Dan in Alaska

Thanks, Welder. The boat is getting run again this weekend. If it acts up at all, we'll have more info shortly.

The grill is a Force 10 Sea Chef Barbecue with the Fish-On rod holder mount. It's a pretty basic grill that we bought at a local shop. The grill was $120, if I remember correctly. The mount was another $30-something. A quick Google search shows me that there are lots of on-line vendors. Here's a link to one: LINK This is just the first link that popped up on Google. I have no experience with this particular vendor, nor am I recommending them, I just linked to the web page to show you the grill. This is only the first time we've used the grill, but I was happy with the job it did.

Paul, Shimano has a heavier version of the Trevala (80-200# for 10-12 oz jigs). Have you taken a peek at it? I really dig the Loomis 6'6" Bucara rod, but I'm probably going to pick up a couple of Trevala rods this summer. They look pretty tough.

Hey, Chris. I'm glad your here. You know, the offer to come up is still open. Try and pull some TDY to Elmendorf.

Like I said, the day before was beautiful and we were out fishing. That's the crap we woke up to the next morning. Even in May, gotta wonder what Mother Nature has up her sleeve.

Nah, when the weather is bad, we stay inside. Here are some more pics, just so you don't think we're making this stuff up...... Snowmachining, with Denali in the background: Another snowmachining shot, taken near Eureka: Denali sunrise, about 9:30am: An early May drive over Turnagain Pass: A mid-May morning from a few years ago in Homer. The day before was in the 50's with bright sunshine.... The pipeline in August, north of the Brooks Range:

Air temps were in the 60's. I don't remember specifically checking the water temp this weekend, but it's usually in the high-30's or low 40's at this time of the year........you know, about perfect for swimming. :grin:

We only ran a jig a little while while we were anchored for lunch. Nothing. We mainly cruised around and ran the boat through it's paces. Watching the Furuno fish finder do it's thing was pretty cool. It's a definite step up from the Garmin unit I had in the other boat.

I checked the parts, and they seemed fine. The flipper on the sensor moved freely, and the collars looked fine. I'll give Andy a call in the morning and see what a new set of sensors cost. Thanks for the help HotSpot.

We changed the oil tonight and there were no clumps in it, but the oil was a little bit milky, at the very end of the drain. We check the dipstick before draining it, and the oil level was high.....or so we thought. After draining the oil, we discovered that we only got our 4.8 quarts back. After refilling the oil, the level on the dipstick was high again. Wrong dipstick? The #1 & #2 spark plugs were a little sootier than the other two. The #2 plug was the worst, but still not too awful. We replaced the oil & filter, and ran the engine for about 5 minutes. It seemed to run fine. We'll run it again this weekend and see if anything remarkable happens. Otherwise, I'm tempted to write this off as poor oil change regiment from the previous owner. Beaubeau, the oil change on the other outboard wasn't anything out of the ordinary, other than the oil was REALLY black.

Dang, Kerno! Those trim tabs look nice.

Will do. Thanks!

I don't doubt the lack of timely oil changes. The previous owner, from self admission, "wasn't much of a maintenace guy." He lived out of state, and paid "workers" to take care of his cabin and toys while he was way. My guess is much of the routine maintenance went undone, and he wasn't the wiser. We're changing the oil again tonight, and we'll see what's there. I'm hoping there's no long-term (read: expensive) damage done.

We took the "new" 26-foot Hewescraft SeaRunner out for our first ride this weekend (pictures posted here). We did a lot of upgrades and a few repairs, since purchasing the boat in March, some of which were: new Furuno fish finder, Standard Horizon VHF & antenna, Garmin GPS from my previous boat w/ new antenna, new batteries, wiring, switches, fuse block, BEP battery distribution cluster, bilge pumps, and float switches. We also did a bunch of stuff to the trailer: new bearings, hubs, brakes, LED lights, wiring, and extra side guides. I am happy to report that all of the work we personally did on the boat worked perfectly. I was impressed with the VHF radio (Quest-X) and West Marine Mariner 8700 antenna. When we were 12 miles out, we called friend's back in the harbor. Both ends of the communication reported hearing "loud and clear". The new radio had much better sound quality that my old Raymarine Ray 45 radio did. They sounded like they were right next to us. The new radio is great. The Furuno 620 fish finder was amazing. Money well spent! My old Garmin 160 Blue would lose track of the bottom at around 200-feet, when running at 30 MPH, which I thought was pretty good. The new unit, with the standard P66 transducer, held fast and gave readings to nearly 800 feet while running at 30+ MPH. I was more than impressed; I was shocked! I look forward to hitting all of my favorite fishing spots with my new "eyes" to see what I've been missing all these years. I've got a couple of glitches with some older equipment, that I'll have to take a look at in the near future......... 1. One engine gave us some trouble, at the onset of the trip, which I posted in another thread. 2. The electric trim tabs aren't working. When I toggle the switches, the dome lights dim, but there's no movement in the trim tabs. I'm thinking the actuators are shot, but I'll take a closer look at them tonight. 3. The wash down pump doesn't work. From what I've gathered, wash down pumps don't usually last more than a couple of seasons, so being the original pump in a 2001 model boat, I'm sure it's due for replacement. 4. The outboard motor trim position doesn't display on the Yamaha multi-function tachs. Another post is already started here. All in all, though, the first trip went well. The problems we had were somewhat expected, and I'm delighted that all the "new" stuff worked better than expected. I look forward to spring bear hunting and summer fishing with the "new" ride!

