Since my epic failure on the Nepean where the boat motor died, I’ve started looking into the problem. Basically it overheated and now one cylinder has no compression. Whether or not it’s fixable, partial or full engine rebuild I’m about to find out. I spent yesterday stripping the motor down ready for extraction. I’ll keep posting pics for anyone else who might consider rebuilding their boat motor.

I took the boat down to the river for a good run and test out the charging system. All was going well, the boat flies with only one person in it. I went upstream till the 8 knot signs so I was out of the way of all the skiers. About 2mins after passing the 8 knot sign the engine just stopped and there was some smoke coming out of it. I took the cover off and nearly burnt my hand. It was cooked and seized. I grabbed the towel and wrenched the flywheel and luckily was able to free the seize. I briefly fired it up again and it was obvious that there was no water pumping through. Bugger.

It was about 5:40pm and plenty of skiers in the distance so I figured it wouldn’t be that hard to get a tow back to the boat ramp. I chucked the anchor in and relaxed for a bit. Well… I had one fag fly passed me at full speed even though I had the engine cover off and was waving to him. He just kept on going, prick. Another guy towing his kids didn’t even look at me as he went passed. I figured I’d start rowing even though I was pretty far away from the boat ramp it was about all I could do. Rowing wasn’t very successful as there was a slight breeze against me. After about an hours worth of paddling I made it roughly 100m.

It was an interesting experience being stranded on the water. As the sun started to set I began thinking what it would be like to spend the night on the boat. It was relatively hot so I figured a towel and life jackets would be adequate for something to sleep on. The fish started jumping around me, I might have found a good fishing spot. I started calculating what supplies I had on the boat, whether it would be possible to catch something (highly doubt it as we never catch anything) and if I needed to get a fire going how I’d go about that.

Anyway around 8:00pm some guys came passed who had been out fishing, they were happy to give me a lift. The trip back to the ramp was pretty slow but I was grateful for the tow. As I kicked back I snapped these photos on my phone.