Wicked Awesome

Sales of new boats are clearly not what they were, making getting a job with a manufacturer tough. Ever consider working for a marine insurance company? While their market is not expanding, the population of insured used boats should be pretty stable for years. Seems like there should be sales, marketing, and insurance adjuster jobs out there.

What Reelplumber said. A few years ago I had an I/O Sea Ray that developed a fuel tank leak. We found the leak when the boat dumped about 50 gallons of fuel on the floor of the rack storage barn. The tank was removed, repaired, and reinstalled so that the boat worked fine. Everything was O.K., except that I never trusted the fuel system on that boat again. The boat sat largely unused until I sold it. We trust our boats with our lives, and the lives of our friends and family. Given those stakes, dealing with an unreliable fuel system, power plant, or outdrive is a game I'm not willing to play. It sounds like a repower is inevitable since the OD manufacturer is gone. Best of luck with your decision.

I have owned a 23' Sea Ray Cuddy and now own a 22' Edgewater CC. The cuddy's get way too hot to use in the sun, so they wind up being a storage area unless you go big and get AC. The CC's are great for 2 people - everyone else has to stand for shade and gets grumpy after awhile. The bow seating also rides really rough. My next boat will be a 22' dual console laid out like the Grady White. I saw one at a boat show in Stuart last year that had a huge bimini extending from the windshield all the way back to the transom. Lots of shade, plenty of space, and room for an emergency head, all in a trailerable size and at your price point. I'm not sure if it can be rigged with twins, though. Would you settle for a single 250 and a kicker?

My mechanic strongly recommended the Yamaha OEM fuel filters over the Racor or Sierra units. He has one of each cut open on his desk. The filter area on the Yamaha unit is much larger than the Racor or the Sierra. Since the goal of a fuel filter is to keep particulates from getting through to the injectors or VST, the added filter area seems like a good idea. With ethenol blended gasoline I think you either have a little water mixed in with the fuel with no problems or alot of water mixed in and big problems. The water collection area on the Yamaha filter can probably solve the first problem. I think the bowl on a Racor isn't going to stop enough water to solve the second. The Racor drainable fuel bowl idea has been around for many years. I always wondered why it wasn't widely copied by either the OEM manufacturers (Yamaha,Evinrude,Merc) or the aftermarket manufacturers like Sierra. Do they know something we don't?