Brand New Boat today left me stranded

[johncar]

Hi admahp,
Sorry to hear you had such trouble on your first new boat trip. Not a nice introduction to boating for you or you wife.

I am more at the other end of things boating with about 50 years, well pretty much all my life.

I just want you to know that this is not typical of boating unless you are just plain negligent. I know you are not necessarilly in this case as your new boat should perform well if you have done everything correctly.
Your job as a new boat owner to maximise your experience and safety is to study your owners manuals and you should also be studying a small ships manual. You also need to be overly observant and do your checks and double checks before leaving home and before and during launching. Log in to a CC or VMR with your radio. If there is one in your area you should also be a member of the local Coast guard or VMR, Plus sign up for any boating safety courses that they run.

I have to say that in 50 years of boating i have never needed a tow that I can remember and in the past 30 years of boating I often average 140 or so kms a day out, usually 50-70kms offshore.. I have assisted plenty and the number of times I hear "Just had it serviced" again as recently as last Wednesday a big new Honda on a Quinnie.
I have bought a few new boats in my time and most have been pretty poorly fitted up to be honest, even from reputable dealers/builders. In saying that I know that time is money and many are build to a price which does force shortcuts and oversights unfortunately. The only boat I ever bought that I could truly say was well built and fitted out was a Seafarer 6.0 Victory which was totally built and fitted at Lindsay Frys complex. No dealer involvement except to hand over the cheque. I also deeply regret selling that boat but had to at the time sadly.

I am lucky I guess that I have the knowlege to go right over my new boat/Motor/and yes Trailer too, before it hits the water and circumvent most potential problems. I don't want to dampen your enthusiasm for your new boat but just be aware that Boats are much different to many other products whereas many hands are involved along the way and every set of hands increases the potential for problems.

I don't know about your Mercury engine but the warning horn or instrumentation should also give you some idea of the type of problem and for your own safety you need to know what the alarms mean or keep your operators manual handy.

So my advice it to get to know your boat. Go through it from one end to the other, check every fuel connection, every bit of wiring, terminal to terminal, keep everything clen and free from corrosion, check your fuel filters regularly especially in a new boat. New fuel tanks can be full of rubbish.

Just to clarify yes I have had the odd bit of engine trouble where alarms have gone off, it happens to everyone at some point and I guess I have been lucky that things haven't happened while out at sea, a couple of times at the ramp or at home while doing checks but I think that good maintenance, vigilance, knowing your boat dramatically minimises the risk and give you a good boating experience.

And by the way I have owned pretty much OMC engines the whole way through, all been fairly bullet proof but currently a Yamaha 4st being my first deviation so I hope it is as good.

Good luck with getting it sorted.

[ShaneC]

I just had a thought, rum does that to me!!
I dont know if any new motors still have this
feature, but does it by any chance have a manual choke/ throttle advance that is a lever on the top of the control box??? The older Yammys and Johnnos had this feature and I would suggest some still do. Maybe, just maybe the lever wasn't home properly and you were effectively flooding it?? That would explain why she would start after a while then stop after a short time because it is being choked. If its a carby motor, that would support my theory of a fuel issue and offer a simple solution.

For what its worth, I had a Yammy 150 four stroke stop about a month ago, wouldnt start for love nor money, went home on one motor, got home, it started and hasnt had a problem since. Diagnostics came up with nothing, everything working great again and no reason for it. Its boating mate!! Just enjoy it while we still can....

Rum is good!!!

Shane

[Noelm]

OK, is the issue fixed yet? I kind of suspect there may be a small clue in the original post, the boat went fine on the dealer demo, correct? but he filled it with fuel for his own trip, correct? the breather spilled fuel during filling, correct? now, could it be possible that the breather has a loop in it, and it is now filled with fuel, thereby stopping any "breathing" going on? Next possible problem (and lets hope this is wrong, when you filled up, you got a heap of water along with your fuel! hence why it is sort of intermittant! What it turns out to be is really irrelevant, as long as the dealer finds the problem and fixes it quickly is all you need to worry about (well for now anyway)

[robothefisho]

Lower pressure in the tank would "syphon" the fuel from the breather if indeed there was a loop.

[Shawn 66]

Hey Admahp
What was the result bud.
Shawn

[julian1]

welcome to world of boating, it seems to be an indusrty where this happens, and mainly due to no total factory delivered boats fully rigged. did you check the oil bottle priming ? i had this issue with a pair of Opti's once they completed a trial run, then after 10mins of high trhottle did exactly what you described, the problem was the dealer neverbeleed through the oil bottle correctly and there was an air lock in the systems.

[admahp]

Firstly a big thank you to everyone here who has contributed to this thread. I will definitely take some on board some of the suggestions, especially in regards to joining some form of marine resuce.

After taking my boat back at the dealer, I waited until yesterday (Monday) to follow up. I called the dealer late in the afternoon since not receiving any calls from them. The response was that the technicians could not idenitfy the cause of the issue and therefore would need to take the boat out for a water test on Tuesday so it would be another day's wait until I would hear back from them.

Again I called late this afternoon, and spoke directly to the mechanic this time. They found out what was causing the motor to stop... it was due to a..... "faulty cam sensor".
A new sensor will be ordered tomorrow and fitted on Thursday . At least it's only a minor fault, not something more major.

Just to clarify, they had to take the boat out on the water for a full 15-20mins before the problem occured and they also needed a tow back to the ramp after the motor failed to start. They also confirmed with me that they did perform a full water test prior to me picking up the boat without any issues. It was pretty obvious that they probably didn't take out the boat for very long when they did the water test as the issue only occured after about 10 to 15 mins.

Anyway, I hope that once the replacement part has been fitted, she'll be sweet. However I think I will ask for another full water test to be performed to make sure that the boat won't leave me stranded anywhere else!
Now I can focus on accessorising and personalising our new boat

Cheers,
David

[brrbear]

good result!

[cormorant]

Good on the dealer. Good result . Still owes you a case of beer. A lot would have let you get stranded again and not investigated it thoroughly. I wonder how they worked it out if it didn't leave a code on the computer? Real pain going from sensor to sensor testing resistance and specs on teh off chance.
I can't for the life of me work out why a cam sensor would have a intermittant fault or one caused by 20 mintes of running.

Can't help myself - at least etec's don't have cam sensors to fail.

[johncar]

Good, let's hope they got it and yes a thorough water test would be wise.

All the best

[finga]

Good result.
I wonder if they'll take a back-up boat at the next water test??

After a couple of successful trips on the water this experience will be all but forgotten and you'll have a laugh talking about it over a beer around the BBQ.

[DTHCoCo]

Glad to hear they are getting things sorted out for you.

[PADDLES]

It'd probably be heat cormorant, sometimes electronics can be fine when cool and then just do funny stuff when they get hot. It is however interesting that the engine diagnostics didn't log the fault in the memory.

[oldie]

once a boat is fitted up the water test/pre delivery would consist of running the boat out to max revs RPM and check that motor did this successfully, check the fitted height, steering etc, they would not rack up 15-20 minutes on this test as thats time/hours on a new donk

I think as there would be hundreds of cam sensors being produced there may always be a faulty one same with cars trucks, generators etc etc

A case of Bad luck thats the good thing about buying a nEw motor Warranty and the 5 years Merc offers is great, imagine you just bought a used boat with out warranty you'd be reaching in your pocket.

good luck

[admahp]

when I sopke with the tech I did ask him about error logs and apparently he only found one error code before the water test, which was odd since it problem occoured three times on our initial run.

I don't know what the cam sensor detects but I am assuming that they have good information that it is the sensor that is the problem and not the cam itself .

Cheers