Madien Voyage
18 August 2012 | Palatka, Fl
Raenette
Back in August:
We cleaned up an old 15 hp long shaft motor James had around (I think a Johnson) and headed out to One Love with it in a jon boat dinghy. After some muscle work it was mounted and ready to go. James took off the motor cover to start the motor by wrapping the pull string around the big metal plate (no idea what its called) because the pull start is all messed up. The motor started up and sounded just fine so we pulled anchor and headed towards the middle of the river. Maybe 5 minutes of motoring James gets the main sail up. We didn't want to turn the motor off due to the difficulty of getting the cover off to wrap the string again but it was idling to high and when James turned down the idle, the motor shut off.
This was my very first experience on a sailboat so I was a bit uneasy of the whole event mostly because I had no clue what to do and no control of the situation. I had complete trust in James and he got us back to the mooring with confidence and ease and luck that the wind was behind us. Once safely back to the mooring we inspected the motor and realized that it was a good thing it quit when it did or we may have lost the lower unit. One of the bolts is completely gone and all the rest were not going to be far behind. Guess James forgot to tighten those bolts after working on the motor. OOPS!