Ever thought you were about to kiss your boat goodbye?

[NoNceNse]

So last Saturday we went to the Mile High Meet and Greet down at the Pueblo Reservoir which was basically a big party at party cove. When we were getting ready leave a couple people needed a ride back to the marina and I agreed to take them. My 02 Supra SSV now has 11 people in it and I’m a little short on life vests : ( . As we leave the cove the winds pick up creating some rather large swells. When we pulled out of the no wake zone I punch the throttle, but the engine bogs down and won’t go past 2k rpm. Every time the engine try’s to get power it brings the nose up, then bogs bringing nose back down hard. Mix the weight from all the people, large swells, and the bogging down equaled the perfect storm. The front end took on so much water that the bow was completely full and quickly was spreading to the back. The front end immediately submerged and that’s when I thought we were done. I finally got smart and sent everyone to the very rear of the boat, flipped the bilge and drains for all ballast system (bags were not in at the time), and hopped in the bow scooping all the water out with a life jacket. Somehow that worked and the boat was saved.


Now that storytime is over, I need the figure out whats wrong with this motor. I took it out Monday and ran fine for about ten minutes and started to bog down again. It will move until around 2000 rpm and then it will lose power and back fire. I believe it might be a fuel issue. If I turn the key a couple times and let the pump prime the system, the boat will run good for 20 seconds and eventually start running like shit again. I thought it could be vapor lock since it was sitting in a hot cove all day, but on Monday it stopped running good fairly quick. Any thoughts? Maybe the following video could help.


http://youtu.be/cEoxYqRGg18

[Cusefan78]

Sounds like it starving for fuel. Change filters if that's doesn't work fuel pump might not be supplying enough pressure.

[CornRickey]

My son and I arrived at our new cabin for the first time with the Supra. The neighbor came over and congratulated its and we started chatting. While we were talking my son started unhooking the boat. All of a sudden the boat started rolling backwards. I was able to stop it before it got a couple revolutions in. Luckily everything worked out and the boat did not end up in the middle of our cabin we closed on just 45 minutes prior.

[2500HD]

check for water in the fuel

[NoNceNse]

So I ran back to the lake today to see if it would run better on Stabilfuel, octane booster, and 91. I put 87 in it previously and was hoping that was the issue. NOT. Since that didn't work I pulled off the spark arrest to watch throttle body injection spray fuel. Once it hits a higher rpm it stops spraying fuel completely in one of the two injectors. The injectors switch back and forth with not spraying. My current thought is to order a fuel filter and do a fuel pressure test before I spend the $350 to replace the fuel pump. I doubt both injectors would go out at the same time so I'm ruling out those as the issue.


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[wotan2525]

Sounds to me like something in your tank or that your pick-up is clogged. Dieing as the nose goes up is important as it means that something is shifting when this happens.

My boat sank. I ran 8-miles upriver for breakfast with my date at the time. It was a new relationship and she was pretty impressed that I was 21 and had a boat. ;) Came back to the dock after breakfast and the boat was sitting pretty low. Lifted up the hatch and there was a lot of water in there. Turned on both bilge pumps and started heading back downriver. Wasn't sure what else to do. Made it about a mile and the engine quit and wouldn't restart. Turns out that the water got so high that the wiring harness for the electric fuel pump had "floated" up and caused it to become tangled around the prop-shaft -- disabling the fuel pump. It didn't really matter since at this point it was obvious that the bilge pumps weren't keeping up. We were able to pull the boat to shore but it still sank in 2-3 feet of water.

Turns out that my stringers were rotten and my "repairs" had not done the trick. The engine twisted in its mounts, the prop-shaft wore completely through the shaft-log, and the water came rushing in. That was the beginning of a 2-year rebuild.

[Zim]

Only time I came close to anything like that was with an old tri-hull piece of crap that I split with a buddy in college for a grand total of 425 bucks. We forgot to put the plug in and when water started coming over the outboard mount we figured it out, put the plug in, flipped the bilge on, and off we went.

I learned real quickly how to avoid taking water over the bow on an inboard. My old mastercraft sat lower than my supra, but the supra will take on water in a second if i have two people in the bow with full ballast. You learn the tricks to keep the front end dry. I've only had water come over a couple times since owning the boat. Plug never gets removed all summer, so I don't have that problem either anymore haha.

