Saturday the 13th was a disaster. I was on an unfamiliar lake cruising to a destination via plotter as usual doing About 8 knots when I see a blue coloured shallow area coming up on the map. No problem, says 6'8" on the chart. So I continue on, crunch and crunch again and again. WTF, pulled back to neutral at the first sound, was in 2' of water on a rock shoal. Boat was stuck there held in place by the props. Had my wife and guests move to the bow as I lifted the swim platform while standing in the water trying to get her free which I managed to do. Jumped in fired her up and put her in gear, squeal, squeak from port and a nice vibration happening.

We carried on to our destination which was 10 mins away and anchored with friends. Checked his plotter only to find out the shoal is well identified and marked as 1"3" WTF.

Next day we inched towards home which took us over 12hrs and 2 seaway locks. Managed to get a hold of my mechanic who will work on evaluation and parts. Contacted my haul out guy who met us there as we pulled in at 8PM last evening who hauled us into a large storage facility.

I had no clue what to expect as I was hoping the rudders were still in place. Bottom line is it is bad but there seems to be no structural fibreglass damage. Forget the props, they are toast, struts are bent about 30 degrees along with the shafts. Definitely some work to do.

So what happened, how can I get grounded with a lifetime of experience behind the helm? Needless to say I worked on all the setting of my plotter on the 12+ hour trip back. Noticed many if not all all the lest than 3' depth figures were missing on my main plotter but not my small plotter. How can this be. They large plotter is the master and the small one is the slave which get there chart information from a single card in the Master plotter. I checked all setting comparing each one, everything was perfect yet no shallow figures on the chart. As a last resort I did a factory reset of the main plotter. Guess what, all the little numbers now show up.

I am the type who does not claim insurance however this on is going to get pricey and this is why we have insurance, just hoping parts are readily available. Did luck out with my mechanic as he returned from vacation yesterday.

Hoping to be out for only a couple of weeks but who knows. Am heading there this morning to pull props and set things up for the mechanic. Will post some pictures of the damage.