BUTTE -- Airboats can be fidgety things. Just ask Cliff Silvers.
The chief of the Mat-Su Water Rescue Team has been working on the Matanuska-Susitna Borough's new airboat at his shop since early last month.
The team took it out a couple of times on lakes, Silvers said. Sunday marked its first trip up the Knik River. Monday it was scheduled for its first trip to the Knik Glacier as part of the swift-water rescue course this year.
That is until about halfway there when the engine cut out.
"Sounded like it went to lunch," Silvers said as he climbed down from his driver's seat 8 feet above the deck to look at the engine.
The boat drifted into a bank, spun around in the current, drifted some more, then caught on the bank again before Silvers got out and anchored the thing down.
"It's not going anywhere," he said to team member Joe Sylvia.
Sylvia shuttled passengers to their destination on a bank farther upstream in the borough's other new boat -- a flat-bottomed inflatable jet boat.
Borough Emergency Services director Dennis Brodigan said the two new boats will replace two older inflatable boats. They've been needed for some time, he said, which became apparent during the August 2006 floods.
"We were really well equipped with the exception of one thing -- our boats themselves were aging," Brodigan said.
Silvers said those boats were 18 years old and the rubber bladders that made up their keels had rotted. He hopes to get one back in service soon to back up the new jet boat, at least until the airboat can get back in service and team members get certified to drive it.
Deputy director Clint Vardeman said the airboat is on permanent loan from the Anchorage Fire Department. The boat was originally purchased with a $75,000 grant and the department did $19,000 in upgrades.
In the end, though, the boat didn't seem to suit Anchorage's needs so they mothballed it, Vardeman said. The boat is well suited to the Valley, though. The borough agreement with Anchorage has them paying the cost of the upgrades, minus a few things that weren't on the boat when they got it, for a price tag of about $17,000, Vardeman said. The new jet boat cost about the same, he said.
On Wednesday, Silvers said he was looking into a warranty on the airboat engine. It was installed in 2004 and had only 40 hours on it, he said.
But Monday it threw a rod and knocked a hole in its oil pan. Silvers said he hadn't torn the engine down to see whether it could be rebuilt but, regardless, it would likely have to be replaced.
"It's for rescue purposes; we don't want to be guessing about whether or not it will work," he said.
Crankcase oil had been flowing into the air cleaners Monday, Silvers said. During lunch and while the team ran drills in the river he turned wrenches trying to get the boat to run.
In theory, it can run over land, water and ice. Sylvia called the boat a "four-seasons rescue platform." It'll go anywhere, he's been told, though wet grass tends to slow it down a bit.
But Saturday, with oil in the cleaners, sensors were keeping the boat engine running slower than it needed to be. With all 14 seats full in deep water, it was running low in the water, more like a barge than an airboat, Silvers said. He had been sticking to the shallows, where the boat could get up on top of the water and run faster.
In his borough-issued dry suit, pulling oil-soaked bolts from the engine, Silvers joked that usually he's the guy telling team members not to get oil or bug dope on their suits.
But the lack of a boat didn't much bother the water rescue team. They just put the thing in the river and drifted back to the parking lot. In their dry suits, some team members floated back on their own.
"We actually had fun doing that," Silvers said. "We only grounded once or twice that we had to get out and push."
Find reporter Andrew Wellner online at and.com/contact/awellner or call 352-6710.
