It's Not My Fault!

Something broke. Something that sort of surprised me that it could break. My boss felt the same way when I called him.

This is what the low water line (LWL) roller should look like.

So a plate on top, a plate on bottom (that you can't really see because of the water weeds), two rollers inside, and the LWL moves through it. Basically, as the boat goes across the river, the LWL, which sits underwater, is picked up and moved through these rollers. There's a secondary set, so these are on outer edges of the boat.

This is what the other one looked like this afternoon:

Do you see that? We're talking quarter inch steel plate here. The LWL broke through it. That's craziness!

I discovered this when I landed on the east side, and had one of the worst landings I've ever done. Slid super far over, landed really hard, had very little control, skidded over a bunch of rocks. When the people in the two cars looked over, a bit scared (I hit super hard, the whole boat rattled), I just smiled, like, "oh yeah, every landing is like this!"

So now the boat drives all wonky. The landings on the east side are crap now, I slide way far up the ramp, hull out (slam into the ramp with the hull), it's just a mess. I've figured out how to land for the most part, but it's messy and complicated.

Since I'm sure none of the logistics makes sense, here's a graphic. The LWL is the underwater cable. It's usually pretty loose, but really helps at the landings. When the boat is mid-river, it helps to keep the boat straight.

So the roller on the far right (east) side broke off. It's amazing to me how many things it changes. Basically it's just a royal pain.

The boss is going to come down first thing in the morning, he wants to see the problem and see how it affects the boat. I'm guessing the welding crew and welding truck will spend most of the day on the boat tomorrow. Which means intermittent closures, big noises, and epic levels of boredom (cause it's not like I can weld!).

The only sliver lining is that I really can't see a way that this was my fault! I think the part just broke. So even though the boat broke on my watch, I didn't break the boat!