It is all fun and games until...

We were having a blast on Labor day, and took some friends out boating (who knew that the Russell Yacht is 40 years old?!) below the dam at a nearby reservoir. I was driving in the middle of the river as we were making our way to the dam (the still waters at the base of the dam are great for knee and wake boarding). As I glanced at the water to my right, I noticed that the seaweed was getting thicker and seaweed generally indicates you are approaching shallows. I figured that there must be some sort of sand bar there in the middle of the river, so I'd just pull farther to the left to avoid running aground. As I steered the vessel left the river went shallow in no time flat, but the worst news was that this was no sand bar. It was the solid rock river bed. In an instant the entire motor/prop was ricocheting off of the large stones below, making a terrible racket. I shut the operation down and went back to inspect the damage. Sure enough, the prop was toast. We limped back to the docks and put the boat back on the trailer. Fortunately, there was no damage to the hull, but there would be no more boating that day. The damage is as follows:



I spent some time researching some propellers online and I think that I found a winner. I'll post some picture of the new prop when I get some time. It is really neat and it solves the problem of running aground by employing a modular design. More pictures to come.