Great time boating to Nantuckets! PHOTOS

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Waynepj4

Member
Joined
Oct 13, 2008
RO Number
30904
Messages
398
Hello All,

I took my mother in law, wife, sister in law and son to Nantuckets on Sunday for a mothers day lunch. Great weather. It was 80 degrees but windy with a little bit of chop. The ride for the most part was smooth. Cruised at about 26 mph the whole way. After lunch we cruised by the mothball fleet and then back to Martinez.

I had one interesting issue though. I was cruising at about 3300rpms. The boat randomly started to power down, 3200, 3000, 2900 rpms..my first mate went down into the cabin and turned off all of the power draining items. Turned off the stereo, frige and all the switches and the engine rpms raised right back up again and did not experience any further problems. Has anyone had an issue like this before?
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JerriNovaMrsKayboat.jpg

JerriandRomanonBoat.jpg

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Can't help with the RPM issues but do envy being out on the water. Great pix. Did manage to get to my boat yesterday, wash it, run the engine and have a few cold ones.
 
Boating is fun. Boating with friends is fun. Boating with family is great.
Great photos.
 
That guys livin the life sitting in the back with your girl while you drive.

Looks like a fun trip.

MJK
 
nice pix of a fun day, check your battery terminals
 
Wayne, you may want to post your question in the engine forum so that more people see it and are able to respond. I'm an IT guy, so I can't really help, except to say this sounds like a real puzzler! I can't imagine why turning off electrical items would make the engine run better - your issue doesn't sound like an electrical issue to me but what do I know!?

By the way, it looks like you and your family had a blast! Thanks for sharing the photos with us!
 
Great pictures Wayne! It looks like you guys had a fun time. I cruised by the mothball fleet in April and it's always a thrill.

Fun times!
 
Wayne, thanks for sharing the day, nice pics!

I can't help much with the motor issue. But did you happen to see the volt meter while this was happening?

If the electrical load became so extreme, I don't think the alternator can load up so much it would slow your engine down that much?

But did you happen to see the volt meter while this was happening?

I'm thinking this might have just been a coincidence. And sometimes, I know my throttle will kinda slip down, lowering the RPM's by itself, and I wonder if that's what happened in your case? Did you have to throttle up to maintain the same RPM's?

Thanks for the pics and sharing your fun day Wayne. Looks like ya'll had a great Mothers Day!
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martinez_Mitch

Wayne, thanks for sharing the day, nice pics!

I can't help much with the motor issue. But did you happen to see the volt meter while this was happening?

If the electrical load became so extreme, I don't think the alternator can load up so much it would slow your engine down that much?

But did you happen to see the volt meter while this was happening?

I'm thinking this might have just been a coincidence. And sometimes, I know my throttle will kinda slip down, lowering the RPM's by itself, and I wonder if that's what happened in your case? Did you have to throttle up to maintain the same RPM's?

Thanks for the pics and sharing your fun day Wayne. Looks like ya'll had a great Mothers Day!

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Im not sure if it was a coincidence. The volt meter was unchanged when my RPMs were drawing down. The volt meter was over 13..just past the middle setting and looked normal.

I was talking to an older boater at the marina and he said I was drawing too much juice by having the fridge, stereo and other things on..the alternator had to kick in and probably was responsible for the reduction in RPMs. It sort of makes sense because when we turned everything off RPMs kicked right back up. Had no problems for the rest of the day.

I took the day off work yesterday to test it again. Turned off fridge and everything else. Kept it at 3300 RPMs. No slip at all. In fact I didnt have to touch the throttle after that and kept a consistent speed/rpm for about 20 minutes before I was back at the marina.

As a precaution Im having the fuel vent replaced. I took a look and noticed it was corroded/partially blocked. I understand there is a potential for it to be a fuel intake issue.

Like I said in other posts, I have family coming in June and we will be traveling from Martinez to Angel Island so I would like to pre empt any problems.
 
Another reason why it may have been an electrical issue. I accidentally left the battery switch to BOTH the night before. The manual states that the batts wont charge properly if left in the both position. So maybe that had somethign to do with it. I will keep you posted of any boat issues in the future.
 
Could be the alternator could not recharge both batteries and run the frig, etc and keep the engines going all at once! I agree it is not a good idea to keep the battery switch BOTH. The only time I use that position, is if I need both batteries to start engine. Haven't had to do that for over ten years.

One way to address the issue is to upgrade your alternator. Me? I'd just turn off those things that draw a lot.
 
Wayne it sounds to me like your alternator was running hard to recharge and possibly not keeping up with the draw due to the possible discharge if one battery is weaker than the other and you had the boat's battery switch to both all night, if you didn't have a shore power cord hooked up or your dockside charger was off. I can't tell from the above posts. Depending on the size of the alternator they can consume up to 10-15hp at full charge or actually it sounds as if the alternator for some reason could not keep up with the condition of the batteries and the current draw from the devices you had on at the time of the incident. What size batteries do you have, age and type? Many people start adding more and more electronics and do not have a house battery bank with a large reserve and this could have an effect on the motor more so if they are run by computers and or EFI. I am also assuming gas motors? I went to your profile but there is no information on your boat. Single or dual engines did both or just one slow down? It is also possible the tach could have started to act up with heavy current draw this can induce magnetic fields around wire harnesses and really strange stuff can happen. It really sounds to me like you probably have small wet cell batteries that may not be matched and had a discharge problem from the night before then the alternator had to work overtime to try and keep up with the discharge and was losing. I would recommend at a minimum if you have 2 batteries and they are old as in 4 to 5 years old you replace them with 31 series batteries and I prefer AGMs because they require no real maintenance and last longer than wet cell batteries. Other than checking the connections at the beginning and mid season, that is my routine with my AGMs. The other option at some point may be to add a house bank and ACR with a bypass/off/hard on remote switch.
Good luck. Bill
 
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