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Honda outboard warranty


Ken_Potts

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  I think I violated my warranty today.  The owner's manual for the honda 2hp 4 stroke states clearly that the engine should never be inverted or submerged in water.  I managed to do both at the same time today while sailing on Jordan Lake with Jim...  Well, technically, by the time the motor was underwater we weren't really sailing anymore...

  So what do I need to do to get my motor running again?

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Ken,  We're turning blue holding our breath  :o waiting for you to tell us all about it !

The soggy motor was the only casualty?  Hope so.    So....  enough suspense already ....!     

(The parts I know only have to do with the weather:  high temp near ~73,  alternating blue sky and storms,  occasional tornado warnings,  winds 18 gusting to 30. )

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   Thank you for asking, Paul!

   It was a great day for sailing but it turns out if I do the wrong things just right I can make my boat do a barrel roll (okay half a barrel roll)  ;D

   We were able to go quite fast today - I've got no numbers for you but at one point there was a geyser shooting up from the centerboard trunk (whee!)  Then we were reaching on port tack and the mizzen sheet let loose.  I spun around to try to catch it before it went overboard but I wasn't fast enough.  While I was doing that the bow was being blown off the wind so (I think - It's a little fuzzy) I pushed the tiller away to round up.  I know full well that's the wrong thing to do - I should have turned dead downwind so we could sort things out like gentlemen but my brain locked and I tried so hard to bring the bow into the wind that I put us over.  Rolled pretty quick too.  Just like that.  "Look I'm breathing - Hey I'm underwater!"  Turtled her, I did, poor old Southbound.  Launched me crew into the briny blue.  Woo!

   I'm sorry to report that I owe Jim a hat.  As far as I know that's the only casualty.  The cooler and some seat cushions were rounded up by some amused fishermen.

   The real kicker though is we got video on the mizzen cam today but the camera was off when our unplanned excursion from horizontal happened.  No video!  Arrrgh!

   I'm hoping Jim will chime in with his impressions of the day.  He had the worst of it for sure.  If I were him I might be mad at me.  I think his Sunfish days prepared him for today though.  He seemed less traumatized than I felt.

   There was some trouble with my non-self-draining seat hatches.  When we rolled the boat back up the starboard lockers filled to the brim resulting in a drastic list to leeward.  Rather than try to keep the water out in the future I'll be drilling some manly-sized scuppers to drain them fast next time.  The fore and aft flotation is WAY more than adequate.  I know.  I seen it upside down.  ;D

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Ken,  Sounds exciting.  Did the boat turtle with no delay?  How long did it take to right the boat?  Did you stand on the CB?  How did you bail/pump the water out?  Did you bail/pump the lockers?  Any hypothermia?  Did the motor contribute to turtleing?  Give us the gory details and the play-by-play, please.   --Paul  

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  It didn't take long to right the boat (a couple of minutes?)  My windsurfing past took charge at first and I went around to the windward side so the masts would come out of the water from the downwind side.  Wrong idea.  Although Jim had released the main sheet the masts and sails offered too much resistance.  As the boat was being pushed along I was basically trying to drag the masts against a current.  Once I moved to the downwind side of the boat things went better.  the boat was being pushed along by the wind and the drag the masts and sails exerted made them want to come up on the upwind side of the boat.

  I climbed up on the bottom of the boat, held on to the centerboard and leaned back.  Jim held onto the boat and weighted the chine until we were over the hump.  It seemed to go slowly but the boat was righting the whole time (progress is progress).  Once things were moving along Jim swam off to grab the rudder (see the list below).  It wasn't too bad righting the boat but I had LOTS of water onboard.  If you remember Graham's capsize test he ended up in not bad shape because his watertight seats kept a lot of water out of the boat.  Not so with my water-magnet hatches.  when the boat was on its side the starboard lockers were filled and the loss of bouyancy from them during the righting process let lots of extra water in.  At first the water was about level with the port-side seat tops and because of the locker and wind-induced list it covered the starboard seats pretty well.  I bailed a bunch and when I felt the boat was stable enough I started tending to the sails.

  I took the sprit booms out and started to roll the mizzen around the mast to decrease windage but the act of rolling a sail usually forms a temporary wind-scoop and the second or third roll resulted in the leeward rail going under again and I was back to square one on bailing.

