OIL SLICK! Motor discharging oil from somewhere.

[serico]

1995 2-stroke with oil injection, on a 15' Hobie Power Skiff. Has never left behind an old fashioned 2-stroke slick, until today. I was using the skiff to tow a sailboat about half a mile, not working hard, maybe 1/3 throttle, short shots of 3/4 throttle when maneuvering the sailboat around in tight quarters. That's when I noticed a sheed on the water around the stern, with lots of little "blooms" of slick, which is droplets of oil coming up from below the surface. It looked like it was in the cooling discharge water, but logic tells me that it has to be in the exhaust. Once I got the sailboat on the mooring I went a couple hundred yards to the haul-out ramp, and now am trying to figure out what to do. The oil level in the oil tank is quite low, less than 1/4 tank. Beyond that, I can't think of anything. Any ideas or advice woiuld be much appreciated.
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[Alumarine]

How big of a sail boat? What size of motor?
Just because it was only at 1/2 throttle doesn't mean it wasn't working hard.
Could very well be unburned oil from the exhaust.

 

[fhhuber]

2-stroke....

There's oil in the gas mix (or an oil injection system) and there SHOULD BE some oil coming out the exhaust.

Don't let the oil tank go empty... the oil should be filled when you fill the gas tank.

 

[serico]

It's a 4 cylinder 40 hp. The motor is on a skiff, not the sailboat. The sailboat is 40' long, but only weighs 4,000 lbs, I was moving it in the harbor, made up "on the hip,' going maybe 5 knots. For comparison, the boat's normal auxiliary is a 15 hp Honda, which moves it at 7+ knots. The thing that concerns me is that the oil injection pump may be pumping too much oil, or there might be a fuel leak or a carburetor running full rich.
The alarms are working, and the oil level alarm didn't go off. Anyway, running out of oil wouldn't cause an oil slick, would it? A trashed engine, yes. Out of curiousity, is there a procedure for dealing with a motor that's been run on an empty oil tank? Do you need to purge air out of the oil lines?
Thanks,
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[jimmbo]

Maybe the gear case sprung a big leak