It was a sunny afternoon, perfect for putting the bikes in the dinghy and heading out for a supermarket run except we didn't get very far before the outboard motor spat the dummy. Leaving Jackster we could hear it coughing and struggling, assuming it was the cold weather we continued waiting for the motor to warm up. Then it stopped. David gave it some choke and restarted and we went a few hundred yards before stopping again. It was a fuel problem. Fortunately we were up river from the pontoons of the Annapolis yacht club and drifted back on to the guest dock.
We unloaded our bikes onto the dock to give David more space to investigate the fuel line, the connection to the fuel tank and then take the lid off the outboard to check the spark plug. Usually David can find the fault and fix it promptly but not this time. He did manage to keep us running by 'feathering' the choke while I steered to get us back to Jackster where he could do a more thorough fault check.
It was definitely a fuel problem which was confirmed when he found we had water in the carburettor fuel bowl. Where had water entered the system? From the fuel tank. We had had heavy rain. The air vent on top of the tank had been left ajar and water must have collected and then seeped into the tank.
By
running the petrol through our hand held Baja filter which is
designed to filter debris and water from fuel (except we have only
used it when filling the main boat tank with diesel) into a fuel jug
we caught 250ml, or a cup, of water. Here you can see it under the
blue petrol.
petrol floating on rainwater
The
moral of the tale is to remember to close the air vent on the fuel
tank when you have finished using your dinghy.
petrol tank
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