Hey,
Somehow I've put 60 hours on my boat in a short time.
My boat has the keyless ignition where the keys sit under the back starboard seat.

The ignition is on the dash, one switch to turn the ignition on and another to start the motor.

Now the big question, does anyone know if the hour meter counts up if the keys are turned on under the seat, but the engines are off, ie, ignition off on the dash?

Cheers

turn on the key and watch ..

that's the next thing I'll do. turn on the music and drink a couple of beers and see what happens..

Some boats hour meters run as soon as the ignition switch is on, regardless of whether the motors are running or not.

+1......verify hours on motors with computer to see if they match the gauges.

I had my boat in a shop once that left the ignition on for 3 days, racking up 75+ hours on the gauge. Solution was to disconnect the hour meter on that one motor, run it for a year and when it got close to the other gauge reconnect it. Not exactly scientific but I got it within an hour of what was really on the motor.

OK. I took the scientific method. The hours were out by two on either side.
We plugged the Mercury computer in to check it.

I can't believe I racked up 60 hours this year. But I did !

Yup, the hour meter only runs when you have the ignition switches on your dash flipped into the up position.