Breaking down in the boat

Has your boat ever broken down?

Yes
34
71%
No
14
29%
 
Total votes: 48

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Matt Flynn
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Re: Breaking down in the boat

Post by Matt Flynn »

Good bush mechanic stuff there.

I lost steering one fireworks night in Darwin and had to come into the ramp hugging the outboard to steer. Would have looked weird from across the water ...


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grumpy
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Re: Breaking down in the boat

Post by grumpy »

Fishing the mouth of Tommycut one day with no one around all of a sudden Suzuki 80 would not idle. You could rev it with the hand throttle but if ya do that ya can't get it into gear and every time I put it into gear it would stall. Found some light cord in the boat and managed to tie it around the throttle and pull the butterfly open enough to get it in gear without stalling and then tied it off and continued fishing for the rest of the day no problem. Turns out the idle screw had vibrated loose and is impossible to get to on the water.
A mans boat is a sign of his strengths and weaknesses???? (and wealth)
slug
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Re: Breaking down in the boat

Post by slug »

grumpy wrote: Thu Feb 27, 2020 4:07 pm Fishing the mouth of Tommycut one day with no one around ....
Must have been back in the day Grumpy? (don't see 'no-one around' anywhere at Shady so much these days :roll: ).
I do miss the late 70's, early 80's when you went down there for the day and rarely saw any other sign of life .... (having said that, if you did have engine troubles you could be there for days before being found)
john d
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Re: Breaking down in the boat

Post by john d »

Smashed a prop and bent the prop shaft on a pre natonals trip on the daly about a week before the event.
Raced around and got it repaired just in time for my team mates to arrive from interstate.
Had a great time over the week during the event but on the last day 10 mins after lines in the gear box exploded.
A clip came off inside and the selector dog locating pin went thru the gears. :banghead:
With 50 or so boats flying back to Base we had to wait for an official boat to tow us back to the public ramp. :clap:
We got a fair bit of stick from most of the passing competitors who assumed we just ran out of fuel
They dropped one of my teammates off back at Banya and he drove down with the trailer to pick us up.
Took the gear box back to the shop who repaired it in the first place and was told bad luck get it fixed it somewhere else. :hunting:
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Re: Breaking down in the boat

Post by scartissue »

Although have been fortunate in the past, 2 fairly recent breakdowns spring to mind, maybe purely for the fact I managed to get away with it
Had absolutely no trouble with mechanical or electrical bit and pieces on our 2016 west coast trip from Perth to Darwin , Until the Fitzmaurice river.
Had the big boat anchored up the Fitzmaurice river at the mouth of the first major creek/intersection and spent a few days in this area slowly exploring that creek deeper and deeper.
2nd last day we had decided to turn around after we explored some serious rocky country in the upper reaches. The boat started to cough and splutter a few bends from home and eventually stopped dead. Didn’t have any oars and the tools and spares I was carrying weren’t in the best state as they pretty much lived in the bilge (see attached pics, the spare fuel filter was still in its original packet).
The missus to her credit remained in quite good spirits for the first few hours but soon gave up hope after the second breakdown within view of the big boat. In view was a good K or more away with a westly wind blowing straight up the creek.
Several hours of breaking fuel lines, pumping fuel and water out and removing plugs without dropping them into the drink along with god knows how many pulls of the pull starter and we made it back to home.
To the Tohatsu’s credit I didn’t break a fuel line again or have any trouble starting or failing me for many months.
Until a late last year. The big boat was anchored up behind the island in the mouth of the creek behind Silvid bay Coburg, and I just took off for a quick trip up the creek to see if I could get a muddie.
Made the turn for home and she just stopped dead, no tools at all this time I knew it was the same problem water in the fuel.
I was all alone so didn’t have to keep anyone else calm. I did have oars and Spent the next few hours against an incoming tide using a combination of pulling my way along mangroves rowing and throwing the anchor forward and retrieving.
Both areas a very remote and you got to be the master of plan A, B, and C and lucky to get out of it

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