Some work still remained, but it was all stuff in which I was confident of success. I added some support pieces to shore up what remains of the tubing, and I installed the hatch to cover the 4-inch hole I had to cut in the back deck. Finally, I adjusted the new lines to calibrate the rudder's response to the pedals the way I like. After all the grief and anguish this project has put me through for the last several weeks, the V10L doesn't look half bad:
In this photo you can't even see where I cut that hole in the back deck because the hatch I installed there is white just like the boat. And even close-up it doesn't look bad, because, well... I did a nice neat job of installing it:
The more I think about it, the more I sort of wish the hatch were some wild off-the-wall color--hot pink, day-glo orange, something like that. You know, just to raise the fun factor a little. Oh well, what's important is that I can use this boat again.
Turns out it's a very good thing that boat is back in service, because on Tuesday morning I went down to the river and discovered that the V10 Sport that's been stored there had sustained some damage. In the early hours of Monday morning a thunderstorm moved through here with some strong winds, and apparently the boat got blown off its rack. When I got to the dock Tuesday somebody had kindly replaced the boat on the rack and re-tied one of the tiedowns, which I guess had slipped off the rack's crossbar (or, maybe, I had forgotten to tie it--I've been known to do that once in a while). Anyway, it was clear that the stern had come down hard on the marina deck because there was a crack across the hull just aft of the rudder:
Boy... this has been one tough spring for my three surfskis. And it all started because I thought it was a good idea to change out the rudder lines. Oy.
At least the damage wasn't so bad that I couldn't paddle the boat. I paddled to the mouth of the harbor and saw some barge traffic out on the river. There was a rig coming downstream right then that was producing some unusually nice waves for a down-bound vessel. I paddled out and hopped on several; the rides were brief but fun. The waves were moving at weird angles because the pilot was swinging his stern around to line up the barges to pass beneath the Harahan and Frisco and Memphis-Arkansas Bridges.
Because the rig was zooming on down it wasn't long before the good stuff had left me behind, but an upstream-moving rig was emerging from under the Harahan Bridge, so I moved over to do some surfing behind it. I hopped off the "down" elevator and boarded the "up" one, as it were.
This up-bound vessel was generating the best surfing conditions I've seen behind a barge rig since this day four years ago. I had to sprint hard for each run, but once I got on one the ride lasted a long time. The waves were the perfect shape. They were wandering right and left some, as barge wakes often do, but they weren't wandering that far. When I felt the wave I was surfing on start to peter out, I often was able to link onto another one a short distance to the right or left. At times I was flying... at least as much as one can fly while moving against the current of the Mississippi River. That was the sensation as the beautiful brown water rushed past me.
This rig, too, was hurrying on its way. Those pilots must have taken Memorial Day off and were making up for lost time. But I got to do some of the best surfing I'd seen in a long time and headed back toward the harbor with a smile. Will it be just once every four years that I find barge wakes this good? Maybe so, but I'll take whatever I can get.
As I paddled up the harbor back to the dock the boat seemed heavy, and I suspected that some water must be getting in through that crack in the stern. On the dock I drained out maybe a half-gallon. So just as I had finished one boat-repair job, I found myself with another.
This morning I took the newly-repaired V10L down to the river. After several weeks of paddling the much-more-stable V10 Sport, I was ready for some awkwardness in this boat, but it didn't take long for me to get used to it. The main difference was that I felt like I was sitting a little higher in this boat, but that might be because it has a lower freeboard than the V10 Sport does.
The sun was out, and the air was dry and pleasant with a cool east-northeast breeze blowing. I just paddled a steady 60 minutes. As I paddled back toward the harbor there was another barge rig coming upstream in the same location as the one I'd surfed behind on Tuesday, and I briefly considered taking a detour to surf some more. But I was feeling tired, and I had a lot of work to do back at the shop, so I continued on to the harbor and back to the dock. There will be more barge rigs when I paddle in the future.
I brought the V10 Sport back home with me, and it's now safe and sound in the garage, waiting for me to do some repair on it.
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