  Eventually things were sorted out and Jim sailed us over to a beach to finish bailing and move the mizzen to the reefing step.

  I've left some details out because I'm hoping Jim will share his honest thoughts about the event.

  If I had built my hatches like you (Paul) or like Graham I think I would have taken MUCH less water on.  The watertight (or mostly watertight) seat tanks offer so much bouyancy that the boat would have been much higher in the water when righting (though it might have been more stable while inverted).

  So - Modifications:

1. I will drill big ol' scuppers to allow the seat lockers to drain quickly to let the boat balance while I bail.  Eventually I may seal the lockers completely so they are just air tanks.

2. I'll drill a hole in the thwart seat and secure the mizzen downhaul to it.  The downhaul is currently tied to the mast and there was minor damage to the step when the mizzen bounced out.  It could have gone right to the bottom while the boat was upside down and I'm an idiot to not have it secured to the thwart yet (been meaning to do it...)

3.  Rudder hold-down.  Once again - I'm an idiot  :)

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  Paul!  Don't let Dawn see this thread!!  :o  She's been making such lovely progress :)

  Dawn!  I know you've already seen this!  :o  I'd much rather do what we did today than punch out of a loaded sea kayak and try to recover.  I'm not kidding.  Seriously.  It wasn't as bad.  Really.

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   Hee hee!

   Yes Francesco - This was all for you  ;D

   There were two reasons the motor was onboard.  1 - The weather forecast included thunderstorms and I'm not interested in feeling lightning again.  2 - The forecast included a wind-shift and I wanted the option of powering back to the dock if the wind direction wasn't favorable.  I've got oarlocks but I haven't installed them because I haven't built the oars yet.  I will build the oars and I will leave the motor off the boat often but I won't sell the motor because there's plenty of practical application for a motor on my boat.

   I didn't expect to be rolling the boat.  A reasonable person would simply have reefed when they saw the whitecaps from the dock (but  I'm not necessarily a reasonable person and we were sailing very fast before the capsize  ;D ).  I'll let you know how difficult it is to get the motor running again.  I don't expect too much trouble.

   So are you home again?  How long was your flight home, 4 days or 5?  ;)

   I definitely advocate the use of a motor.  Or the use of oars.  Or the use of a paddle.  Or an anchor and a tent.  There's an infinite number of ways to do this sailing thing so enjoy the decision you've made or modify it and enjoy the new decision.

   When we went over today we were the only sailboat in view (lots of windsurfers, though).  Later on there was a Compac 16 having a good time sailing with a Johnson 4hp on the stern.  I don't think they used the motor today and I know we didn't.  We had plenty of wind (too much to row to windward).  There weren't any sail/oar powered boats in evidence  ;D  Maybe they're just smarter...

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Yes, I had an adventure on Lake Jordan yesterday with Ken.  Late Friday night, I found an email from Ken asking if I wanted to sail Sat.  It was going to be iffy weather, but, heck...I have a saying "every sail is an adventure.".    Saturday morning I called Ken to see if he was still up for it.  He was.  The weather a warm 65-70 and blowing, so I decided to wear swim trunks.  That turned out to be a good decision.  On the way to Jordan, the sun came out and by the time I got to Vista Point, Ken was rigging and we were set for a blustery and rather sunny day with clouds passing rapidly over head.  We launched, and about five minutes into the sail, Ken wanted his life vest.  Another good move.  We tacked several times across the lake, with the goal of getting the CS17 to plane.  My recent sailing experience is on a sloop and past experience many moons ago is on a Sunfish.  So, I was learning how to deal with sailing cat-ketch.  We took turns at the helm and got each other wet from the splash. 

As Ken related, he was at the helm and we tacked and the next thing I knew we were heeling pretty far and then just before going over I heard a faint "Sorry" from Ken.  Over we went :o.

The boat turtled 180.  At first I thought the masts would have been stuck in the mud, but we were in such deep water that it was clear they did not hit the bottom.  The first thing I noticed was that the rudder came off and started to float away and that I no longer had a shoe on my left foot.  Going into the drink, my head never really went under the water.  I grabbed the rudder and we got into position on the leeward side to right the boat after realizing that the windward side was not going to work.  Ken stood on the CB, the most I could do was pull myself halfway up.  Slowly the boat righted and as it did we heard everything sliding.

