Boat Float Test: Successes and a Near Crash

It was our six-year wedding anniversary and, despite a windy forecast, we chose to mark the occasion by test driving our 1981 Carver Santa Cruz – her first time on water in over 10 years. As we sat on the flybridge in the middle of the lake, sun shining, breeze blowing, and no other boats in any direction, it felt every bit as momentous as I imagined. Cheers to a new chapter of life at sea!

The celebration quickly took a turn as we approached the boat landing and the engine died. 

Completely at the mercy of a strong southwest wind and two-foot waves, we scrambled to find a fix as we floated down shore: No luck restoring engine power. The trolling motor couldn’t make headway back toward the boat landing. The anchor only slightly slowed our inevitable meeting of shore…

Needless to say, it was a day of ups, downs, and important lessons learned in the process. 

What went well?

I’ll get into more details about what went wrong, but let’s start with the positives. This experience brought good news in various forms. 

Most importantly: She floats!

When we bought the boat in 2020, she had been sitting on a trailer with flat tires in the previous owners’ yard for several years. There was strong potential for a leak.

Those fears were soon dispelled as we hopped on board and navigated away from the dock and into the lake. Every so often we’d check the bilge and only found a small amount of water at the bottom. Something to look into, but not a grave concern. 

Stability

Comments from the previous owner and online forums suggested this Santa Cruz model can feel tippy, especially from the flybridge. Even with the wind creating white caps on the lake and both of us sitting on top, it felt extremely stable. 

Steering

The boat has helms inside the cabin and on the flybridge. Both steering wheels worked well and it was easy to move from one to the other.

Truck power

Technically our 2014 Chevy Silverado has a high enough tow-rating, but it isn’t our first choice of vehicle to pull a boat weighing 5,500+ pounds. It handled the short journey to and from the lake, plus the steep decline and incline at the boat landing, with no issue. We still hope to upgrade to a heavy duty series truck in the future.

What could have gone better?

The loss of power was most significant, but there were some other observations and experiences that cannot be described as smooth sailing. 

Trailer functionality

Being our first time taking the boat to water, this was also our first time testing the trailer. It worked, but not exactly seamlessly. We need to add a strap to keep the rollers from rotating down and a winch to crank the boat onto the trailer. It also needs lights and a license plate. 

Loose shifting

Brett thought shifting felt loose from both helms and it might help to tighten or adjust the shift cables. 

Power loss and a near crash

Back to that moment when the engine died as Brett was shifting toward the dock. He tried to restart from the flybridge and then the cabin, but the motor wouldn’t make a sound.

As he connected jumper cables to the battery, the wind started taking us down shore well past the boat landing. My worries grew as the jump start was no use and we continued to drift. He hooked up a trolling motor that we brought along “just in case,” but there wasn’t enough power to keep us from eventually meeting shore, let alone bring us back to where we needed to be. 

After eating up precious minutes untangling rope (more on that soon), we dropped anchor and it helped slow us down as we neared land and – by some stroke of luck or good karma – pushed off a lake homeowner’s boat lift and landed against an open dock. 

I jumped out and held the boat against the pier while Brett troubleshot what the heck went wrong. He found a slightly loose connection of the battery post clamp on the positive end. Maybe it came loose while driving? Following a diagram from the previous owner detailing how to hook up two batteries, the engine eventually roared to life and we were back on our merry way – almost a mile from where we started. Crisis averted. 

Anchor rope mess

Amidst the chaos, Brett asked me to hand him the anchor from under the bow. I did as instructed, but what should’ve been a quick drop off the side of the boat turned into a frustrating ordeal of us untangling the connecting rope. The task took at least 10 minutes – time we didn’t have to waste.

This was a good lesson that having an anchor isn’t necessarily enough. It needs to be ready to throw overboard in a pinch. It also would’ve been helpful to have a second anchor or one that could better perform on a sandy bottom. 

What are our next steps?

The to-do list feels endless. Here are some of the items that came out of the test-run:

• Find the source of water in the bilge. Hose clamps? Drain plug? Please share if you have any ideas of where to pinpoint the leak. 
• Tighten or bolt down the bow railing. We realized the railing was slightly loose when I grabbed on for dear life after jumping from the dock to the bow a few seconds late. 
• Tighten or adjust shift cables. As mentioned, something doesn’t seem quite right with shifting. Let us know if you have any suggestions. 
• Amend the trailer. Order a winch and install lights, a license plate, and a strap to keep the rollers from rotating down.
• Install a kicker motor! Our tribulations could’ve been avoided completely had there been a backup motor. Perhaps this was a way for the universe to demonstrate how the kicker motor we’re waiting to arrive will be worth every penny. It should arrive in a few weeks. 

A lake cruise plus problem solving and team building… Now you know just how memorable our six-year anniversary was. I can only imagine what the next year will bring!

Video highlights

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