The Boat Eating Bridge

by Richard Baker

Right after the Grand Excursion in 2004 I started to write this story, but then I changed my mind. Maybe it was still too painfully fresh in my mind, I don’t know. Any way, since I wrote the story mentioning Savanna Illinois, I decided it’s time to tell this tale.
It begins on in the Quad Cities, the starting point for the Grand Excursion. Our boat, the first Just Because was a single engine 29’ Sea Ray Sundancer. My wife Cindy Parisi, David Conrad and I were the crew. We were assigned to escort the Julia Belle Swain as she participated in the Grand Excursion. There had been a lot of rain that year, and the river was fast; I had done a test early on with my GPS and found that the current was around 4 ½ miles per hour, which is very swift. It took 2500 rpm to keep the boat in place. Our duty as an escort vessel was to stay close to the Julia Belle Swain whenever she went out; the point was too keep other boats away from the sternwheeler, since they tend to have very limited maneuverability. Keeping close but not too close proved to be troublesome to say the least; Julia moved at around 5-7 mph. It meant that I had to constantly shift in and out of gear to maintain position. We went out several times per day as the sternwheelers all took passengers out for trips over the first two days. Finally, we began the trip to points north.
Our fist stop was to be Savanna Illinois, which was about 58 miles north. If you have ever traveled 58 miles at slow-no-wake speed in an express cruiser style boat, I pity you very much, for it is a long and painful process. But eventually we made it. Our first stop was at the gas dock, where the Bruce the marina manager told us about a boat that had big trouble a couple of days earlier. The marina is on a channel off the main river, and of course now the current was practically roaring through. A pontoon boat had lost power, and the current grabbed the boat and sent it downstream towards a very low railroad bridge about 100 yards past the marina. The boat tuned sideways as it hit the bridge, and the force of the current against the pontoons caused the boat to roll under the bridge. The crew scrambled out onto the bridge as the boat sank. He cautioned us not to let such a thing happen to us.
That night, the Julia had a cruise scheduled for 9:30, so, little as we wanted to go for another boat ride at that ridiculous time of night, we dutifully headed out to the river. The trip was to go north under the Bridge to the first buoy, turn south and go to the railroad bridge above Sabula, then back to the marina. It was maybe 12 miles, around two hours. The Julia has made her turn to the south, now it’s our turn. It was so dark I almost hit the buoy as I swung to the south. Now we’re thinking this isn’t fun; and with all of the junk floating in the high water, that we couldn’t see, it surely isn’t safe; and since no one was going to harass the Julia, we decided to head back. I let Cindy and David off at the gas dock so they could go to our slip and catch the boat. The lights were out at the marina because of the bugs, so Cindy and David headed off in the dark. My usual method in this marina is to go downstream past our slip and turn 180 degrees so I could back in with my bow into the current. I turn towards the far bank; when I run out of room I put it in reverse and turn the wheel the other way; when I’m pointing back to mid channel, it’s back into forward. Except this time, there was no forward. I move the lever back and forth, nothing happens. Nada. No go. Oh oh. So now, the current has caught the front of the boat and my turn is being completed without my permission. I was thinking “I’ll be dipped if that lousy bridge is going to get my boat. My wife was thinking, why I was screwing around at such an inopportune moment and yelled out “what the heck are you doing?” as I scrambled out onto the bow; I informed her that I had no forward gear. Now, they start running, in the total darkness, towards the dock closest to me. At this marina the end of the fingers have tall posts; I lean over the bow rail and grab at the first one as I pass but I can’t catch it. Lucky there was a shorter boat in there, or I would have hit it. The next one I catch. Now picture this- my bow rail is passing across my waist, I have my arms wrapped around my favorite post, and the current is trying to take my 10,000 lb boat away from me and give it to the boat eating bridge. Finally the troops arrive. By sheer luck, I have grabbed a post right next to the only other empty slip in the marina; we call it close enough and finally wrestle the boat into its berth.
I figured the problem was a broken shift cable, but it turned out to be a broken coupler. The stress of shifting in and out of gear roughly 1000 times in 4 days had been too much for it. We called Our Leader Jim Pahl-Washa who was organizing things in Dubuque in preparation for the fleet’s arrival there. He sent Frank Washa down to get us. Back to Dubuque to get the truck and trailer, then back to Savanna to get the boat.
And the Julia Belle Swain- did she make it without us? Turns out, about the time I’m hugging my post, some drunks in a fishing boat start throwing beer bottles at the sternwheeler; the crew turned the fire hoses on them to get them to leave.
So what’s the lesson here? Always be ready for when Murphy stops by. Bad things can happen so fast you won’t even believe it. Be like a Boy Scout and be prepared. And don’t pick on Julia.

See you on the River.


This article originally appeared in the December 2007 edition of Harbor Lights, a publication of the Madison Sail and Power Squadron. Copyright 2007 Richard Baker