I was trying to keep the rudder from floating away and by the time Ken got in, the wind blew the boat away from me.  Ken tried to start the motor, but that wasn't going to happen.  I tried to swim a bit and figured I could not catch up with the wind blowing the boat. By that time, I noticed a yellow float in front of me that was keeping my truck key from sinking.  I grabbed it and got out my whistle from the life vest.  Up wind, there were windsurfers....but they did not notice anything.  So I proceeded to blow the whistle and wave the yellow key float until some fishermen noticed.  They asked me if I was with "that" boat...the one with the guy bailing.  I told them yes, and I have the rudder :).

Eventually I got in their boat and got back to Ken.  The fishermen commented that I was the largest fish they caught that day.

We bailed some water, got the rudder back on, and partially unrolled a sail to get us moving again so the self-bailer could work on the remaining water.  Ken was checking the bailer and said "I found your shoe."  We got to a beach.  Bailed the remaining water and had a beer.  We took inventory and the only thing lost was my hat. Ken moved the mizzen forward while keeping the main rolled on the mast and we had a good sail back.  Ken really needed a smoke. ;)

Some thoughts:

1) I now prefer a life vest with closed cell foam rather than an inflatable.  I noticed that the vest kept my chest warm in the water, although my extremities never really got cold.

2) A whistle is a good thing to have attached to the vest.

3) The impulse to buy a float for my truck key was a good one.

4) Losing a hat was nothing.

5) It was good that we were on a lake rather than a river with currents or on the coast.

6) I still will sail with Ken.  BTW, the two remaining beers were great, Ken!

Cheers,

Jim

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Ken:

I am happy that both of you are okay, that is always the most important. I arrived back this Saturday after a 13 hour flight and as crazy as it sounds heading back to Maryland for Thanksgiving!!!

I was wondering why the masts did not slide out especially since the Mizzen lines were loose and you were 180 degrees. Were the Halyards enough to keep it in place?

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Jim - Thanks for being nice.  You earned those beers...

Maybe next time if we get separated I'll just let the boat roll back over - It doesn't seem to drift as fast while inverted.  Then again, next time I'll have a rudder hold-down and better drainage in the lockers.  Wat a minute - Why am I talking about "Next time"?  :o

I'm looking forward to sailing with you again.  Today didn't happen because it turns out my left arm is a bit stiff.

Francesco - That's a long flight to endure.  You must really like both places a lot to put yourself through that.

The mizzen mast ended up out of the step but not out of the thwart.  I think friction may have played a role in keeping it from sliding into the depths of the lake because there were no lines holding it down.  I've been meaning to drill a hole in the thwart and use the downhaul to secure the mast to the boat (as Graham suggests) but I hadn't gotten around to it...  It's higher on my list of priorities now.  Maybe I'll re-route the mizzen sheet more like Lapwing's too, so it isn't behind me.

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  Ray - The reason I'm thinking about not sealing the seat lockers is I'm trying to minimize inverted stability.  I understand that the sealed seats keep the majority of the water out of the boat but I'm not sure I'd be able to right the boat alone with the extra stability of the side air tanks (I sail alone fairly often).  I'd rather bail extra water out of an upright boat than have to call for help from an inverted boat.  I don't remember hearing of an accidental capsize of a CS17 that was sorted out fairly easily by one person (I can only think of one other accidental capsize that I've heard of and he got his masts stuck in the mud, which is a whole different nightmare).

  If someone owns up to having flipped over solo in real weather and deep water with airtight seats I'll probably glass over the seat hatches and make the seats into watertight tanks (why bail if I don't have to?).  Anybody been there?

  Dawn - You're kayak is better than mine (as are your skills) ;D  When I go over (without a spray skirt) it's ugly... ;)

So do you want those sail covers, or what?  I was thinking it might be possible to make them so they'd work on the boat (at anchor) and off...

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Great report(s) on a scary mishap. Glad you're both all right. As a kayaker, I've always kept a whistle attached to my PFD, and I think that's very smart. In colder water, it's amazing how much the water can suck the breath out of you and make it impossible to call for help, but even short-of-breath swimmers can usually blow a whistle loud enough to be heard. Lucky you had one with you, though it sounds like your water wasn't freezing cold yet either.

