Shakedown Cruise Survived

[mattvct]

Well, I survived my shakedown cruise on my new (to me) Mac 26x today out of Guilford, CT The forecast was great with 3ft waves at 6.5s intervals with 5-15 mph winds. We planned to launch about an hour before high tide but due to a busy ramp and it taking about an hour to raise the rigging and boom we ended up launching about half an hour after high tide. At this launch we had a river entering from the east which provided much more current than we were ready for and we looked really sloppy but we managed to survive LOL.

Initial handling was not what my friend or I had been expecting and it took awhile to get a feel for the boat but before long we were in open water and starting to throttle up. We got it up to approximately 20mph (not knots - no pun intended) according to the speed indicator and got a lot of puzzled looks from the power boat and sailboats alike as we started on a plane and went skipping across the water LOL. After bringing it up to max speed we dropped the throttle, opened the ballast and intentionally started taking on water (very strange having spent years trying to keep water out of my boats.)

Winds were very light at this point at 5-7 mph from the southwest so we raised the main and jib (didn't take the genoa with us today ) and managed to maintain steerage but had to advance the throttle to a hair over idle to make much progress heading west against the current. We had some trouble keeping it close hauled and kept threatening to go into irons, but this was mostly due to the lack of a wind indicator and inexperience on this boat.

After about 10 minutes of sailing the engine cut out however and wouldn't start back up causing a small amount of consternation since neither of us were comfortable trying to make it back to the dock under sail since we could barely maintain any headway and had such tight quarters and strong currents. We briefly considered taking it into an empty mooring and swimming ashore, but thankfully we were able to contact my parents who just happened to be out in their Cape Dory Typhoon 19' earlier and were with a friend in a lobster boat and they threw us a tow line and moved us away from shore while we managed to finally get the engine restarted.

My thinking is that my idle air fuel mixture was a little rich and managed to foul the plugs and we subsequently flooded the engine, but I'll have to look at it in a bit more detail and check the plugs to be sure. If anyone has any other ideas on what would cause a 2001 Mercury 40hp to stall out and not restart I am open to ideas since I haven't worked on a 2-stroke in 10+ years LOL.

Either way, I love the boat even with the rough first day. Thankfully it means we'll be doing another shakedown attempt next Monday conditions permitting (and from a launch with less cross current this time LOL.)

BTW: This is written while enjoying one of the most relaxing beers I've had in years

[Snyds]

Hey Matt I'm assuming,

sounds like a great first day and the looks in WOT are great, in fact I got filmed by a big group in a 50 thousand dollar wakeboard boat while wakeboarding a few weeks ago... The stopped by later to ask what in the world this thing was!!

Ok, inwas having motor problems, here's what I did and havnt had problems since (knock on wood)... Replace the bulb and rubber tubing from tank to motor, check the gasket where you attach fuel line to tank (according to the forum that's a notorious problem), and be sure your vents on the tank are open. I also had a tank that the line inside hit the bottom and curled up so a half tank of gas would stall the motor

best of luck and may I also advise to save someone else from writting to add some info on you boat to ur name area in the top right

Steve

[Russ]

Great story.

100% of my engine problems have been fuel. Empty tank or air in the fuel line. After a week of being away we seem to develop air in the line. Squeezing the bulb seems to fix all of the problems. Sometimes even overnight we get air in the line. I'm thinking of getting a spare fuel line.

--Russ

[J.Teixeira]

On the engine fuel plug you will find a small rubber ring.

Check it, clean it or replace it...

Jose

[Rick Westlake]

100% of my engine problems have been fuel. Empty tank or air in the fuel line. After a week of being away we seem to develop air in the line. Squeezing the bulb seems to fix all of the problems. Sometimes even overnight we get air in the line. I'm thinking of getting a spare fuel line.

Air in the fuel line sounds like a leaky fuel line to me, Russ. Question is, where's the leak? Certainly at the tank-side fitting. Maybe also at the engine side? I'd play it safe and replace the fuel line - in fact, I did, earlier this summer.

I had a leaky bayonet-plug in the engine side of my 10-year-old Honda 50 fuel line. The tank side was fine, but there was a fuel leak at the engine - with the line on or off the engine. Not a good thing at all! The O-ring looked so thoroughly and permanently "captive" that I bought a new line - and had to replace the fitting on the engine itself, too. Quite expensive, over $100 all told, but problem solved.

As a side note, I cut off the non-leaking tank side of the old fuel line and ran it to a pre-filter and fuel-water separator, with a fuel-tank bayonet plug on the filter's outlet. The pre-filter sits under the helmsman's seat, where it's in plain view but it's out of the way. I can switch the filter's intake line from tank to tank in a moment, or bypass the filter instantly by plugging the engine's fuel line directly into another tank.
A little more insurance for my engine ...

[mattvct]

I'll be sure to take a look at my fuel system tomorrow afternoon. I need to replace my fuel tank anyway since the previous owner snapped the neck on my fuel tank and it appears to have been secured back in place with PVC pipe and glue I'm not decided on whether to go with a single 12 gallon tank like I currently have or two 6 gallons on opposite sides. The downside to two tanks would be that I already have an access panel centered on the starboard locker so I'd almost have to center the tanks in the locker, and because I'd have to relocate my starting battery which is currently in the port locker (though I was planning on moving it below deck anyway.)

Rick, do you happen to have a picture of your setup? Connecticut is one of those states that requires 10% Ethanol in all gasoline, so a fuel/water separator was on my list already and additional filtration sounds rather prudent if I'm going to be digging in anyway.

[Rick Westlake]

Matt, I have only one photo of the filter itself - without hoses attached. This is a crop from the original of a photo in my "Stern anchor" mod from a couple of weeks ago:


You can see the filter to the right of my starboard gas tank; the brass hose barb is for the intake hose, which I cannibalized from my old fuel hose. I put a Honda tank-outlet fitting on the unseen (forward) side of the filter, so I can plug the engine's fuel line into the filter OR directly into the tank.

The filter I got is the Racor 025-RAC-02 ... it's small and compact, but it doesn't have a quick-drain on the bowl. I thought the next size up, the 120-RAC-01, would be too big - now I know it would not, and it has paired intakes and outlets on both sides of the filter assembly. I wouldn't have been forced to put the "intake" aft and the "outlet" forward, and (with my light-plane background) I'd have been happier with the built-in quick drain on the 120-RAC-01.

If you do choose to add a pre-filter, don't whiz on my electric fence. Get the 120-RAC-01 filter in the first place, and rest assured that it won't get in the way.

Oh - by the way, on fuel tanks - elsewhere in the Powersailor discussion, someone posted a picture of how he was able to snuggle two "Neptune" 6-gallon tanks side-by-side in each fuel-tank "locker" on his 26X. I've seen the Neptune tanks at a local K-Mart in Annapolis, and the Bass Pro Shops has them as well; they aren't expensive, about $32 per tank. They don't have any gauges on them, but with multiple tanks you can just go by "how many are empty" anyways. (I don't do much engine-running, so my present twin 6-gallon tanks seem ample to me - but sometimes I still worry about "What if ...?" Maybe I'll buy a pair of them and see for myself.)

Hope this helps -
Rick