The Towboat Catherine Ann

We began the last leg of our adventure just as we had every other with Honey Buns and Miller Lite, a little "hair of the dog" gave our heads a boost after closing down the nightlife at the Pine Bluff marina. I guess we were lucky to not have riled the locals badly enough to get shot... or worse. No one was in when we came into the marina so we tied to the gas dock and hooked up to electricity and water. We had to wait to leave later than we wanted to for the marina to open up so we could pay... I guess that's why they do not exist any longer. Anyway, we were on the way with the next stop Little Rock and Detour's new home for the foreseeable future. There is an old saying with cruisers, actually there are a lot of old sayings with cruisers, but this one is shared often; don't get in a hurry. Well, we were in a hurry and things seemed to be going just as planned. We were approaching lock number five, locks are numbered on the Arkansas; I think they have names too but the lock masters won't answer you if the names are called. I looked up and saw a tow boat entering the lock. Man, I told Mickey, this is going to delay our progress. Without thinking much about it, I called the lock master and told him we were in a hurry, as most any time before, and wanted permission to lock through with the tow. He answered immediately and gave his permission. He instructed us to wait at the long wall and enter the lock when he waved us in. I've never had a lock master walk out on the the lock wall and wave me in but that what he did. As I approached the lock doors and moved besides the tow boat so Mickey, who was out on the foredeck, could tie us up, I heard the tow boat captain ask on the radio, "is the recreational vehicle coming in here?" The ensuing conversation escalated quickly with the last transmission being, "I'm the captain of this boat and I don't want the RV in here"; "I'm the captain of this lock and he's coming in". At that point, I get on the radio to say, "hey, guys; no big deal I'm getting out". I put the transmissions in reverse and begin to back out of the lock when the angered boat captain put his transmissions in forward, turned his rudder toward us and throttled down. You'll have to imagine again because if I tell it like it really was, you'll think of that Marco Polo deal I was talking about in the last post. Let me give you a quick and dirty; the prop wash that came out from under that tow boat was enormous and picked Detour up about five feet or so and slammed us into the lock wall. We had fenders in place that kept damage to a minimum but it threw Mickey over the rail and the only thing that kept him out of the water was hitting the lock wall, actually the lock door, and then falling back onto the deck. Instinctively, I tried to counteract the actions of the tow captain by throttling my engines to try and keep us off the wall, which exacerbated Mickey's predicament and made our situation worse as we bounced off the wall a second time from my efforts. As I regained my composure and Mickey checked his extremities for blood and bone, I could hear the captain and the lock master saying things on the radio that the FCC would have been seriously concerned about... come to think about it I had a few comments of my own. I learned something that day and I have practiced it religiously since. Never enter a lock with a tow boat unless you first get permission from the captain and then the lock master. Maritime law dictates that a tow boat captain must obey the authority of the lock master when the boat is in the lock. However, please know and remember where you heard it; the lock master has the "authority" but the tow boat captain has the "power". Mickey and I made our way to Little Rock and as we passed the Catherine Ann gave the proper respect and even saluted her captain.