First trip on the "new" boat, twin 2001 Yamaha F115's. When we did the pre-season maintenance, the engine oil came out funny looking......clumps of oil, like curdled milk or blood clots. The "clumps" didn't have anything hard or metallic in them. We flushed several quarts of new oil through the engine and drained it, looking for more junk. A few more small clumps came out, but nothing serious, so we filled it up with new oil and ran the engine for 5-10 minutes on the hose & cuffs and drained the oil again. Some small dark clumps came out, but not many of them. Again, the "clumps" were not hard, like pieces of gasket, oil seal, or metal parts. They were just thick clumps of oil. We filled it up again with new oil, and then ran it this weekend. When we first started our trip, this motor wasn't running very smoothly. It displayed more vibration and ran rougher than the port engine, like it wasn't running on all 4 cylinders. It didn't make full RPM and used more fuel than the other engine, according to the fuel flow meters. After a few minutes, though, the engine came to life and ran fine. We started/stopped several times, and it continued to run perfectly for the rest of the day. We put a few hours on the engines, and the initial troubles never reappeared. At the end of the day, we noticed the exhaust port in the prop of the "troubled" engine had far more black soot than the other motor, which ran perfectly. Tonight, we're going to pull the plugs and take a look at them to see if they provide us any more clues. I'm thinking there was something clogging up a fuel injector, that eventually passed, or perhaps a loose spark plug wire that eventually made contact. As for the oil clumps, though, I'm still scratching my head. I'll drain the oil again tonight to see if there's anything still floating around in there. Maybe a contaminant got in the oil and congealed after sitting all winter long? I'll report what I find tonight.

Awesome! Thanks, HOTSPOT. I'll take a look at them tonight.

Also, do all of the 4" round Yamaha digital tachs have an hour meter? My 2003 did, displayed just below the RPM, but there's no hour meter display on either of these. Curious if they changed between '01 & '03?

Oops, that would have been helpful...... I have twin 2001 F115's.

We took the new-to-us 26-footer out this weekend for the first time. The weather was beautiful and the seas were calm, so I figured I'd share a few photos....... Here's a look back at the Seward Harbor, as we're leaving: Running in Resurection Bay: A quick stop for lunch: A look at Barwell Island. Notice the WWII gun emplacements on the top. A closer look at the gun emplacements: Another gun emplacement, closer to Seward and the waterline: A happy group of boaters:

We took the "new" boat out this weekend for the first run. The good news is that everything we did to the boat, as far as repairs or upgrades, worked perfectly. The Yamaha multi function tachs (round, cira 2001), however, are having some issues. Specifcally, the outboard trim display doesn't work. The port gauge always displays the lowest trim setting, and the stbd display always shows the highest trim setting. I've never monkeyed with these gauges before, so I'm hoping someone will have some pointers on where to start looking. I'm guessing it's a loose wire, or something simple, since the rest of the gauge seems to work alright. Any pointers?

I really dislike those types of switches, but I can certainly appreciate your mounting ingenuity. Nice job!

I'm gonna have to hit you up for a ride in your boat, Paul. The fact that you built it is just cool! If you guys like the fishing/boating pictures, you'd probably appreciate the lousy hunting scenery as well.

Agreed! Jigs usually outperform bait in this neck of the woods. A 12-16oz lead head with an 8" Power Grub is top producer, tipped with a fresh piece of salmon belly or a chunk of Herring......... Seven-ounce Crocodile spoons and 10-16oz Butterfly jigs are tough to beat as well. A little "Lunker Lotion" smeared on the metal jigs seems to increase their effectiveness, as well.

That's pretty sad.

I took an online course, about six years ago, and the following year I took the "Boating Safety & Seamanship" course taught by the CG Aux folks. Last winter, I took the 100T Master's Course, and I just renewed the first aid stuff a couple of weeks ago.