Engine Warmup / Ramp Etiquette
 

How do you guys deal with warming your boats up when you launch them? It takes me about 3-5 minutes to gain enough temperature to get the boat to idle low enough to shift into gear. Doesn't sound like a long time, but when I'm clogging up the ramp I feel like an a**, and the family about to go fishing on their outboard runabout generally has no sympathy or understanding as to why I have to let it warm up to avoid dropping into gear at ~2k rpm. Yesterday someone backed their bass boat down the ramp until it was about 2 inches from my bow, he gets out of the truck and starts yelling, I'm honestly not even sure what he was saying. I said something about warm-up, and he jumped in the truck, did a smokey burnout up the ramp, and moved to the other side. (there was another ramp open, I think he just wanted to prove a point that I was taking too long) Granted the temps in OH have been pretty cool lately, so hopefully in the summer it wont be so bad.

Where I boat, there are 3 ramps, and the dock is only about the length of my boat (24') so it's not long enough to pull the boat back and out of the way. 99% of the time I'm alone, so that doesn't help my cause.

Just curious if anyone else deals with this?

Do you trailer? If it's not a real long ride to the ramp you can run the boat at home on the hose so it's not totally cold.

I have a stock MPI motor, turn the key and go.....

I don't see an issue at all, long as you are not un covering at the ramp and loading gear into the boat. What I do is back it in start the boat and go park the truck while the boat is warming up, that will eat some time while parking the truck. It seems people less people show respect for others it's sad to say but not too many go the extra mile to help another or just to show some respect. IMO

I do trailer, I have considered trying to warm it up at home, but it's a TRS boat with a transom water pickup, so it's somewhat involved to put the hose to it.

I'm far from stock, and carb'd no MPI luxury for me...

I try to be as fast as possible, sometimes I think I'm the only guy who uses the rigging area. With my old four winns (Fuel injected) If i was boating with friends, it was our goal to occupy the ramp for less than one minute :drink:

You couldn't be more right with people having no respect these days.

You're the skipper of your vessel and you say when you are ready to go. Just flip the B******* the :bigbird: and go on with your day.

I like the idea of backing it in deep enough to tie it up while running. Park the truck hop in and go.

You could also look into working on the carb with an oil temp switch/choke setup.

I know the feeling, I had a 21 Scarab with a small block that had a little too much cam. It took forever to warm up. I would wind up jumping the gun and it would die about 3-4 times before I could get it to the dock.

I back mine in and get it off the trailer. Tie it up to dock and start motors. I leave boat running when I know motors will not die. I go and park truck/trailer and walk back to ramp. This takes about 2 minutes so that should be enough to get your motors up to temp enough to idle away.

And if some guy starts yelling, move slower !!!!! :)

what Smitty said x2
People can be A holes sometime, this is a hobby, chill, we are not rushing like it's a emergency. Don't sit there and eat lunch, but do make sure your boat is ready to go, all warmed up so it won't stall. Do what you can before you back it in, but a boat should warm up a little at the dock. I think fishermen in 12 foot alum boats with 9 hp don't understand, anybody who has been in a performance boat would understand.
On a busy day I try to be fast, but I'm not going to have the boat stall 3 times trying to get away from the dock.
If a guy got out of his truck and started toward me in a agressive way over this ...... It would be a mistake.

Do you walk it from the trailer to the dock? Never thought of that ... I don't know if that is possible at my ramp. I am alone 99% of the time also and when it is cool, it takes 3-5 minutes to warm up my 502 EFI enough to get it into gear.