April 27

April 27, 2013

Today is Splash Day at the Boat Club. It marks the official start of the club's sailing season. The festivities included music, short speeches, a bagpipe and drum band, and then food, drink and a dance band.

We took advantage of the warm weather and light winds to take Serene Dream out of the harbor for the first time this year. To my delight, the outboard fired up first pull and we motored until clear of the harbor. We raised the sails and had a nice hour or so.

Once the sails were up, I raised the motor and turned off the gas switch. I've mentioned before that the Mercury 4 hp has both an internal gas tank and a connector for an external tank. There is a switch on the side that turns on and off the internal tank. As we were using the internal, but the motor was not running, I turned off the internal gas tank.

Anyway, after about an hour, it was time to head back in . Of course, the wind was light, but blowing directly out of the harbor. It's a small harbor and there's no room to tack, so it was time to fire up the motor. I lowered it into the water and pulled the cord. Again, it fired right up and we headed it. As we headed it, my wife and daughter dropped the genoa and main. After about 5 minutes, and as we were nearing the mouth of the harbor the motor slowed and died.

What the heck? I figured we were out of gas on the internal tank and plugged in the external one. The motor would catch and run 4 or 5 seconds. As the winds were almost dead, the crew frantically raised the main as we drifted slowly toward the rip-rap on the shore. I was able to get a little headway with the sail, but the channel was just too narrow.

I continued to try to get the motor started, to no avail. My wife became concerned when she saw a boat coming out of the harbor, since we could do little to avoid it. As it got closer we realized it was the boat in the slip next to ours, and another club member was at the bow with a line. They towed us in and then tried to help diagnose what was wrong. In no particular order, we discussed:

Contaminated gas in the eternal tank,

Plugged fuel filter,

Bad fuel/air mix on the carb.

In thinking back on it, I am convinced it is crud or contamination from the external tank. Why else would the motor run fine on the internal, but not the external. Of course, that ignores the fact that it died while coming back in on the internal tank. But in reading this, did you catch the mistake I realized I made after I was back at the dock? After lowering the motor and re-starting it to come in, I never opened the fuel valve for the internal tank. It ran 4 or 5 minutes on the fuel in the lines, then died. Would it have died if I'd have the valve open? Maybe. Maybe not. At this point, I'm second-guessing myself into oblivion. But I'll buy a new tank and external line/bulb combo and try it again.