Hope the motor salvages out okay. Usually, with fresh water, the damage is much less than with salt water. But you do want to get after it before too much corrosion happens. Probably should replace the lower unit lube, too, since water may find its way into the lower unit through the top if it was submerged, and that can spell bad news for the gearcase, etc.

I'd probably hold off on drilling scuppers just yet. Is there a way to improve the watertightness of your existing hatches? I've got hatches like Graham's plans, but it sounds like you've got something different. Another possibility (better than permanently sealing your hatches, I think), would be to get/make custom-fit buoyancy bags to inflate inside each compartment. That would take up much of the volume and reduce the amount of water that can be taken on. Or you could get a series of small to medium-sized dry boxes and bags for the same purpose. They would use up volume, but still allow you to stow gear/supplies in them, too. Just some ideas...

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  Ray - I agree that in lighter airs it's pretty near impossible to capsize (well - Actually impossible in my experience).  Saturday wasn't even really a capsize day but I made a dumb mistake that forced it to happen.  I've seen plenty of floats at the tops of catamaran masts so they must work pretty well.  There's a lot of leverage way out at the end of the mast.  I still feel very comfortabe with the stability of the CS17 though.  I don't think I need the extra insurance of mast head floats.  Though it would be pretty cool to have some of the self deploying things you mentioned - Maybe I could scavenge some car airbags and seal them up properly  ;)

Wes - I took shortcuts on building those hatches and I've never been happy with them.  The reason I'm more than ready to seal the whole thing is I've never used those lockers for storage (way too wet the way I built them) and I've never had a shortage of space.  The rest of the boat just sucks up as much camping gear as I've been able to throw at it.  If I thought I'd use the space for storage it would definitely be worth working out the non-watertight problem but I don't really need the space.

I already drilled little bitty drain holes for those lockers a while back.  The holes are to let out the water that condenses on the inside of the lockers etc.  I didn't see the need for big holes until I wanted to drain the lockers fast.  And if I do drill bigger drains it's not like I can't patch them if I don't end up liking them  :)

Because there are people reading this who haven't sailed on a Core Sound I should mention that I remain immensely impressed with the design (The builder is completely responsible for the hatch problems and the captain is completely responsible for the capsize - I plan to have a stern word with the two of them at the next available opportunity).  I had to do something really wrong in fairly heavy weather before the boat went over.  If only I could count the times I did the wrong thing and the boat still got me out of trouble...  My admiration for the design is almost boundless.  I would still think it's the absolute perfect design for me if I hadn't seen that pesky Southern Skimmer  ;D

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Ken and Jim,   excellent reporting and great comments.  Thank you for sharing the experience.  You provided valuable insights and the details which, along with others' posted comments,  are good to think about.   

Ray, your comment about running a fender up a mast(s) as an anti-turtle strategy: this summer we were planning to do an intentional capsize and recovery practice and it occurred to me that I might want to hoist a fender or two to avoid turtleing.  I also thought about the possibility of using the stays'l halyard to run a fender down to the top of the mast after turtled if it turned out to be "too stable" when turtled.   Excluding the mast-top floats on some recreational cats,  do you happen to know of any instances of anyone actually hoisting fenders on masts?  

I would add a comment about leaky storage compartments.  On our CS20 the storage tank in the aft bench (running across the transom) is temporarily filled with about 50 empty, clean, closed, 2-liter, soda bottles. This is temporary until I fix the leakiness of the gasket area in that hatch.  We realized we wanted weighty gear to be stored in forward tanks and that we do not need to store anything bulky or heavy in this compartment.  What do you do with leaky storage space that will remain empty?  For a cheap temporary solution, using a lot of 2-liter soda bottles is an option.  50 bottles = 100 liters ~= 3.5 cubic feet.  As Wes suggested, a custom fitted floatation bag would fill the space best.  Either way provides floatation that can be reduced to accommodate additional gear if necessary.    

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  Cool idea for the soda bottles Paul.  I hadn't thought of it even though I had 30 liters of soda bottle flotation in my kayak  ;D

  And let me know if you want help with the capsize test - I'm gaining some experience with the subject.  If we pick the right day we won't have to worry about pesky winches and anchors and stuff...

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