So, I decide to take the wife and the girls (my two 15-pound dogs) to the lake. I get close to the launch and tell my wife to go ahead and get in. I unhook all the do-dads and such as I normally do. I back in the water, the wife lowers the trim a bit, starts it up, and I back in a bit more to push her free of the trailer.
Then, I go park the truck/trailer, put hunter-orange life vests on my mutts and walk down to the dock. It was busy busy busy. At least 9 boats in and around the staging/ramp area.
The wife slowly comes up to the dock, I throw my girls in the boat, jump in myself, and off we go. We are noodling away towards the 5mph buoys and making adjustments as we go. Things like putting on vests, expanding the Bimini top, and throwing out the fun-tube thingie behind the boat that you use to get kids wet.
So we get past the buoys and my wife punches it so we can get up on plane to head across the lake to a nice little cove. Pine Flat lake is pretty big, btw. So, I see that she has properly moved the throttle to the full forward position and yet the boat seems really non-responsive. The rpm's didn't get much above 2,200 and we are plowing the water.
The last time I took the boat out, I had noticed that I acquired a new noise. Almost like a rattling, chugging, vibrating kind of thing. My only guess for the noise is that it could be the impeller to the water pump. I'm thinkin', 'hmm, maybe whatever it was, is finally going to be an issue.'
I get behind the wheel and try to get the boat to plane. No dice. With a bit of sadness, I tell the wife that we are just going to have to head back home and I'll take the boat in for repair on Monday. We were both kind of bummed. Since the boat wasn't responding, I decided that we'd just chug back to the dock that was about 1/4 mile away.
As we are headed back, I decided to open the engine compartment. Not that I could do much without parts and limited tools aboard. I looked into the compartment, and the movement of all the belts and pulleys and such was throwing water everywhere. The compartment was filled half way up the side of the engine block and we looked down to see an inch of water at the back part of the deck.
Ah HA!!! That's the reason you should put the boat plug in the boat before you launch...
Then, I go park the truck/trailer, put hunter-orange life vests on my mutts and walk down to the dock. It was busy busy busy. At least 9 boats in and around the staging/ramp area.
The wife slowly comes up to the dock, I throw my girls in the boat, jump in myself, and off we go. We are noodling away towards the 5mph buoys and making adjustments as we go. Things like putting on vests, expanding the Bimini top, and throwing out the fun-tube thingie behind the boat that you use to get kids wet.
So we get past the buoys and my wife punches it so we can get up on plane to head across the lake to a nice little cove. Pine Flat lake is pretty big, btw. So, I see that she has properly moved the throttle to the full forward position and yet the boat seems really non-responsive. The rpm's didn't get much above 2,200 and we are plowing the water.
The last time I took the boat out, I had noticed that I acquired a new noise. Almost like a rattling, chugging, vibrating kind of thing. My only guess for the noise is that it could be the impeller to the water pump. I'm thinkin', 'hmm, maybe whatever it was, is finally going to be an issue.'
I get behind the wheel and try to get the boat to plane. No dice. With a bit of sadness, I tell the wife that we are just going to have to head back home and I'll take the boat in for repair on Monday. We were both kind of bummed. Since the boat wasn't responding, I decided that we'd just chug back to the dock that was about 1/4 mile away.
As we are headed back, I decided to open the engine compartment. Not that I could do much without parts and limited tools aboard. I looked into the compartment, and the movement of all the belts and pulleys and such was throwing water everywhere. The compartment was filled half way up the side of the engine block and we looked down to see an inch of water at the back part of the deck.
Ah HA!!! That's the reason you should put the boat plug in the boat before you launch...
