Outboard is not running right.  This is not good.  Outboards are yet another challenge out here.  Without them, you are greatly inconvenienced and usually it takes great gobs of cash to get them running again.  Not to mention more heavy lifting. 

They are not like car engines that deliver miles and miles of service between cranky spells.  These things deliver miles and miles of cranky spells before needing servicing.  Usually in the dark.  Often in the rain.  Always when it is totally inconvenient.  Nothing like an outboard not starting to measure the maturity and equilibrium of a person.  

I shared my outboard dilemma with the Q-hut construction ‘guys’.  “OH, Jeez I had that once.  The head was all cheese, it was.  ‘Lectrolysis, eh?  Just ate that old head practically right off the engine.  Could be you’re hooped on this one, bud!”  “Yeah, that happened to me, too.  Head was just gooey muck, really.  Amazin’ it ran as long as it did.  You are doomed, man”.

Frankly, I think it is just a bit of water in the carbs but one is obliged to suffer the horror stories everyone has to offer when you ask their advice.  They never tell you of the time they simply forgot to open the gas line or the kill switch was stuck in the ‘on’ position.  No that would be too easy a fix.  No doom – no humour. 

I’m not worried yet.  Not really.  A smidge uneasy, perhaps, but not feeling doomed quite yet.

That is the way it is with Outboards.  Some of the stories are not just doom-mongering.  Some are truly dreadful.  There is a new outboard design available right now called an E-Tec.  It is a high-tech two-stroke and brilliant in so many ways.  Became popular fast.  But it was not good – not in ‘execution’, anyway.  Seems they are poorly made.  Things keep breaking. 

These puppies start at about $10,000 depending on the size (around here 50hp or more) and go up.  Of course, the company stands behind them – as soon as you get them into the shop.  But a non-functioning 300 pound outboard stuck on the back of your boat in the rain and in the dark going nowhere is not in the shop, is it?  It’s far from the shop.  And we are talking a day of travel one way and no other motor to substitute (who has a spare $10,000 motor sitting around?).  E-tec owners got fed up just as quickly.  There are not just a few of them sitting in sheds relegated to the bad decision department. 

Outboards have other problems, too.  Sal was flying along in her little boat one day when the motor just up and jumped off the transom!  There she was doing 15 knots with the tiller in her hand and only the spinning of the prop keeping the engine anywhere near the boat.  It was ‘free’!

Now, ol’ Puddin’ ain’t the type to let an outboard motor escape on her watch.  So, with one hand on the accelerator twist handle keeping the engine going, she reached around with her other hand and grabbed it.  This caused the motor to slow and start to sink but, before it could do that, she had wrestled it to the boat (slewing to and fro) and, in a swift and acrobatic WWF manner, re-positioned the engine back on to the transom.  Carefully tightening the clamps extra hard, she fired it up and carried on.  Total elapsed ‘down time’ about three minutes!  Not easy. 

“You won’t believe what happened to me on the way to book club she told her friends.” And she told the story.  All the women looked at her like she was a ‘newbie’ and said, “Oh, that has happened to us.  Happens to all of us.  That’s why you are supposed to thru-bolt the engine onto the boat.  Those clamps are not good enough.  Anything bigger than your engine and it is gone in a blink.  Sinks right before your eyes.  One second you are motoring along.  Next – no motor.  Gets annoying after you lose two.”

Seems props ‘spin out, too.  Didn’t know that.  I was zooming along and it felt as if the ‘clutch was slipping’ but, of course, there is no clutch.  “Oh, probably spun the prop”, said Rob when I got to his dock.  “Well, duh.  Isn’t that what one does with props? You know…………spin ’em?”

“No this is different.  The inside hub spins off the outside hub that holds the blades so that your engine power is not transferred.” “Oh.  Didn’t know that.  What do you do?” “Why you take in to the propeller shop, of course.” “Uh, but the prop doesn’t work to get you there…………?” “Well you gotta use your spare prop, don’t ya?”

Spare prop?  You are going to learn your lessons out here.  No question.  And the learning seems to take place in the middle of the problem – not while reading about it in the comfort of your Laz-y-boy.  You only learn about outboard motors hopping off your transom when one hops off.  You only learn about spinning your propeller when you ‘spin’ one.  There is no easy way – only the hard way. 

I am in the process of learning about my engine.  I just hope it doesn’t rain.  It usually does when you are working on it.  Gets dark fast, too.  Ya know why?  Learned this lesson the hard way, too: outboard engines don’t break down in the summer.  Only when the weather is bad, don’t you know?