[NoNceNse]

Yeah, definitely learned that the bow sits WAY lower than my old Bayliner

[ORIF]

Nearly went down 5 or 6 years ago : )

First time out for the season early Memorial Day morning. We just finished gassing up and pulled out of the cove, when I noticed that the boat was lugging and wouldn't plane out.
Couldn't figure out what the problem was at first. Put my 12 yo old son at the wheel and flipped open the engine cover only to find it partially submerged! Could not tell where the water was coming in from in all of the spray from the belt. I just assumed that we were going to sink at this point as the banks were all rocks, when my son got the incredibly brilliant idea to call a friend that had a vacation house nearby with a dock and boatlift. He tried unsuccessfully to call them while I steered towards their cove praying that they were home. We rounded the bend sinking lower in the water, bilge pump spewing and miraculously there they were on their dock in their lounge chairs! It took them a minute to understand what was happening and then they quickly pulled their boat out and we got ours on their lift just in time.

Turns out that after I dewinterized it, I was not able to sufficiently torque the screws on the impeller housing because of being in a cast from a broken wrist. The screws eventually backed out and the impeller cap fell off allowing the impeller to pump into the boat instead of the engine.

Years later, I must admit that I there have been times wished he never would have come up the idea. : )

[svahle]

In my first boat, the second time I had it out, a friend and I unloaded it and took a quick loop out into the lake while the rest of our party was parking the truck/trailer and waiting for an open spot on the loading dock. My friend was in the back seat and I heard him yell at me. When I turned to look back I saw that the floor of the boat in front of the back seat was full of water. I'm not sure why but my first reaction was to shut the boat down. I lifted the engine cover (it was a direct drive inboard) and the bilge was full up to the floor. The bilge had kicked on and the water level was dropping. So, we sat there and let the bilge pump do its job. I had no idea where the water had come from and there did not appear to be more water coming in. Once the bilge was empty, we fired it up and headed to the dock. About 1/2 way there water was again above the floor in the rear. I lifted the engine cover and saw a huge stream of water shooting out of the block. A block plug had come out. The higher the RPM, the quicker the boat filled. We finally found the plug and wedged it back in the block as best we could. It slowed the water enough to get back to the dock a load it on the trailer. There was a point in there before we sorted out the issue that I was convinced we were going to sink.

[NoNceNse]

Wow, I didn't think about how many ways a boat can sink. I'm going to start checking all plugs, clamps, and hoses before each trip for now on.

[Blackntan90]

Those are all good reasons to double clamp all hoses and have a ball valve at through-hulls....but stuff still happens! I too learned about the low nose with a boat full of family on Chesapeake bay,my brother took most of the water as he was sitting in the walk-through when a large power boat waked us and I did not throttle up in time!

[garyholl]

I wasn't going to do it but I have decided to tell my story.
I am 48 and have had boats my entire life. My 24' Supra is the first boat I ever almost lost.
We bought this boat on a cold Saturday in April. The next weekend it warmed up slightly and we couldn't stand not going out in it so off we went. I have lived in the same place on Lake Lewisville for 16 years, the entire time with a boat moored out front. The last Crownline had 1,000 hours when I traded it in on the Supra. I tell you this because you need to know that I have been on this lake in every imaginable condition, all times of day and night and all levels of the lake.
We left the Eagle Point marina and headed towards my house. Lewisville is 8 feet low now but I have seen it 11 feet down so I was confident we would be fine. about 15 minutes into our first ride, we had gone as far as we thought safe with the low water and I started to turn around. I was at a high idle, maybe 8 miles per hour. We heard a very loud clunk and I immediately turned off the motor. After a few minutes I started it back up and put it and gear and there was nothing. No propulsion at all. I was struggling to figure out what happened when I opened the engine compartment and it was filling with water (OH Sh@@!.) My wife - we better call a tow boat! All my friends still had their boats on trailers since it was so early in the season so we called Tow Boats US - Thank God!
I looked again and the V drive was almost covered and the bilge pumps were not keeping up. I disconnected all the ballast bags, shoved their hoses in the water and hit empty. They did not all work and needed some TLC to get going. I'm asking my wife, "How many streams do I have now?" When all three were flowing it finally started getting ahead. The Tow showed up and put a larger pump in the bilge area and we started getting ahead of it.
He towed us in to the marina and a bunch of wakeboarders were at the ramp gassing up at the gas dock. They all surrounded us to hear the story while I struggled to get the Supra on its trailer. We had a crowd surrounding us waiting to see it come out to see what we had done. As it came out it became obvious that there was no propeller, drive shaft, rudder or strut! All the guys were sympathetic, which helped. Everyone one of the at some point or another said, oh yeah, you shouldn't go to that part of the lake now. No Duh!
We alomost paid cash for the boat, with my trade in. We had many long talks about it. We finally financed half of it forcing us to get full coverage insurance. The damage, and tow, were completely covered as a collision-we paid a deductible of $500. That was it. Get insurance through SAFECO. Do it now!
We had hit some submerged farm equipement like some sort of metal. It cleaned all the under water mechanics completely of the bottom of the boat. If the lake goes down further I will go back and get my propeller and drive shaft, like Captain Hook looking for his hand. Safeco said they had already investigated the claim since it was 6 days after we bought the boat but the fact that we had been towed worked in our favor. It is all fixed now and we dig the Supra but damn are we paranoid now!

