G-Daddy
Petty Officer 2nd Class
- Joined
- May 3, 2002
- Messages
- 197
My Memorial Weekend<br />It all started when I picked up my son from his work on Friday. We left Hagerstown at noon and made good progress until we got on Route 50. Almost immediately we were in a backup for the toll plaza for the bay bridge – about 7 miles. On Saturday my son and I and two friends were ready to head out fishing, but I couldn’t get the boat to start. I cranked and cranked. Took off the engine cowl. Pulled spark plugs. Then my friend said, “Does this thing have a kill switch?” Now I have had outboards with kill switches for 15 years and I never removed the button from the kill switch. I looked down and it was gone. I reached into a storage compartment for my spare and found two buttons. I don’t remember taking it off, but it didn’t walk into the storage bin by itself. Later that morning while we were fishing, I heard a bang and looked down. The mounting bracket for my trolling motor had broken and the motor was submerged, held to the boat only by the electric cord going to the batteries. I retrieved the motor and set it aside. I do not like to run the big motor to hold position on a drift, but I had to that day. A short time later the power tilt on my Johnson 100 quit. I knew there was a release screw, but I couldn’t find it. The next day we went out again with things not quite working right. After a full day of fishing, we headed back to the ramp. Unfortunately I neglected to account for running the big motor for two days and ran out of fuel on the way back. My friend hitched a ride to the marina and brought me some gas. After pulling the boat about half way onto the trailer, the powerwinch locked up. Wouldn’t pull the boat onto the trailer and the brake wouldn’t release. I keep a spare hand winch in the truck so we made the change and got the boat loaded. What a great weekend.