BARRINGTON, RI

Well, we’ve been in Barrington, RI for a few days now. The trip up from Connecticut was fairly uneventful, except it was really cold and windy. The wind stayed from the north and most of the coastline was direct east-west, so we hugged the coast and were pretty much in the lee of the land to reduce the wave height. We got to Barrington Yacht Club in the early afternoon, got into our assigned slip, then found out there was no water or electricity on that dock. We went to the fuel dock to wash all of the salt off of the boat and left it there until the evening when the Assistant Manager showed up and said we could’t stay there overnight, but he had another slip available. The other slip was pretty shallow, but it would be OK for our shallow-draft boat, even with it being low tide at the time. We moved the boat and were about half way into the slip when the starboard prop hit a rock. We got the boat tied up and I got out my mask & snorkel and took a look at the prop. It appeared to be relatively minor damage with a few small nicks on the edge of the blades. However, it will need to be repaired before we continue very far.

The Yacht Club took no responsibility, accountability or liability for putting us in a slip with a rock less than two feet underwater. This was a brand new slip, and it had not had any boat in it before ours. Their view was that since I was operating the boat, I was responsible for hitting their rock. They have, basically, been real jerks about this whole thing. Although they advertise that they accept transient boats for short-term dockage, they do not have the facilities, the staff or the management skill to run a marina - they are a Yacht Club, and I have unfortunately found out their limitations in docking anyone other than members.

This happened on the first day of a three-day weekend, so I have to wait until Tuesday AM to start making arrangements for a repair. The prop will have to be pulled off and taken to a prop shop, repaired, then re-installed. It could be pulled either by hauling the whole boat out of the water at a boatyard, or by hiring a diver to do it while the boat is in the water (this is actually something I used to do when I was a commercial diver, but I don’t have the equipment to do it now). I’ll have to see which will be 1) quicker and 2) less expensive. I then have to decide where to have the repair done. There is a shop nearby, but the shop where these props came from is about 50 miles away, and they are the experts. If they are available to work on them I might rent a car and drive them up to Salem, MA.

I did tie up the boat securely to the dock, started the engine, ran it in gear and there was no vibration, so I am comfortable with the idea of moving the boat under its own power to a boatyard, if needed.

In the meantime, we have been having some very nice times with Stephen & Demetria Carr who live only a mile or so away from the Yacht Club. Stephen & I went to medical school together & I was his best man when he married Demetria 35 years ago. The only good thing about this incident is that we will be here a bit longer to visit with them.