[garyholl]

I wasn't going to do it but I have decided to tell my story.
I am 48 and have had boats my entire life. My 24' Supra is the first boat I ever almost lost.
We bought this boat on a cold Saturday in April. The next weekend it warmed up slightly and we couldn't stand not going out in it so off we went. I have lived in the same place on Lake Lewisville for 16 years, the entire time with a boat moored out front. The last Crownline had 1,000 hours when I traded it in on the Supra. I tell you this because you need to know that I have been on this lake in every imaginable condition, all times of day and night and all levels of the lake.
We left the Eagle Point marina and headed towards my house. Lewisville is 8 feet low now but I have seen it 11 feet down so I was confident we would be fine. about 15 minutes into our first ride, we had gone as far as we thought safe with the low water and I started to turn around. I was at a high idle, maybe 8 miles per hour. We heard a very loud clunk and I immediately turned off the motor. After a few minutes I started it back up and put it and gear and there was nothing. No propulsion at all. I was struggling to figure out what happened when I opened the engine compartment and it was filling with water (OH Sh*#!.) My wife - "we better call a tow boat!" All my friends still had their boats on trailers since it was so early in the season so we called a tow boats service - Thank God!
I looked again and the V drive was almost covered and the bilge pump was not keeping up. I disconnected all the ballast bags, shoved their hoses in the water and hit the empty switches. They did not all work and needed some TLC to get going. I'm asking my wife, "How many streams do I have now?" When all three were flowing it finally started getting ahead of the water coming in. ThetTow showed up and put a larger pump in the bilge area and we were getting ahead of it.
He towed us in to the marina and a bunch of wakeboarders were at the ramp gassing up at the gas dock. They all surrounded us to hear the story while I struggled to get the Supra on its trailer. We had a crowd surrounding us waiting to see it come out of the water to see what we had done. As it came out it became obvious that there was no propeller, drive shaft, rudder or strut! The water had been coming in through the drive shaft hole. All the guys were sympathetic, which helped. However, everyone one of them at some point or another said, oh yeah, you shouldn't go to that part of the lake while it is low. No Duh!
We almost paid cash for the boat, with my trade in. We had many long talks about it. We finally financed half of it forcing us to get full coverage insurance. The damage, and tow, were completely covered as a collision-we paid a deductible of $500. That was it. If you don't have insurance get it now!
We had hit some submerged farm equipement like some sort of metal. It cleaned all the under water mechanics completely off the bottom of the boat. If the lake goes down further I will go back and get my propeller and drive shaft, like Captain Hook looking for his hand. The insurance company said they had already investigated the claim since it was 6 days after we bought the policy but the fact that we had been towed in worked in our favor because it was independent verification that we had struck something, were stranded and were sinking. It is all fixed now and we dig the Supra but damn are we paranoid now about where we go!

[Zim]

Damn that's scary. Good thinking on the ballast pumps. It's nice having 4 or 5 bilge pumps in a single boat haha.

[NoNceNse]

Yeah, we've been researching insurance ever since the incident. I'll pick one when I can get the boat running again.

[garyholl]

I heartily recommend SAFECO. they filled the claim very quickly, 6 days after we bought the policy.

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[Zim]

I haven't had a claim on my insurance, but ski-safe is very reasonable. They even have freeze protection if you're in the cold states. Rates are nice because you can choose a 6 month lay up that you're not using it, so that way you're not paying on insurance all year when you only use it 6 months. To have 34000 agreed value with 4k for the trailer, my insurance is 335/year. 100% worth it. Especially knowing I have liability coverage on there. If someone busts their shoulder while wakeboarding behind your boat, they can sue you for that. No thanks...

[92SupraComp]

Thats also a good reason to have an umbrella plan. In Texas its dirt cheap for a $2,000,000 (yes 2 million) general umbrella plan for your house. Because almost every house in our old town in Texas had a pool, a lot of people had protection, so it was easy and cheap to have as well... If you get hurt, go ahead and sue me for $2 million. That otta make ya happy...