Cruising Sailors Forum Archive

Your "Bum" can get you in a lot of trouble.

Many rears ago, around 1975, when I was racing Hobie Cats we were in San Felpe, Maxico, for the Mid Winters West race. One of the boats broke and no one knew until in the evening that the boat was missing and by this time it was after dark. Several of us has small fishing boats along as well and we decided to go out and look for the guys. We eventually found them and ended up towing them back towards the light of the town when the engine quit. I stood up to pull on the starter rope and the thing fired right up. I set down and headed for the town again and after about 5 minutes the engine died again. This went on for quite a while. In fact, I was getting a blister on my index finger from pulling the starter rope so many times. We had a flash light but were using it to look at the engine and nothing else. Finely I took it from my friend and followed the fuel line and sure enough, the fuel line had gotten under the fuel tank. When I set back down on the seat it pressed down on the fuel tank which was under it just enough to press on and close off the fuel line. When I stood up to start the motor the fuel would flow and the engine would run until a few minutes after I set back down. What a long night that turned out to be and boy did we feel foolish. We did manage to get the guys back the the beach so it worked out OK in the end but a long night never the less.

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