a place to stay for the night. Clark had selected a place in case we decided we could not make it all the way to Rumson. We stopped at the Shattemuc Yacht Club where they offered an MTOA discount.
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| Approaching Shattemuc Yacht Club |
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| View of the Yacht Club with our boat docked at the visitor's dock |
We noticed as we approached the yacht club that the skies were darkening in preparation for a rain storm. We got some lightening and eventually rain. Afterwards we got a nice sunset show.
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