Hi everyone,
I just bought my first boat and I have to tell the story of my first weekend to someone who will appreciate it. Ok, the boat is a 1989 17' Bonito with a 3.0 Mercruiser. The previous owner has been using it this summer but his nephew has used it more. I have never owned a boat before so when it started and had no holes I thought it was fine. This was Thursday. Friday my wife and I clean it up, check the engine and outdrive oil and make sure that we have all of the USCG requirements. When my son gets home from school we go to the river. We get there, I take the strap off of the back of the boat and launch it. Did anyone catch the missing piece there? Yep, the plug. After I park the truck and am walking back my son says "Hey dad, is there supposed to be water in the boat?". Nope. I run down, jump in the boat, and stick the plug in. I figure I'll be ok, I just turned on the bilge pump and we were on our way. We are now almost through the no wake zone and I notice that this thing is climbing close to 200 deg F. That's a little warm for me so we turn around and head for the dock. On the way back it never climbs above 230 deg F but it is now smoking and making some strange popping noises. Now remember that my family is in this boat and we are downstream from the dock in a river and guess what the previuos owner never needed. Yep, a paddle. Now it never got over 230 because the bilge pump isn't pushing anything out of the bilge and there is enough water in it to make it not charge and keep the engine cool.
Well we made it back. I got the boat out of the water and spent Friday night, Saturday, and part of today installing a raw water pump (the impeller was in chunks), a new bilge pump, a new exhaust bellows, A SET OF PADDLES, and cleaning up my mess. We took it to the local lake today and rode it for about 5 hours. It would have been nice to have been able to do it yesterday but today was great.
I just thought that maybe some of you more experienced boaters might enjoy a newbies first mis-adventure.
thanks for listening,
Scott
I just bought my first boat and I have to tell the story of my first weekend to someone who will appreciate it. Ok, the boat is a 1989 17' Bonito with a 3.0 Mercruiser. The previous owner has been using it this summer but his nephew has used it more. I have never owned a boat before so when it started and had no holes I thought it was fine. This was Thursday. Friday my wife and I clean it up, check the engine and outdrive oil and make sure that we have all of the USCG requirements. When my son gets home from school we go to the river. We get there, I take the strap off of the back of the boat and launch it. Did anyone catch the missing piece there? Yep, the plug. After I park the truck and am walking back my son says "Hey dad, is there supposed to be water in the boat?". Nope. I run down, jump in the boat, and stick the plug in. I figure I'll be ok, I just turned on the bilge pump and we were on our way. We are now almost through the no wake zone and I notice that this thing is climbing close to 200 deg F. That's a little warm for me so we turn around and head for the dock. On the way back it never climbs above 230 deg F but it is now smoking and making some strange popping noises. Now remember that my family is in this boat and we are downstream from the dock in a river and guess what the previuos owner never needed. Yep, a paddle. Now it never got over 230 because the bilge pump isn't pushing anything out of the bilge and there is enough water in it to make it not charge and keep the engine cool.
Well we made it back. I got the boat out of the water and spent Friday night, Saturday, and part of today installing a raw water pump (the impeller was in chunks), a new bilge pump, a new exhaust bellows, A SET OF PADDLES, and cleaning up my mess. We took it to the local lake today and rode it for about 5 hours. It would have been nice to have been able to do it yesterday but today was great.
I just thought that maybe some of you more experienced boaters might enjoy a newbies first mis-adventure.
thanks for listening,
Scott
