"Boatworks, Master"; 102

Next. Works. For adventurous riders making their way north through the waters of Alaska's panhandle. Hard. Work for. A man who knows the ups and downs of tending a busy drawbridge in Annapolis Maryland. And the owners of a steam powered launch. Cruise near Washington D.C.. Robert Urich and his bow work. But works. With Robert during. National funding for both works is provided by. The National Marine Manufacturers Association representing Americas boat builders and the more than 500000 employees of the boating industry. By the bombarding a Motor Corporation of

America bringing U.S. do watercraft jet boats and celebrity boats CDU. Everybody's doing it and by boat us over 500000 members trust boat us for on the water towing marine insurance and trailer boating benefits boat us. We work for you. Dan Greenwood and Mark McKinnon is from Vancouver Canada got the idea that their personal watercraft could be used as a long range touring boat. After months of planning and equipment modifications they set off to navigate the fifteen hundred nautical miles from Vancouver to Skagway Alaska and heading north now from Ketchikan Alaska with Dan's father Jim and technical advisor Ed MacDonald. It will take about two weeks from start to finish. We will pass through towns such

as Campbell River port hearty Bella Bella Prince Rupert catch can wrangle Peter Bergen Juneau Glacier Bay and then our final destination Skagway I ask which is the top of the southeast. And. Thank. You. To me it's like riding a horse. I I was seriously considering. Getting back into riding on a motorcycle full dress motorcycle on the roads. This is. A 1000 mile road with not one stop light or stop sign on it.

He came up with the idea of writing P W C views from Maine Cooper to Alaska. For a couple reasons one is a pretty exciting tooth never been done before and three would and what a great adventure. I'm not a boater from way back like Dan. So I'm coming out fresh and. I like how easy it is it gives a sense of freedom. We are right there you know here you are right there on the ocean you can get out there and sometimes what we want to do is we get out wide open space and just shut the engine off and sit there and rock. I've always wanted to go to Alaska and I guess that's really one of the ways down convinced me was let's go to Alaska. And. See it from a different point of view.

We were told we can't but you cannot take a person watercraft to Alaska and that's what motivated us to to make sure it could get here. Unsupported with no support vessels everything self-contained on the craft fuel range was a major. Concern of ours. The way they come generally we have but a 70 mile range or something like that. And that wasn't even close to what we had to do we have a couple of legs that are in the hundred forty three mile range. So we had to put on additional tanks. What I ended up doing on the tanks was I ended up finally adapting a tank that was originally designed for dune buggies actually. And we sort of Maronites them we took off the automotive filler necks and cut them out pry new filler necks that had watertight sealed. It was also a bottom feeder tank we made it a top feeder tank to comply with the US and Canadian Coast Guard regulations and then worked on mounting it on the system

and on to the machine and it took about three months to get that worked out and made it work very well. We eased into it we started to get books and read books on the charts and study the water and you know talk to people and find out when was the best time to go and the best places to see and just every place that we've gone is something new you arrive. Finally after a hard day's riding in there and it's a new place to see experience and that we've Stevenson we stay in the whole range. From my ghost towns to really beautiful lodges sleeping on somebodies kitchen table because they decided to take mercy on us to having it all done for us. So it's been the whole thing's wonderful You can't really pinpoint one specific. It's great. We haven't run into as much flat water as we would like to and we've had some bumpy rides and then you get a nice flat spit. Patch like we had today and then you can just. Cruise it. Mostly you see things that are just awesome. They just are beautiful. And it's

well worth the trip. It really it's worth it. I find that when I travel on other boats we tend to travel on more of a direct straight line route but with the personal watercraft we find that if we see something really interesting we just turn around and zip over there real fast and take a look so we get to see a lot more and we can now hug the coastline a little bit. That's kind of exciting. The waterfall. Great. You feel like the eagle that you see the animals like it. You're just. At home in a world of your own. Gotta try it. I mean you gotta do these things. This is an incredible adventure we're seeing parts of the country that people just don't see. We've been

into places that I've only heard of and read of and this is a wonderful adventure. It's never a dull moment. Well next year even though it's been pretty nasty water and it's been raining most of the time. You get a place like this where it's beautiful and calm and quiet I mean. You can't beat it we're on top of the world almost actually in about a week. Even if you've never had a reason to bring about through a drawbridge chances are you've driven over

one or walked over one. But did you ever have a chance to visit and talk with the drawbridge tender. I've been Gant operates this drawbridge in Annapolis Maryland. Name as I've been getting I'm a bridge tender here at this park regrouped in Annapolis Maryland overlooking. The United States Navy looking. For. Food.

This is the bridge tower this is where. All the. Rules are for us to operate the spark recruits. We had a convenience of almost like home. We have a satellite TV which we get over 150 channels which is kind of cool. I think. MTV. Also we have a microwave oven. A nice table to sit down to read my story last year. You can sit back and. Rest up. And also we have a nice little refrigerator to keep a. Non-alcoholic beverages and also a water fountain. First we. Have a little. Port a Potty that. You can go down to and.

It comes in handy. We're the only ones here on the ship so we don't have to worry about anybody. Peeking in on the keyboard. Sometimes it might get a little monotonous especially in the summertime. But other than that. I kind of enjoy it up here. It's alright. My shift today I worked as zero eight hundred to sixteen hundred and it's a pretty. Fairly busy shift sometimes because we have to open a bridge every hour and a half hour. It is a bridge to get kind of busy because I have to look out for car traffic traffic. Pedestrian traffic and all sorts of stuff. One day door my shift I had a pretty late at night around about 11:00 or so that night and I had a car to pull up and I heard a car pull up and.

