First time out and might have bad big problem

[PaulyB]

If I had to clear my pumps every time I went out, I'd be looking for a different kind of boat in all honesty. Fortunately for me, our boat has essentially no surface vegetation and very little in the way of floating debris.

It is really early in the season and the river is what it is. My lake that I go to is clean, but the lake is dead until the holiday, so just to get my water fix, I deal with it. I live about 1/2 a mile from the river so its easy access and I just stopped cruising the river into DC to avoid it. I just go to a party cove which is a 10 minute boat ride away. I haven't spent much time on the river prior to this year, but I have believe when the weather warms up and more boats get on the water it will clear up, hopefully.

 

[Matt Phillips]

I'd second what the others have said so far and add the following...

If you have a problem with one side and can't find the problem on the water, pull the boat and put it on the trailer and crawl under and have a look with a flashlight and/or a small mirror. Sometimes the different perspective can help you locate the culprit.

I boat mostly in Lake Tahoe in the summer which is known for it's clarity. I do however have to idle about a mile to/from my slip out to the lake and by about mid-summer it's common to have at least some vegetation in it. I can always tell upon initial throttle up and sometimes the reverse trick works and sometimes not. In those cases, it's stop outside the channel, pull the plugs an fish the vegetation out of there. The whole process only takes a few moments and we're on the way for the rest of the day. Yeah, it's a little inconvenient but I'd rather have that than to worry about the spinning ginsu down there getting dinged in shallow water.

 

[jwells]

I second what all the others have said. And I too speak from experience with the fishing line. Question. Did everything seem okay at idle? But the vibration was when you gave it throttle? I sucked a fishing line up last year and started vibrating extremely bad. I actually couldn't get it all out right away. I was limping back to the boat launch with one engine above idle and the other (with the fishing line) at idle. Fishing line freed itself. But I've sucked up large seaweed and I got cavitation, no real vibration.

That's exactly how it went and what I had to do. Whatever it was did as everyone has said and fell out I guess going down the road. The dealer found nothing and I t took it and put it in the water and everything was fine.

 

[jwells]

If I had to clear my pumps every time I went out, I'd be looking for a different kind of boat in all honesty. Fortunately for me, our boat has essentially no surface vegetation and very little in the way of floating debris.

Definitely agree our lake does stay pretty clean so hopefully it's an isolated deal. Glad it happened early so I could here these tips as the river is really close but once it's at the lake it would be a pain to pull it all the way to the dealer

 

[jwells]

@jwells Any word from the dealer yet?

Couldn't find anything and it seems fine now

 

[tdonoughue]

Same thing happened to me last season. Sucked a piece of plastic off the bottom during a shallow section. Shut it down immediately. Popped out the plugs, dug all of the stuff out. Or so I thought. Massive vibrations from the port engine. Recheck. Nothing. Limped back home with the ailing engine at 2k or so to keep it good at more than no wake speeds.

Got back to dock, took everyone off. I and a couple of others reached from underneath. Found nuthin. Pulled the plugs again. Nuthin. Nuthin, nuthin, nuthin. So I took it back out by myself. Like new. No vibration at all.

Sometime it is just like that.