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About 3 weeks ago we were able to finally pick up our new 2021 G23 Paragon and upgraded from the trusty old 2007 Supra 24SSV that we bought new. First off this boat is amazing, in every since of the word, just absolutely outstanding! This was our second weekend out on it and my first time to surf behind it as my wet-suit was delayed in shipping and didn't arrive in time for the first outing. While my family is extremely blessed, sometimes I feel like we are living a Griswold or Ben Stiller movie, and we just have to laugh at the craziness of it all.
So my family has always referred to ourselves as the Griswold family for many reasons/examples, and this weekend was just another good example of why. On Friday I went and bought a new surf board that I have been wanting for a while, rode one last year while demoing a M240 and loved it so thought it was time to go get it.
Saturday afternoon we get ready to get out on the water, and while loading things into the boat we put the new board up on top of the Bimini in the surf board pockets, but the other boards go in the tower racks. We head out of the cove and start to search for good water, but as soon as we exit the cove into the main body (east/west only at this part) there is a 20mph wind from the west so we go check out a couple of different spots. The first one we go to is nice and calm, but pretty short run for what we want and with the lake 2' low we decided against it. As we leave that area there are some huge wind blown rollers coming at us and it was pretty rough getting back to calm waters with us taking lots of COLD spray as we splash through all the crap. We get up to where the lake is now running north/south along the west shore and find some pretty good water to start surfing! I decided to take my first set behind the new boat on the board we rode all last summer as I was familiar with it and wanted a back to back comparison to the new one. So I got in and did I mention it was COLD? 60 degree water temps and about 65-70 degree air, but man what an awesome wave!
After about 7-8 minutes of surfing that board I stopped to ask for the new board, it wasn't there. GONE. The only thing we could think was that when leaving the first place we checked and hitting the big rollers with the spray and the wind, the board must have come loose from the Bimini pocket and the wind got it, with no one noticing as we are all taking cover from the spray. So is it common for the boards to come loose from the Bimini pockets or did we not get the strap on them correctly or tightly enough?
So we drained the ballast and started backtracking to find the board (hopefully)... We get back to where we were hitting those huge rollers and still don't see the board, but driving over the same spot we hit some large rocks/boulders with the prop. We have driven through that area so many times before but the P23 does draft about a foot more than the old Supra. So now we are sitting there trying to get backed out of where we are without doing any more damage, but there's still a good wind (was dying down some) and rollers pushing us into a rocky shore line. So since I still had my wet suit on I get in and start trying to walk it back away from the rocks which was really tough in the wind with the slimy rocks under my feet, but I got it far enough away we were able to reverse then used the stern-thruster to turn around and idle out of there. We then idle all the way back to the dock to put the boat on the trailer and see how bad it was. It appears the prop should be fixable, but the day was done for sure. Also, it seems that when I was walking the boat back away from the rocks I hurt my toe pretty good too, not sure if it's broken but it is swollen, red, and certainly hurts. We never found the board either and my dumb-*** didn't write my name/number on it so now I get to buy another one of those as well. The upside though is that we decided on a name for the boat, Ellen (Griswold) and that the prop should be repairable and we know to write our info on our stuff and be more diligent about checking to make sure things are secured.
So my family has always referred to ourselves as the Griswold family for many reasons/examples, and this weekend was just another good example of why. On Friday I went and bought a new surf board that I have been wanting for a while, rode one last year while demoing a M240 and loved it so thought it was time to go get it.
Saturday afternoon we get ready to get out on the water, and while loading things into the boat we put the new board up on top of the Bimini in the surf board pockets, but the other boards go in the tower racks. We head out of the cove and start to search for good water, but as soon as we exit the cove into the main body (east/west only at this part) there is a 20mph wind from the west so we go check out a couple of different spots. The first one we go to is nice and calm, but pretty short run for what we want and with the lake 2' low we decided against it. As we leave that area there are some huge wind blown rollers coming at us and it was pretty rough getting back to calm waters with us taking lots of COLD spray as we splash through all the crap. We get up to where the lake is now running north/south along the west shore and find some pretty good water to start surfing! I decided to take my first set behind the new boat on the board we rode all last summer as I was familiar with it and wanted a back to back comparison to the new one. So I got in and did I mention it was COLD? 60 degree water temps and about 65-70 degree air, but man what an awesome wave!
After about 7-8 minutes of surfing that board I stopped to ask for the new board, it wasn't there. GONE. The only thing we could think was that when leaving the first place we checked and hitting the big rollers with the spray and the wind, the board must have come loose from the Bimini pocket and the wind got it, with no one noticing as we are all taking cover from the spray. So is it common for the boards to come loose from the Bimini pockets or did we not get the strap on them correctly or tightly enough?
So we drained the ballast and started backtracking to find the board (hopefully)... We get back to where we were hitting those huge rollers and still don't see the board, but driving over the same spot we hit some large rocks/boulders with the prop. We have driven through that area so many times before but the P23 does draft about a foot more than the old Supra. So now we are sitting there trying to get backed out of where we are without doing any more damage, but there's still a good wind (was dying down some) and rollers pushing us into a rocky shore line. So since I still had my wet suit on I get in and start trying to walk it back away from the rocks which was really tough in the wind with the slimy rocks under my feet, but I got it far enough away we were able to reverse then used the stern-thruster to turn around and idle out of there. We then idle all the way back to the dock to put the boat on the trailer and see how bad it was. It appears the prop should be fixable, but the day was done for sure. Also, it seems that when I was walking the boat back away from the rocks I hurt my toe pretty good too, not sure if it's broken but it is swollen, red, and certainly hurts. We never found the board either and my dumb-*** didn't write my name/number on it so now I get to buy another one of those as well. The upside though is that we decided on a name for the boat, Ellen (Griswold) and that the prop should be repairable and we know to write our info on our stuff and be more diligent about checking to make sure things are secured.
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