Finally got out on the boat today, took my son, grandson, and friend along. We didn’t go to far out as I’m new to boating and this boat.

Good news is everyone managed to catch some fish, not a lot of keepers, but the grandson is 7 and had a good time. And the boat rides great, cruises nicely around 40mph.

Bad news is one engine is not going into reverse, and I have a leak. And I had to cut off my nice anchor, it was hung up and we finally just cut it loose. And my new gauges are not working correctly.

The mechanic is suppose to stop buy tommorow and look at the gauges, they are new so hopefully he can figure it out, he also worked on the motors so he can figure out why it’s not going into reverse.

Time for a new mechanic? Seriously there are so many more bad ones than good it’s not even funny. Get him to fix what he didn’t do right the first time and cut him loose.

He was recommended by more than one. The gauges plug into a harness, the tack gauges are both reading the port engine. It may have been doing that before, one guage was unreadable. I’ll give him a chance to look it over. Same with the gear issue, he had to pull the power head on that engine to replace the oil pump, so hopefully it’s just a cable adjustment.

I called him Friday and he’s suppose to check it out tommorow, he is backed up for several weeks so I’ll see how he takes care of things. I picked up the boat at the marina, so he didn’t have a chance to test it out.

His name wouldn't be Aaron by any chance, would it?

Nope, I’ll post it if he doesn’t take care of things.

Just wanted to throw it out there. I have many friends who have been screwed by boat mechanics, sometimes multiple times by the same guy. Don’t be afraid to punt.

Did you try to retrieve the anchor by pulling it in the opposite direction from which it was set?

What net?

still

your boat is much nicer than my boat. :) you'll get it sorted out, im sure. weird about the anchor.

Really nice boat.

At worst, you start going around in circles and it will eventually come out, even if it is bent. Only twice in 35+ years of boating have we had to send a family member down to get it unstuck.

The lost stuck anchor is a bummer.
You can pull yourself down an anchor line quite a bit deeper than you can free dive. Then pull it out of the obstruction.
Having mask snorkle and fins aboard is good.

If you know you are anchoring in a bottom that could snag the anchor, attaching a line to the bottom of the anchor with a float on it will give you another chance of pulling it out.

Or if you have to leave it behind. You could leave a float on it and come back with scuba gear to pick it up.

So many chances to learn about the intricacies of boating, keep at it and have fun.

I hope your mechanic comes thru for you.

Cheers Richard

You should get an anchor lifting ring and buoy. We used these all the time when anchored in deep water offshore. In 200' of water you could easily have over 600' of line out depending on current and the makeup of the bottom. Even with a winch, hauling in that much line just plain sucks..

Anchor lifting buoy:

https://www.westmarine.com/anchor-retrieval


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If the anchor doesn't come up, let the line get taught, the buoy will ride up the line, and then you can add more floatation..

When the anchor is free and floating, all you're doing is retrieving line, not hauling the weight of the anchor through the water.

That's a new one for me Tim. Thanks for sharing it.

Cheers Richard

Punta Gorda :rolleyes:

Yes I did. We were fishing where they dropped a old bridge. There is a lot of stuff down there. I talked with my neighbor and he either drifts across it Or anchors farther away and drifts that way. Just half to consider it a learning experience.

The mechanic was here today and got the gauges sorted out. There was a fuse blown and he claimed the wire harness were backward. I really don’t know if it was reading both the same before hand as one guage was unreadable. It’s fixed now.

As to going in reverse. It works find by hand, but the cable just doesn’t seem to be firm enough to push it the last bit. The cables look good and seem to work fine. I told him to check the cables when it was in the shop as moving the handles at the helm was far from smooth. He mentioned then that the throttle and gear controller probably needed some work, I’m pretty sure it is original to the boat.

He offered to pull it apart and look it over, I just said go ahead and buy a new one. Part should be in Wednesday and he said he would try and get it in the same day.

So I’m still OK with him, it was in his shop on his trailer getting worked on. The only time he had a chance to put it in the water was when he was unloading it at the ramp. And it was going into reverse then, and both gauges were indicating rpm so you really wouldn’t notice they were from the same engine.

what type of fish did you catch?

If we could just keep the Canadians, And those from the Northeast from overcrowding the place, it would be nicer.

We started off with catfish that they don’t keep here, but we let my 7 year old grandson catch a few, then we moved to the old bridge spot and caught snapper. Most were too small, but we did catch a few keepers.

We left the house around 8:00 and were home around 1:00. We didn’t want to take a chance with the afternoon thunderstorms. And we ready to head in by then, it was pretty warm.

Suggest "Money Pit" for the name maybe ? :-)