How my Honda outboard went swimming

wrwetzel

Cadet
Joined
Aug 18, 2004
Messages
11
On our first outing on my 22' Tanzer sailboat last year my outboard, an older Honda 7.5 four stroke, was rough at idle and would stall going into gear. It was enough of an issue that I had to scrap the trip after guests were aboard. (Mast was not up yet so the motor was essential.) Shortly thereafter the problem spontaneously resolved and I attributed it to a speck of dirt in the fuel that passed or dissolved. Perhaps so, but the problem reappeared shortly, not as bad as at first, but I still had to keep the throttle up a bit.

I was motoring the 200' back to my mooring from my dock after having just raised the mast. With the throttle a little above idle I shifted into reverse. SPLASH. The motor went in the drink. The motor was attached to a thick piece of plywood on the motor mount. The plywood cracked and came apart at a lamination. I saw no evidence of rot but it was old, warped a bit from the weight of the motor, and no doubt, weakened. The force of going into gear above idle was too much for it.

The good news was that I had a chain on the motor, in part for security, in part for just such an event. The motor went under but it was still connected to the boat and just below the surface of the water. It was a sad sight, with me pulling on the fuel line, thinking it was doing something, anything, to keep the motor up. Lacking the strength to pull the motor out of the water myself, I hoisted it with the jib halyard high enough to pull it into the cockpit. We drifted close to shore on the anchor line, I jumped over and walked the boat to the dock, and got the motor ashore, probably in less than an hour of dunking.

I removed the plugs and gave the engine a thorough flushing with fresh water - all over the outside, in the spark plug holes, in the carburetor, in any crack or crevice I could find. I drained and replaced the oil and dried the engine inside and out as best as I could with compressed air. Plugs back in, a squirt of ether, a couple of pulls, and she kicks over. What a sound. Rough, very rough, at first but she smoothed out after a few minutes. I let her run for a while to dry her out from her own heat. We had dinner plans that evening and were headed to Cape Cod for several days the next day. I breathed a sigh of relief and enjoyed the wine that evening and our trip to the Cape without the motor on my mind.

The motor was all back to normal. Or so I thought...
To be continued.

Bill Wetzel
 
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