Saturday, February 19th I drove down to the boat yard to see if I could get Lil Provo home. When I arrived all the snow and ice were gone. She was on her trailer at the top of the lot. I proceeded home and called Blue to advise him that Sunday would be the day. Sunday morning we drove down to the shore to pick up Lil Provo. We hooked her up to our hitch and pulled her out of her spot. We climbed on board to make sure everything was tightened down for the trip home. I open the cabin to see there was 4" of water inside. I knew this was adding a lot of weight to the trailer so I pulled out the hand pump and started pumping. I eventually had to switch off to Blue and let him do some pumping. I tried to use the bilge pump, but it was frozen in ice. After about a half hour we got the water level down to the sole level. The bilge was still full. I thought that would be enough reduction in weight for the trip home. It kind of pissed me off that the guys in the boat yard would park a boat with the nose down. Nobody said the workers were the sharpest pencils in the tin. We had to travel on major highways to get her home. On the way back a guy was pointing at our trailer and trying to say something. We couldn't figure out what it was he was trying to tell us, all tie downs looked taught and things seemed okay. When we pulled off the highway I noticed a cloud of white smoke coming from the tires, but they were full of air. I travel a little further down the street and saw another puff of smoke. I pulled into a school lot and got out to check on the trailer. Everything seemed fine, except the tires were rubbing on the trailer frame. The axle was bending due to the heavy load and rust! We only had a couple more miles to go and we figured we would give it a try. We arrived at my home and parked the boat in the back yard. Out uneventful trip could have easily been a very memorable trip if the axle had broke through.
I had a chance to inspect the work done to the damage that happened in September. She looked good, could barely see any repair. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! Now to set up my schedule of things to do.
