Summer and Mugno have arrived in Wantagh Park!!!

Those familiar with the venerable Lori Sue know that Joe Mugno has had more than his share of problems with the boat. The wood superstructure is disappearing and being replaced by "Git Rot" and the port engine usually doesn't run while the starboard usually does. The batteries drain even when all circuit breakers are turned off and the radio only has 23 of the 40 odd channels most units can use. Joe winter-stores his boat in the canal behind his sister-in-law's house in Island Park. This spring Joe has been working on the boat readying it for the season. This consists mostly of painting the superstructure and taking off the tarp. For no apparent reason, this year the "good" starboard engine would not start and the "bad" port engine would. Joe asked Ron Peppiatt if his son-in-law Lenny (a boat mechanic was available) to check out the engines. Lenny has moved on to other pursuits and could not help but Ron said he would try.

On Saturday morning, June 9, Ron met Joe in Wantagh Park and they drove together in Joe's car to Island Park. After tinkering with the starboard engine, Ron got it to start. Excited with both engines running and without any afterthought, Joe and Ron took off for Wantagh Park. The starboard engine was running extremely rough and as they approached Jones Inlet, Ron went into the engine compartment. He found the starboard manifold had blown and oil and water from the crankcase were draining into the bilge. Joe shut off the engine. The Lori Sue does not steer well at all on one engine so the brisk north wind began to blow them toward the inlet. They decided to call Reynolds Towing but found they forgot to bring the somewhat deficient radio. They decided to toss out the bow anchor, but the winch would not work. Finally they located a "lunch" hook anchor which was dropped and as the wind eased a bit, held.

They waved at passing boats whose occupants happily waved back and went on their merry way. Joe realized he had his cell phone aboard. He retrieved it only to find he had enough battery life for about four calls. Two calls to Reynolds Towing reached the answering machine. The third call luckily caught Mary home. Joe explained the situation and Mary began calling until she got the cell telephone number of one of Reynolds two boats. Which she then called in to Joe, further diminishing his cell battery. Joe called, got Capt. Bob, who said he would respond but was not nearby and it would take awhile. In their haste to leave the Lori Sue hadn't stocked up on anything such as food or water, so they sat, tired, cold, thirsty and hungry for 45 minutes until Reynolds arrived Towed unceremoniously from Jones Inlet to Wantagh Park and nudged into his slip with Kevin McCloughlin and Bob Mueller grabbing the lines, Joe found the silver lining behind this latest cloud. "The Lori Sue didn't use hardly any gas for the half the trip" he said as he began to de-oil his bilge. Welcome back, Joe!!