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Algonac Brunch Cruise

Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2016 5:37 pm
by quitchabitchin
Here's a little video from the brunch cruise on Sunday morning at Algonac. The cruise takes you to a beautiful location called The Old Club on Harsen's Island. The setting couldn't be more picturesque and the water couldn't be a more beautiful color. If you've never been to the area, I strongly you suggest you check it out.

https://youtu.be/Ly7wI5zqtPI

Re: Algonac Brunch Cruise

Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2016 6:07 pm
by mfine
Thanks! I almost made it this year on our way back from a trip to Illinois, but we had to get home on Friday night. It is definitely on my list.

Re: Algonac Brunch Cruise

Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2016 10:16 pm
by quitchabitchin
You should do it, but bring the big boat. Your jet boat will get beat to death like mine did. The lake is extremely rough and built for big water boats. Saturday afternoon looked like the Bering Sea on Deadliest Catch. This video was early Sunday morning and it was still pretty rough, look at the rollers coming in as we're leaving The Old Club at the end of the video.

Re: Algonac Brunch Cruise

Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2016 6:42 am
by mfine
Oh yeah I hear that. Two things Squirt cannot handle well are big water with waves or boat wakes and going slow in no wake zones in canals. I'll let the wife know that we should buy another boat for that trip.

Re: Algonac Brunch Cruise

Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2016 7:27 am
by Bob B
MFine..."buy another boat for that trip."

Ah, the thought process of a Master at work!

Re: Algonac Brunch Cruise

Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2016 8:05 pm
by evansjw44
Lake St Clair can get really nasty. A 15 MPH blow from the south just piles up the surf up around the north end and river around the Old Club and Muscamoot bay. The whole area isn't friendly to small runabouts. I had a 24ft Hacker years ago and even with it length it was a "chose the day" sort of boat. But the 30ft Sea Skiff I ahd and the 35ft Sea Skiff I have handle the lake just fine. I cross the lake to my home port in my 35 skiff with a 30 mph south blow and 6 - 7 ft seas and still made 14 MPH.

Re: Algonac Brunch Cruise

Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2016 5:13 am
by tkhersom
Nice video Andy!

Gotta love the way those ski boats accelerate. :D

Doesn't look like you ever left the water, can't be too rough.

Re: Algonac Brunch Cruise

Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2016 3:13 pm
by Chad Durren
Cool video, Andy. Thanks for sharing.
Has me a little excited as we share the same engine and cam. Hopefully, mine will sound as mean as yours.

Re: Algonac Brunch Cruise

Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2016 7:20 pm
by quitchabitchin
I was a little upset before the trip to Algonac. After messing around with the boat for almost a week, I couldn't get it to run quite right. It would run okay if I feathered the throttle, but still maxed out around 3000 RPM. I had it narrowed down to ignition, but was starting to worry about the cam and if I hadn't broken it in correctly, if it had too much duration and wasn't building cylinder pressure, all kinds of thoughts went through my head. In a sort of last ditch effort, my brother in law called Earl Stinson at Marine Sales in Harrison Twp., MI.

Earl's been around for the better part of a century and has forgotten more about these engines than most of us will ever know. He was very familiar with the Q and said he's rebuilt his fair share of distributors over the years when they act like mine was. For reference, the Q distributor is an oddball, it's about 1 1/4" shorter than a standard SBC distributor. He said he could rebuild it in an hour or so. Friday morning, before the lunch cruise, we pulled into Earl's place just as he was coming in, around 9:30-10:00. The lunch cruise starts at 12:00 and it's 4045 minutes away by car. We discuss the options and pull the distributor in the parking lot and bring it in for disassembly. We run short on time and need to decide whether to skip the lunch cruise, or leave the boat and come back in the afternoon. We drop the boat and ask Earl if he can reassemble it and set the timing before we pick it up later. He says no problem but gives us a pretty hard deadline on when to be back. I message Shannon Knight to see if she has room for two on their boat for the lunch cruise. She does, so we hightail it to the Harbor just in time to hop in and leave. We had a blast riding in their XK19 for the first time. They decided to go to Jobbie Nooner(that's a whole different topic), so we hitched a ride back in Puff, Jay Elliott's 1956 25' Express Cruiser, which was awesome.

We talked to Earl and he said hurry up, he's getting ready to leave but the boat is ready. He found the springs and bushings worn out and replaced them and the gear. He ran it on the hose and set the timing. His bill was more than fair and worth every penny. We drove straight to the ramp and backed down. I was still a little apprehensive of the situation since I'd tried just about everything earlier in the week. I told Ryan that I would make a loop out in front of the launch ramp and see how she ran, if I headed for the harbor, drop the trailer and meet me there. I started it and it sounded good, which it always did when not under a load. I backed it off the trailer and headed out. Idle was good and it sounded great, so after passing the No Wake buoy, I hammered it and it took off like a bat of hell. I didn't even do a loop, I knew right away that all was right with the world again. I couldn't have been more excited and entered the harbor just in time for the Welcome Dinner Event. We took a ride later that night and got to really open it up and it ran great the rest of the weekend.

That was a long winded way of saying that I think that cam is 100% right for the boat and I am stoked about how she runs! I can't wait to see your Commander Chad, what's the progress anyway? We need an update.