Re: This is just SAD
Re: ethanol has humbled them?
Ethanol-caused problems affect the people who used to negelct boats but they would still run.
Before ethanol, gasoline didn't go bad on you after 2 months and didn't dissolve your tank, seals, hoses, etc. People could leave a half tank of gas in the boat, untreated, leave it sit through the winter, fire it up in the spring. Then they could use the boat once every 6-8 weeks with no problem (from the fuel). So the neglected boats ran almost as well as the maintained ones.
Now, with ethanol and phase separation, their boats won't start. They have to learn maintenance (after rebuilding the carbs) or they get frustrated with boating and leave them sitting "until they get around to getting it fixed." Which is never.
Even the ones that are covered and on a lift or trailer, are used so seldom, that with ethanol become unreliable if they start at all, where as before, they were fine. Long ago I'd pull out my dad's old Whaler (from the garage, thank you) and that 1964 18 fastwin would start on a couple of pulls after not being run for two years, on the gas that had been sitting in the tank since the last use. Can't do that any more.
I know a guy with a nice Grady; couldn't get it to run after neglecting it (due, I 'm sure, to bad fuel) so it sat even more; his children weren't around much anymore and didn't want to use it when they were since it was sucha pain. So it sat, month after month, in the water, growing barnacles. Had he cared fro his fuel, it probably would have worked, giving him adn his children incentive to take care of the rest.
