25-MAY-03 - HERE WE GO AGAIN

25-MAY-03 Decided to see if my newly discovered choke would make any difference. I bought the boat to the Appleton dock and got on my way about 2:30PM. The engine was running rough, but by playing with the choke I could keep it running. It died out a couple of time but always restarted without a lot of trouble. I had almost reached the outflow by 3:20PM which by coincidence meant that the gas engine was taking about the same amount of time as the electric would have.

At this point the engine died out. I tried to restart it, but had no luck. I checked the amount of fuel in the tank. It wasn't empty, but I refilled it anyway. I then spent the next 10 to 15 minutes trying to restart the engine.

I tried running the electric engine on its mount with the gas engine on it's mount. I lowered the electric engine till the propeller was lower then the gas prop. I hoped this would solve the problem of the two engines being too close together. However this also increased the stress on my homemade engine mount. After listening to the creeking for a few minutes I stopped the electric motor and reset it back to normal. I then removed the gas motor and leaned it against the forward storage area as best as I could. There is promply leaked gas all over the front of my boat.

I then motored back with the electric. I got back about 5:00PM. A few kids were fishing off the dock. One of them looked at my two engines, and told me that his cousin had one like my electric one. He told me that the gas one was much better then the electric. I said to him that the electric one was better because it worked and the gas one didn't. That's my criteria for a better piece of machinary. I had time to chat because I had to wait my turn to take my boat out of the water. There was another boat ahead of me. After that I went home and started thinking of other things I could try with the engine.