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It's been probably a year since I've been active in the forums... excuse my tardiness but I've been extremely busy in life and not enough with things that matter (like my mahogany ladies!). For those who were following my threads on the 1950 42' DCFB complete rebuild - she is still coming along but as always, became more involved than originally anticipated. Hopefully she'll be done by fall of this year. I also still have my 1961 32' Connie which I have the starboard side off of to replank before I sell her. Makes for a great treefort for my little nephews until then
.I decided to move full time onto a boat this year come hell or high water. With my DCFB not going to be ready, I began searching around for a new acquisition. While I 'toyed' with the idea of picking up my boatrights 1966 44' Pacemaker (it's immaculate and still for sale!) I opted to purchase a 1960 45' Constellation on Lake Huron. I began looking at her in March or April and after initial inspection, I put down a deposit until the put in date which was May 13 or 14. The boat came with a survey from 2007 which was pretty decent (though I later learned of a 2nd survey which would've seen this entire story not occur).
Trapped by a combination of events including learning of a faulty exhaust manifold, the biggest water spout I ever hope to see in my life...
...and days of thick fog - I wound up living aboard her in Port Elgin, ON for three weeks (a beautiful town if you get to go - tell Peter or the lovely Katie I sent you!). I order my new manifold from Robert Henkel and kept it aboard deciding not to install it until it was necessary. Despite being told that the gas in both tanks was fresh from the previous fall - I also learned on a sea trial that the starboard tank was a combination of jelly and water. Sadly, the nearest company who would touch my situation was about 3hrs away and wanted more than $2000 to pump the tank. I made the decision to fill the port tank with new clean fuel, water remover and some octane booster then run both engines from the one tank.
On June 1st we decided to make the journey. It was a bit of a windy day but the weather wasn't getting better. We spent about 5hrs trekking our way up the eastern shores of Lake Huron sitting atop large rollers in 45-60km/h winds. While it was a bit of a white-knuckler - the ship (branded Wood Works but my name was 'Temporary Solution') held strong until the weather subsided on the North Western gap of the Bruce Peninsula. We arrived in Tobermory, ON where we stayed for 2-nights enjoying many a pint at the one bar open prior to tourist season. It was here we found someone to pump our starboard tank. On June 3rd after 3hrs of pumping "crap" out of the tank - we pulled up to the fuel dock and I shook my wallet over the tank until full.
The weather was the best I had ever seen in my years of boating. Large open waters that were like glass. Pushing 13-15 knots at a comfortable 2500rpms on both engines, we discovered Flower Pot and Bears' Rump Islands - both fantastic sights if you get the opportunity to see them.
It wasn't a long journey, but 3 or 4hrs after departing Tobermory we arrived in Lion's Head, Ontario... Our plan was simply to top up our tanks so that we could begin the trek across the mighty Georgian Bay. Little did I know that this port would be the last port my new love would ever see.
Pulling up to the fuel dock we quickly realized that the marina was closed. We were getting close to accepting that we'd be over-nighting here when a man who saw us in Tobermory waved to us as he was opening up the marina office. We told him we were after gas and while he didn't work there (he had in the past) he said he could help us out. "Great! Our journey is going to continue!", I thought.
We filled up the boat as I shook my wallet over the gas tanks for the 2nd time in a day then I turned on the blower motors and we walked away for 40-minutes to admire the awe-inspiring scenery and see all the prom kids getting their photos taken by the last manned light house on the entire Great Lakes System.
Once aboard my 1st Mate and I spent 15-20 minutes charting our next course. Our goal was to head East across Georgian Bay to the Trent Canal but we knew light wasn't on our side so we found a harbour on the map that was on the main waters (for those familiar with the area - you would be insane to navigate the head waters at dark).
What happened next is still un-explainable. I turned the starboard key and I don't honestly recall if it even turned over. My fleeting thought at the moment was "did running the blower for close to an hour drain the banks enough to not crank the engines?" - we had not been connected to shore power, but regardless - I dismissed this thought as soon as I had it. Reaching over - I then turned the port engine key. One or two clicks and in a millisecond - shaking houses up to 5-kilometres away - my poor baby exploded with a thunderous BANG!
It was the most terrifying and awesome experience I hope no one else ever has to go through. Though it happened so incredibly quick - my entire world stood still and I can only draw the analogy of the Matrix films, where suddenly time stops. I felt like I could reach out and grab any piece of debris - study it - then replace it at my own leisure. All while I was crossing my arms and turning to my right just as the Salon window to the helm came at me in an entire sheet. The fireball followed closely behind and I attribute the sheet of glass to deflecting the fireball so that neither my cousin nor I were scorched.
The next thing I remember was that I was at the very back of the aft deck on my stomach. I opened my eyes to see the same terrified look in my cousins' face as he opened his. With the vessel now listing greatly to port side, I looked into him and yelled "JUMP DERRICK - RUN RUN RUN". I have absolutely no recollection of actually getting off the boat... although we would have had to have jumped down 6-7 ft. to the gas dock then run up a 30' steel ramp to the parking lot. My next memory was being on land and screaming for everyone to run away from it (knowing we had 1200-1400 litres of fuel on board and we were parked beside the fuel docks).
A secondary explosion did occur which I later attributed to a small propane cylinder for the barbecue going up.
The entire marina population as well as several cottages nearby were evacuated as the volunteer fire department took control of the situation. You can read more about that here (article inaccuracies: the boat sank in 20' of water, not 40' - and at no time did any gas tank explode):
http://www.owensoundsuntimes.com/Articl ... &e=3156188
While our physical injuries were minor - I'm sure the mental trauma will last for years to come. We are both safe boaters with years of experience on the water... my 1st Mate also being an Auxiliary Coast Guard member just west of Toronto, ON.
The following day in the late afternoon, my baby was raised from the waters of Georgian Bay to the eyes of hundreds of onlookers after a 7hr effort by several people. It was extremely painful to watch her come up then be loaded on a trailer and towed to the local dump - but I stood watching hoping it would help my own healing process.
We still don't have a cause as to what happened as the government is investigating which could mean several months. Obviously people speculate about this and that - but I'm not speculating at all... just looking forward to reading the final report.
Aside from being in the market for a new ship (ideally in the Toronto area)... my main purpose of posting aside from entertainment purposes is this (not to draw any inferences from anything): for those of us selling a vessel - please do the absolute right thing by giving full disclosure on the boat. Obviously everyone wants to make their money - but money is not worth life and/or limb - yours or your potential buyer. Aside from the second survey mentioned above, I've since learned other things about this ship (post-disaster) that would've seen me not buy her in the first place and although my cousin and I are (thankfully) alive and not very physically messed-up by this tragedy the fact is we could have been. We could have been very very badly injured or killed. Full disclosure (at least in Ontario/Canada) is required BY LAW and failure to do so is a chargeable criminal offence. I hope that by people reading this, if one person is honest about their vessel to a potential buyer and it saves a life - then none of this is in vein.
Here's the last video of us pulling into Lion's Head. Also the last video of this boat in it's former glory ever. My cousin was at the helm and his final docking of this lady was impeccable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3e1xLl-3y9A
Happy and SAFE boating to all my friends and everyone else on the Chris Craft Forums. I'll be spending some time now working on my '61 32' Connie and hopefully even more time on my '50 42' DCFB for therapy
.Best,
Jeremy Campbell
