SnoweyTiger

I prefer to drive up on the bunks at low throttle and wench the rest just to keep from blasting the boats around me when I have an experienced crew. When I have a totally inexperienced crew I use the float on non-powered retrieve to preserve the rig.

Boat first, the boat goes in first.....

My carbed Yamaha 150 served me well other than water in the fuel issues from E10, and that had nothing to do with the quality of the engine. With regular maintenance most modern era outboards should run well now that the manufacturers have gotten a handle on E10 and have adapted to the latest EPA restrictions. There will always be the exception and the statistical number of weak units, but its a good time to own outboards.

Its just like all those older cars you see sitting out there rusting away when they could be recycled or restored. Probably something minor went wrong, the owner did not want to take the time or expense to correct it, the minor problem became a bigger problem with neglect, now that 20 foot chunk of fiberglass sits waiting for someone to come along and either take an interest in making it seaworthy again or junking it. Unfortunately there is not much of a market for some older hulls. I went to a charity auction where an older Bayliner with a Merc on the back did not get a single bid, the owner was willing to let it go for nothing and the charity would have been happy with a couple hundred dollars, but could not draw a bid. Maybe one of the conservation groups could get a program to round up unwanted boats and turn them into artificial reefs like they sometimes do with decommissioned ships.

The EPA wants older motors of all kinds to accelerate their retirement from service. The $4,500 for "clunkers" incentive gets old guzzlers off the road and gets new cars off the lot at the very time the domestic automakers struggle for survival. Its a double dip for the auto industry. If E10 fuels cause more boaters to give up older 2 cycle outboards for newer 3 star 4 strokes, then bonus points for the EPA and too bad for the boater's wallets. In the EPA's ideal world all of our smoky 2 cycle outboards would be gone tomorrow despite the fact that they contribute precious little to the overall pollution issue. But the previous posters are correct, the mandate only applies to motor fuels in certain areas, it applies to neither marina's nor non-road use vehicles. I saw 100+ octane non-ethanol fuel at a pump on a recent trip, so the mandate is obviously non universal. At this juncture Uncle Sugar does not care how much extra expense we incur for our boating pass time so long as those all mighty greenhouse gasses get curbed. Our $600 carb rebuild to replace all those seals eaten by ethanol just encourages us to march in lockstep with the agenda. I hope this lawsuit at least gets enough traction for someone in the bureaucracy to realize their headlong pursuit of environmental goals inflicts a high cost on the folks that just might not keep them in office.

Any chance of including Virginia ? Whole bunch of boaters in Tidewater just might want to pitch in....