You know I got up and I looked and I saw a couple of guys got out and they took off their clothes and they jumped off the bridge just jumped off the bridge. But neck hidden starts women and of course you know I'm glad nobody got hurt because the whole time I called the Annapolis City police and I told them what had happened and also I monitored the guys I made sure I saw many swam over to the dock over here so you know it was pretty funny but then again you know I want to make sure the guys was all right. Thought you had just been utils because. As the bridge tender we're responsible for the safety of the bridge if anything you know it far as accidents like the gates you know it's our responsibility to make sure I don't know by damage I'm basically just. Make sure everything goes smooth on a bridge. And also we might get some challenges farther and sometimes you might get impatient bored and mights wants to he wants to come through a little sooner than when I'm supposed to open and.

We can do to them I call up one radio and say hey open up this bridge you know. Most of the boaters that come to appreciate you know what we do appear. Just kept our this is a sparkly bird so we're our primary means of communication in front of the British. We can call them on a bridge to bridge radio we wanted to channel 13 or also if they're close enough we can basically just yell out the window. In a boat as opposed to drawbridge. Most of the rules that they should comply are posted down here outside like for the safe speed that they have to come through. It also has listed the Clarence of the bridge how to bridge Bangles up and how much clearance they have when they come through vertically and horizontally. I think any person with any common sense can operate this bridge.

I'm at a fact my training period on his bridge was. Less than five minutes. I mean I came in and. The guy showed me and I picked it up like that. The key thing is bridges open in and sequence long as you follow this sequence. When you open it and also when you close it you should have no problems with the bridge. OK. Everything looks clear. So I'll signal. And I'll break it down. Quick and dirty Karlsson of Brandywine Maryland. Like a lot of people keep their boat on attrite or in their driveway. But that's where the similarity ends quick and Dotty are part of a small but growing group of steamers folks who powered their boats the old fashion way. They head out to a launching ramp on the Patuxent River not far from Washington D.C..

Me. To you. You. Me.

I. What have we got here. Well this is my steam boat. The Wind In The Willows. You come to the well. Back in 1950 when I was going to college out in Puget Sound the sky came into harbor with this oh it was run by Stephenie Byrne driftwood and he seemed to have everything we sowed for getting around in the islands. And I said I'm going to do that someday.

And it took a while but here it is. Well it works by boiling water and to boil water we build of wood fire down below the boiler here. The smoke and the heat from the wood fire goes through all pipes that run through this kettle and out up the smokestack and a little hit the water around the tubes. When we're making steam we develop a pressure in here and this gauge will show all the steam pressure in the boiler. We like to run at one hundred fifty pounds per square inch and this is this is a throttle that turns it off and turns it on and it goes into the engine here and inside this cylinder. This is a single cylinder engine. Inside the cylinder is a flat piston. And when the piston is towards the top of the cylinder a valve in here will let steam on top of this the piston and push it down. And when it gets to the bottom the valve will

move and let the steam into the bottom of this and push it back up. The steam that was in the other on the other side of the piston of course then is your exhaust and that goes out this pipe down into a pipe that runs around the hall. Where it's condensed back into water again and it comes aboard in the hot well which is just forward of the boiler. Very ingenious but you didn't think of all this yourself. Now I know some guy named James Watt thought of it back in 1776 it was about that time that the inventions were made and seen but that was in England wasn't it because the image of yes James Watt was an Englishman and we of course we had Robert Fulton in this country who around eighteen hundred eighteen oh five to eight something like that. But this steam engine in a boat and we had to leave had steam boats ever since. And what do you say we take you around for a little steamy Hey I thought you'd never ask. Good idea.

Thanks. It.

Was. There's a piece of wall that nice was that I smell a. Stain goes in there and does its work up and down comes out there and it goes under the bowl turns back a lot are really pumped back into the boiler. The second time around it and so on top of that it comes down here and it turns. Around forever. What's the longest trip you've taken aboard. We've taken out the four days we ran out of words. After today if we can load the boat with Word but after three days I

use it all up so you have the power. And that went along with the shark. Danny it's my gauge watch or a very important member of the bureau. Because my mind often liners and say Someone that. Keeps me on the straight and narrow. Mind joined much more than I thought I would 12 years ago. Lord now worried about the water way. I guess I've got. To do it. I enjoy it very much. Can you know usually we can have a family. It isn't too much and we just got back from a trip and we had four grandchildren and they did all the work on the boat they built the fires and they steered it you know. And I think we're going to be more and more of that you know as long as their interests

come along. Life will get very leisurely for daddy and I. When I was a kid. I don't even remember the SATs how long ago it was but I've got photographs. My grandfather had. This picnic launch. And it's about the same size not the same shape and everything else. Back in nineteen twenty eight. I know I was a year old for laughs. And he has to take the whole family up the river and pull it up on shore and then we'd have a picnic and then we all get back in and go back home. So. That's really. What this says a picnic lunch. And. I'm trying to redo you know the same kind of stuff that was done 60 years ago. They were trying to raise their grandchildren so now and they'll take over when we when we falter. Robert Urich Thanks a lot for coming along here next time on boat work.

To learn more about boat works visit PBS on line at w w w dot PBS dot org. Coming soon on boat works. Take a guided wilderness tour through the islands and shoals off Key West Florida. Travel to the Isle of Wight off England's south coast to meet the famed photographers of beacon of cals. And visit the island of Great Exuma in the Bahamas for the family islands regatta. National funding for boat works is provided by the National Marine

Manufacturers Association representing Americas boat builders and the more than 500000 employees of the boating industry. By the Motor Corporation of America bringing U.S. do water grabs jet boats and celebrity boats. See everybody's doing it. And by boat us. Boat owners have put their trust in both US the marine equipment marine insurance and on the water towing for more than 30 years Boat US we work for you. Roadworks is a production of Maryland Public Television and rising.

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