iMacattack

I used Mariners School. Classes were well prepped, staff was knowledgeable and helpful. Study material was good and I had no problems. I passed with an average of 98% on the tests. There was very little I "learned" aside from some regulations on vessels I had never operated. Most of the class was reinforcement of what I learned over the past almost 30 years living on or near H2O. What scared me were some of the people in the class who were clueless. Completely clueless. Some of these folks needed to go to a basic starters class. Like welcome to boating 101.. Cheers Capt. Jan

Couple notes on small motors and ethanol. First corn belongs on the cob not our petroleum! Second anything remotely resembling ethanol belongs over ice and served by the shot. Lastly ethanol is one wicked cleaner/solvent. (old racing fuel cells would melt when ethanol was introduced) With that out of the way. If you have confirmed you have ethanol in your fuel and it's old and untreated... dispose of it properly. I had a problem with ethanol on a 2008 Yamaha 4 stroke F40 carbed outboard. In less than 30 hours of use on a BRAN NEW motor on a BRAND NEW skiff. All three carbs were replaced at least once. Ethanol basically crystallized on the idle jets. Much like a grain of sand in an oyster the ethanol pearl would grow to the point that the motor would refuse to start. Nothing like trying to start a 4 stroke 6am in the summer in Flamingo while being drained of your blood by all the skeeters! Yamaha did help out and covered the replacements under warranty. I have since spoken to a few reps at Yamaha and out in the field. There are a few other solutions that include a specialized ultrasonic parts cleaner to soaks in MEK overnight. (as mentioned above) The issue is that you might solve the problem for the short term but it will rear it's ugly head again unless you treat the source of the problem, ethanol. Every manufacture I have talked to while conducting a recent Four Stroke Shootout on my site all chanted the same tune. Treat your ethanol and use a 10 micron fuel filter, no exceptions! There are several options out there. Some are a bit OVER stating what they can do IMHO, but since we started treating the fuel, NEVER leave the tank less than full and run a religious regiment of checking and replacing our 10 micron filter, the problem has not returned. Coincidence? Not likely. I can tell you that many mechanics are just as stumped as we are with regards to ethanol. The manufactures are working hard to get everyone up to speed, but in the end we have to take the due diligence to research on our own and learn from our shared experiences. Cheers Capt. Jan

Mornings by the pool, afternoons by the Margarita Glass, evenings by the grill. See my day is full! Hard to get on the internet with all that packed in one day!

FS is nothing like what it use to be. I'm member #15 of the current software and member #5 of their previous software, before the server fire. I was also a member of their BBS system WAY back in the "day" circa 1999ish. There was a trend back then to e protective of your site and what was posted. I personally feel this is no longer needed. I can't tell you how many times I look in my Google Analytics and see links to my site from other forums. I have no problem allowing folks to link to other forums as long as it's relevant to the topic at hand. I do kill the spam kitties who post their World of War Crap stuff or pron... I recently ran into the same problem as you on FS. I had a post referencing something on my site and poof, it went went away. The mod came back with their lame excuses. I pointed out how much longer I had been on the site and that I was part of the group the drafted the original rules. Guess they don't respect us old timers like the nubiees too. FS has really gone down hill IMHO. The core group that made the site what is was has left due to all the stupid stuff that's going on over there. Just how many Contender vs Yellow Fin posts can one mind endure! FS is on the verge of complete irrelevance if they don't improve things over there. Which is a shame, I use to make it my virtual home. But the neighborhood has changed and I moved out. Wiley has a rocking site here and it's proof positive that the personality behind the site can make or break it's relevance. Keep up the great work! Cheers Capt. Jan

E10 Fuel? Sounds like a blockage. I'd get a vacuum test of the like as mentioned above.

Grand Slam, sweet boat! Mark Castlow, formally of Maverick, Hewes, Pathfinder now under his new company, Dragonfly Boats LLC has the hull mold I believe. He's bringing back the 17' Grand Slam. I spoke to him a while back and he was filling me in on the history of Fibercraft's sourcing for the hull shape. I'm just a sucker for the classics. I'm trying to schedule a photo-shoot on Bill Hempel's Challenger for my site. His boat was rebuilt by Capt. Karl from my article above. We have a member rebuilding a 15 ShiPoke that was built by Fred Archibald's son. He popped on our site and helped to fill in a bit of the history. Cheers

I like the way you think... LOL

What would it take? A bigger boat... =) Not too intimidating out of a 16' Skiff... though I could work as a "fast attack" boat for ya... Cheers Capt. Jan

Thanks Wiley for letting me share this with your great folks! Come one come all! microskiff.com East Coast Bash. Location: Long Point ParkLong Point Park 700 Long Point Road, Melbourne Beach, FL 32951 Date: July 18th 2009 Time: Till they throw us out! Cost: Event is FREE, Just pay your way into the park This is a family friendly event. Bring the boat, bring the kids and have a great day meeting fellow forum members! How can I help: If everyone could bring at least one covered dish to share this would go a long way to helping out. A few members have talked abut camping Friday and Saturday night. SPONSORS: I'll add to the list as I confirm. ESPN, swag! Ankona Boats, burgers and dogs for the grill! Maverick Boats Castaway Customs & SeaDek Bob's Machine Shop

Wish I could help you with the image upload... I photobucket and it gives me the code to put into forums... Here is a rare picture of the '65 FiberCraft. Looks a little different now.

denny-o, if you can get some pix post em! Would love to see the skiff. It's possible that it could be the post 1965 FiberCraft that Stu Apte modified. Would need to see a few pix though. I have a few more pix... I had a completely custom platform built. It's a one off made to my specs. Might not be for everyone... but it's what I wanted... From our first tests. First platform... needed to make a final edit, see below. First platform... needed to make a final edit, see below. iPhone pix of the platform. Sorry for the poor resolution.

Cool Project! Can't wait to see more!

I can honestly say it has saved several trips. Heck this past fathers day it was an invaluable tool to keep my son and I safe and dry from a nasty storm cell... Don't think twice... DO IT!

Thanks! I took screen shots of the EPSN Outdoors home page and the blog page and saved them for him.