Well, yesterday was a day of firsts for me. First time putting my project in the water, first time up on plane, first fixed problem out on the water, first tow to the dock, and my first stupid human trick (see stupid human trick section, but I'll give you a hint, it involves the tach).<br /><br />We launched yesterday, and the motor started right up with no difficulty. Pulled away from the laucnh. Idling fine. When we were away, I eased the throttle forward. After applying enough throttle, the boat practically leapt on plane, and accelerated strong. I'm sure it would "REALLY" fly up on plane if I were to punch it! Cruised a short distance at fairly high throttle, and then backed down to idle. I did get some water coming into the boat coming off plane, but I believe I have the solution (forgot to caulk the upper and lower edges where the side rail meets the boat at the transom). Combine that with the screw holes not being sealed, and that left some nice pathways for water to come in.<br />My first successful on-the-water repair happened after we tried to come up on plane for the second time. Motor was seriously bogging, and wouldn't plane out. Shut off the motor, and it didn't want to stay running when restarted. Upon pulling the face plate, and looking at the carbs, everything looked fine on the top two, but looking at the bottom carb... BINGO, the choke butterfly was closed. seems I had lost the pin that joined the butterfly to the linkage. After scavanging the pin that joined the choke linkage to the manual choke lever, It started up good, idled fine, and would pop back up on plane. We cruised over to the lake my parents live on (15~20 minutes of no-wake zone), launch is on the other lake. We came out of the channel, and I put it in reverse to blow the weeds off of the l/u. Well, when I tried to put it back in forward, it died. Crank, crank, crank... nothing. Squeeze the bulb, soft as a fluffy down pillow. Had to call my parent's neighbor to come give us a tow. This morning, I picked up a new fuel line and bulb. this bulb will get firm, but we couldn't get the boat to fire up. The battery was a little low, but it's on the charger now. Please see my post in the Merc and Mariner troubles, I need help to get it started again... tried starting after charging about an hour, but no fire.
