Shah Mat

It's winter (shut up bottom and left coasts) and we're all bored as hell. Tell us about your best quick fix, duct tape, shoe string to get back to the dock story.
Here's mine;

Years ago in my old bow rider we were headed back to the dock after staying real late at Jamaica Joe's Crabhouse. They had a band playing that sounded real good which was rare. It was about 2am and we were running about 35-40mph and I was getting close to the very narrow channel leading to the marina I launched from. I grabbed the throttle (horizontal mounted shifter/throttle) to slow down......OH SHlT....it was frozen in place. I pulled on it real hard and it would not move. I tried not to panic but unlit channel markers were approaching real fast that I knew were there but had not seen yet. So i just grabbed the key and shut off the motor. Now we were adrift at 2am with the the boat in gear and at part throttle. I looked under the gunwale with a flashlight but could not see anything wrong. Opened the engine hatch but nothing wrong there either. Tried to restart the motor but the neutral switch prevented that. Hummmm how do we get in????? I pulled out the tool box and disconnected the shifter cable at the transom, and disconnected the throttle at the carb. Took a long screwdriver and jumped across the 2 starter terminals to fire the engine. Grabbed the throw cushion to sit on and told my buddy to steer. I sat on the deck and put it into gear and worked the throttle at the carb. If the APBA could have seen us...my 19' bow rider now had a driver and a throttleman!! Too bad it was dark and late, it probably look funny while we docked.
The next day I checked out the problem. Turns out the one of the four mounting screws for the shifter/throttle assembly had backed out. These screws are behind the round base part of the throttle arm. When it backed out, it backed out into and perfect size hole on the backside of the throttle arm.

HiPerf2000

iTrader: (2)

had a blower belt go once....i made a new and improved one out of Duct Tape. Got me back in.

Wally

iTrader: (1)

Oh man.....with all my idiot friends where do i begin!!!

One of the most memorable events i had was jetskiing one year a while back. We just got out past the break wall and gave it gas and was just about up ontop of the water when BLAH..the motor sputtered and died.....WTF??? Crank and nothing.....waves are crashing on me and rolling the ski when i cant get controll of it.....i finnaly flag down another jetskiier on a waverunner and he tows me in......during the tow the ski floods and sinks!!! all you see is about 2' of the nose in front where it was filled with foam!! So i get back to the beach and start to see what went wrong. Come to find that one of the two bolts holding the carb inplace is snapped clean off and flush with the intake manifold! i dont have any real tools at hand other then a small fix-it tool box) So i sit there on the beach and tell my buddies to go ahead with the rest of the day.....no sense in calling it a day for everyone. While i'm sitting there getting a Tan i'm thinking on how i can fix this.....then i get a bright idea...run over to the marina and see if they have any silicone....yes they do!!! run back to the beach and take the carb off the intake....clean off the mating surfaces....put a thin coat of silicone on the intake and on bottom of carb....let stand for 15min to get tacky.....install carb back on intake and crank down the one bolt. Zip-tie the other side of the carb to the intake and wahla!! I jetski the rest of the day like nothing ever happened and was gonna use it the next day the same way but friends wouldnt let me!

robyw1

Well my old bowrider was T-Boned by a Jet-ski going about 50-MPH. The idiot didn't realize that you have to throttle it to make it steer. It caused about 7500 in damage andwe thought it might sink. I didn't attempt to fix it but we made everyone put on vest and sit on the good side of the boat so the damaged side would be up out of the water. We almost sank it back at the marina waiting to put it on the trailer.

Roby

sean stinson

I used a pair of fish net stockings for a power steering belt one time.....

Tinkerer

First time out in the spring.
get to the boat ramp and fire up the port engine and then reach for the starboard key. Did I say that my boat is a two key boat. The other key was at home.
SOOO
I hot wired one of the engines so that the run wire was always energized but if you pulled the lanyard it would kill it. So the process for the day was install the lanyard then use the one key to start that motor then remove the key ( the engine stays running ) insert the key in the other motor and start it normally.

Then there is the time I blew the shift cable on one of the motors on the second day of a 5 day port hopping trip.
Had reverse but no forward on one motor.
swapped the props and then drove the boat back to the trailer and replaced the cable. ( shiffters were in reverse )
then ran at a much higher cruise speed back to the next port on the list.

Chart

So, you went bare-legged? Didn't that wreck the look of your outfit?