The Broken Gunnel Award is sponsored by the Finger Lakes Chapter in recognition of a humorous mishap… like the one John Davenport experienced while on a cruise at Table Rock Lake!
After missing the Heartland Classics event at Table Rock in Branson, Missouri the last couple of years it was on our list for 2024.
During the long cruise on the first cruising day, 50 miles one way, we took on two very lucky passengers, Buddy and Shari Butler because their boat was having mechanical issues at the dock (the irony!). On the return leg of the cruise, at one of the stops, I had slowed our boat, a 1961, Owens, 25-foot SeaSkiff, to prepare to dock when the the shift cable broke internally. The boat was now stuck in forward so I had to kill the engine to slow our progress in the dock area.
I raised the floor access and Buddy climbed down into the hold to manually shift the transmission using the attached lever. He would follow my instructions….Forward…Reverse, Reverse! For the rest of the weekend and on the subsequent cruises this was how we did the docking. Buddy would climb down and manually shift the transmission. Hence his new nickname “Shifty”.
After returning home I made a FaceBook post to the Heartland group regarding this issue, falsely stating that I was having difficulty finding a replacement cable but I had found a summer back up plan. For the subsequent Heartland events, I was going to put a seat in the hold with a pillow and provide food and bottle of water for Buddy. Of course, I would also provide a radio and light for when we had to close the floor while underway so that Buddy could continue doing the shifting, or so I stated…HA!
Fortunately for Buddy, I was able to source a cable and make the next event with our boat. Though, I did notice that all the boats kept their distance from us…Ha! Buddy was a good sport about it when all the kidding started too.