Monday, February 22, 2010

New outboard

The timing was almost perfect. We received a call from the marina telling us that a large box had arrived…the new outboard was finally here! The only problem was that it had been raining for the last 20 hours with no relief in sight. I didn’t care, I needed that outboard. So, on with the foul weather gear and into the dinghy I went. I fought with the old outboard and coaxed it to life (yet again) but I think that the old outboard knew this would be its last round trip for it didn't start easy and protested a lot on the way in.
In the rain, I walked up to the service station for gas and back to the marina where I unpacked the new outboard only to find there was no owner’s manual! A quick call and a promised to send it in tomorrow’s mail was secured. Then, in the rain, I carried my new motor down the docks and laid it into the bottom of the dinghy. With one pull, I started the old 12lb beast for its last trip to the boat! It ran all of 15 seconds before dying and no matter what I did it wouldn’t start again. In the end, I had to row the new motor over a 1/3 of a mile out to the boat… in the rain, against the wind. Afterwards, with a little bit of oil and gas the new outboard started right up and ran great! I think though, the old outboard got the last laugh.

5 comments:

  1. Are you going to keep it as the EMERGENCY BACKUP motor/anchor ?

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  2. Anna wants to keep it but I want to use it as an anchor.
    It's a 2 stroke and to give you some kind of an idea of how loud it was, my nick name was "chain saw man".

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  3. I just noticed the padlock in the picture, if you make the boat look abandoned someone might think the outboard has some value and remove it for you.

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  4. I know that we were shocked when you went by with the new dinghy/new motor combo, quietly sneaking about the harbor in stealth mode!!! 'Chain Saw Man' was a great nickname! We all have one, you know, especially the longer those barnacles act like velcro in Boot Key!

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