Re: Boating the Upper Chesapeake
Next, I turned on the blower and let it run for a good long time. Started up the port engine and she purred right to life and getting the carb primed with fuel. (Had them rebuilt over the winter.) Next was the starboard engine and the same thing happened, came right to life. Checked the exhaust of both engines and they were pumping lots of water out, good sign. By this time I had a huge smile!! Everything I had worked on was turning out to be working good. New spark plugs, wires, distributor caps, belts, raw water pumps, seacocks, etc.
It was time to take her for a spin and actually see how everything was running. Shoved off and headed 5 mins over to the next marina to take on some fuel. (Ottens Point doesn't have any fuel yet.) The price was $4.16 a gallon. I thought that wasn't to bad for mid-grade on the water. Only put about 20 gallons in each tank to see how everything would go. Good news, Docking went well for the first time!
I idled out for about 15 mins through the no-wake zones and then tired to put her up on plane. As soon as she climbed up on planed she leaned very hard to the port side and started turning towards that side. I was on the flybridge and it caught me way off guard. Pulled the throttles back and took a deep breath. Put both trim tabs all the way down and then tried again. Same thing this time. Okay, enough of this, and I headed back to the marina. On my way back, the port engine started misfiring, so I shut her down and went back on one engine and pulled up to the empty fuel dock.
Now since I was tied up securely to the dock, I started to do some investigating. I could not get the trim pump to run with the helm controls (flybridge or lower). Took a tape measure and measured the tabs. Starboard tab was down about 2" farther than port. No wonder she was leaning over good. Took off the hydraulic lines to try and get both tabs to retract all of the way. Port was, but Starboard wouldn't come up any further. Not sure what is going on there but guess I won't get it figured out until next spring. So I went to the NAPA store and made up some jumper cables and started bypassing the helm switches and jumping power right to the motor connections. Them solenoids both fired and the motor ran in both directions! Thats a relief. So I ran the port tab down to match the starboard tab. Good enough for another try. Also changed both fuel filters to make sure that wasn't part of the misfiring problem. Headed back out again.
This time, the port motor was much worse. Would idle okay but as soon as you gave it any throttle, it misfired badly. Limp back to the dock again. Open up the Port engine hatch and the problem was easily spotted. The clamps on the distributor cap were off and it was barely sitting on top of the distributor. Pulled it off and saw the rotor was loose too. Straightened and tightened the copper strip in the middle of the rotor, bent the tabs and secured the clamps back on the cap. All good now and time for another run.
3rd try is a charm. Went out and the Port motor was sounding great. Started slowly increasing throttle and she slowly climbed up on plane! No leaning, no misfiring, just running good! Ran here up to 4000 rpms for a little bit and she sounded great. After about 15 minutes, headed back to the marina and tied her up in a slip. I was so happy, she was running great!!! All secured in the slip for the weekend as I decided to postpone the trip home due to the weekend weather forecast.
Here are a few pictures from idling around the marinas and no wake zones.
Then I left Wildwood and headed to North East MD where my wife had planned an evening kayaking the North East River. I was so close to telling her all about the boat, but decided only one more week, I can make it. I am never doing this again!!! If I didn't have you guys to share this with, I would be going crazy!!
Some photos from kayaking. It was a beautiful night.
So far the weather this weekend looks to be okay for bringing the boat home. Have the train and bus schedule all figured out. We will be leaving Lancaster Friday evening right after work and will arrive in Wildwood later that night. Will sleep on the boat at the marina that night. Then we will head out first thing Saturday morning for hopefully a wonderful ride up the Delaware Bay with an incoming tide. Plan to cruise to Chesapeake City Yacht basin and anchor for the rest of the afternoon evening. Will probably dingy in and eat dinner at the inn. After spending the evening at anchor, we will head to HDG city yacht basin first thing Sunday morning. We will have to leave by 11:30 to be back for my birthday party with family. Just want to make sure that I have plenty of time to secure her in the new slip before heading out. Let me know if anyone else will be out and maybe we can say hi. For now, hail "Empty Pockets" on 16. That name will be changing soon!
I am headed back to Wildwood tomorrow for the day for a longer test run and final cleaning up of the boat for the weekend!
If you made it this far, thanks for reading my "book"