Headed to Pittsburgh

boatman37

Supposed to head to the point in Pittsburgh next Saturday if the weather cooperates. @Cableguy Greg there is a big boat thing going on the Beaver River Saturday. Supposed to be over 70 boats at Taylor Kay marina. You going? We might go down but probably won't take the boat. Too crowded. It's only about 1/4 mile from our marina. You going to be out next Saturday? I'm guessing we will be anchored somewhere near the point. If you are out look for us and stop by. We will likely be rafted with a red/white 20' deckboat. Boat is named '5 o'clock somewhere' but it's hard to see the name the way our stern is. Here is a pic.

Cableguy Greg

I am out of town this weekend in Illinois. If I was in town, I probably would have been down your way. 

boatman37

There are pics on FB. We might walk down but no way we are gonna try to take our boat down there. They have boats docked perpendicular to the docks like a raft up then on outside of C dock they have boats stacked pretty wide leaving very little room to get by. I'm sure traffic will be hectic there so might just walk down.

If you are near the point next week look for us id the weather is decent. I will let you know for sure if we will be going. I sent you a PM with my cell # a few weeks ago

boatman37

Drove by Taylir Kay yesterday on the way to our marina. Didn't look too crowded. Our marina lot was about 1/2 full but nobody there and most boats were still there so guessing they either piled onto a few boats or they went somewhere else. I do know that 2 of our boats went to South Side marina. It started sprinkling so we decided to go to plan B so went to Ohio to a casino. Yeah, would have been cheaper to stay at the marina...lol

boatman37

Made the trek to Pittsburgh yesterday. Initially there were 3 boats in our group. Went through 2 locks and anchored beside Heinz Field for a bit. It was pretty crowded with boats. Only thing I really noticed was a fishing boat (Ranger style) that came flying through the no wake area around the point up on plane at about 25-30 MPH. He was about 200' away from us but he was weaving in and out of anchored boats so I'm sure they were yelling at him. We ended up with 5 of us rafted up together.

Locks were easy to navigate. Boat ran absolutely perfect. Had 4 of us and a big cooler. Cruised about 28 MPH at about 3800-4200 RPM the whole way. Temps never went over 175. Had to wait about 20 minutes or so a couple of times waiting for locks. Boat idled fine the whole time. I bought a new carb from flyingfish carbs a couple of months ago. On the way back we were by ourselves coming through locks. The other boats were still anchored when we left.

Only issue we had was with the outdrive feeling like it was slipping but I'll add more to that in the other thread that has been running.

In the end glad we did it but the temps were about 91* and I heard they said the 'feel like' temps were 104*. I'm not  little guy and I was sweating like crazy and any physical movement made breathing hard. Next time we will pick a day a little cooler and leave earlier in the day.

We left about 12:30PM and got back about 7:30. Travel time was about 5 hours for the ~40-45 mile round trip journey. I think I set a trip tracker in my onboard GPS but didn't have time to check it. It was starting to lightning when we got back so we closed up and left. We got to the point at about 3:00 so the trip down was 2.5 hours. I think we left there about a little before 5:00 so about 2.5 hours back as well.

On the irony side of the story our old dock neighbors from last year bought a newer deck boat last week and said they wanted to go with us. They had never been through locks before either. So turns out my mother knows his parents and grew up close to him and my step-father had bought NASCAR tickets from him for several years....lol. They made it back by themselves later than us.

Cableguy Greg

Glad to hear that you had a good trip. I had to run from the North Hills to Washington, PA for work and I drove through town. I saw all of the boats at the point and was wishing that I was there instead of being at work. Some friends of mine were out and they said it was beautiful, until the storm blew through. You made good time. You must have hit the two locks just right. Next time you make the trek, hit me up. We are usually on the water somewhere, just not this weekend since I was on call for work.

boatman37

Might be awhile. I was told they are closing down the big chamber at Emsworth so all commercial traffic will be going through the small chamber. Heard that any rec boats will be waiting quite awhile to get through. We didn't see any bad weather. There was a fireworks show on the Beaver River just down from our marina so we couldn't tell if it was lightning or fireworks...lol. We left the boat at about 10:00 and it was still clear there but definitely thunder and lightning.

On the way there we waited at Dashields about 15 minutes then maybe 30 minutes at Emsworth. On the way back had to wait at Emsworth about 20 minutes then at Dashields about 10-15 minutes. We were the only boat both times on the way back. On the way up we had 3 of us in the Dashields lock and 4 in the Emsworth lock.

Wife did some Facebook live video of our trip but I don't think I can save that and post it elsewhere?

boatman37

Oh, and surprisingly I don't think I used much fuel. I was expecting to use about 35 gallon or so. I filled it up Friday night. I have a 75ngallon tank and it took 38.5 to fill it. My gauge read between 1/2 and 3/4 sitting still. I was figuring I'd be at about the same spot when we got back but it's barely below full. Going to try to fill it back up before we take it out again to get an exact reading but the trip was about 45 miles round trip. I'd guess I burn about 8 gallons/hour on plane or about 2 MPG, which still equates to about 22 gallons and had about 3 hours of idle time. Boat is a 2006 5.7 merc B3 weighed about 9000lbs as it sat that day with us in it.  

boatman37

Here are some pics from our trip to Pittsburgh last Saturday.

We are in front of this boat heading into the lock

Headed out of the lock

The point

Skyline

Headed home

boatman37

Made it to the boat today. When we got back that night we had to get home to tie our dog out and by the time we got back down there to clean up and put the cover on it was thundering and lightning so we did a real quick job in the dark. Went down today and did some more cleanup and I checked the GPS for trip data. Water was a little high and pretty dirty from the rain the last few days so we came back home but here is a shot of the GPS. Just under 52 miles round trip with 4 hours of moving time, max speed was 30.6 MPH, cruise time was about 4 hours. We left the engine running the whole time except while we were anchored by Heinz Field. We idled about 90 minutes or so while waiting to get in the locks and left it idling while we were in the locks. Heard that was a no-no but everyone else was leaving theirs run too.

Talked to a guy at our marina today that has a Four Winns 248 with a BB that said he uses about 25-30 gallons of fuel for that trip. We have the small block (5.7) but our boat weighs a little more so will be interesting to see how much we used. Plan to top it off again next week to get an exact measurement.

Liberty44140

Nice! Looks like yinz had a good time!!!