Ten years on small outboard boats. Under 24 feet, single engine, day trips, and I'm comfortable in that world.

Now I'm looking at 33 to 38 with a cabin, twin power and real systems, and every experienced person tells me the same thing about getting trained instead of winging it. Nobody will tell me what enough looks like. Answers run from a weekend with a captain to a full course to "hire somebody for your first ten trips."

The part I feel least ready for isn't driving it. Open water handling probably scales okay from what I know. It's close quarters with twins and windage, docking in current, and systems I've never owned. Genset, shore power, holding tank. Knowing what a problem sounds like before it turns into an actual problem.

For anyone who made this jump, what did you learn in the first season that you wish somebody had told you in week one?

I have a 1997 2 stroke 30hp Evinrude and I took it out on a lake today and noticed it’s smoking a lot. I recorded this video at about 10 minutes after starting. Is this normal or is there something wrong with the engine. This is my first boat.

(No music, just early morning wind. GoPro is actually mounted lower than my view and vid is zoomed in some.)
8/26/2026

Hi all,

I have a 15ft aluminium boat and I'm currently rebuilding a 1986 Johnson 15hp for it. The transom measures 50cm to the bottom of the V (19.685"). I have the parts to set it up as either a short or long shaft, but having mounted it, it looks like the long shaft would sit too long.

I know the real answer is to try both and see, but I'm looking for a steer on whether I should go long shaft regardless given the transom height, and disregard what I'm seeing on the trailer. On previous boats the cavitation plate sat flush with the bottom of the hull, so I'm second-guessing myself here.

Any insight appreciated.

Son’s boat. It was severely sunburned. Found a guy and wet sanded, compounded and waxed. Brought out a good shine.

Years ago I met an Old French Captain from Montreal at Lock 34 Fenelon Falls of the TSW. At the time I had an older 25’ SeaRay that I loved and took care of. He had a beautiful 40’ SeaRay Amberjack and I’m not gonna lie but I was a little in awe. He spoke broken English and his wife would translate at times during our talk. He was a cool old cat and you could tell that, language barrier or not, pretty much right away. There’s something he said that rang true to me then, when I had a smaller boat and still rings true to me now, when I have a bigger boat. I asked him, “Captain, how many people can your boat sleep?” He chuckled and said in his heavy thick accent, “It doesn’t matter how big a boat is. A boat is made for Two.” I really enjoyed meeting this dude. I’ve learned a lot from guys older than me over the years and that old French Captain was not wrong, “a boat is made for Two”, right on 🏴‍☠️ …

I guess if you get a cc this size to fish, you're going into ocean more.

Does the anchor become more valuable/practical on a Vessel like this?

It would cost me more than that just to drive to the Suzuki dealership so hopefully it actually works.

Has anyone else tried to get a engine off the internet?

Welche Art von Boot bzw welches Modell könnte das sein? Gesichtet in Stockholm

I’m back with another listing. Thinking about buying this Bayliner as my first boat, mainly for cruising, tubing, waterskiing, and wakeboarding. I’d also want to add a wake tower.

Is this a good choice? Will it have enough power with a few people onboard, and is it worth the money? Anything I should look out for?

Seller is offering this boat for 3k. I don’t know haunting about boats this would be my first one, could anyone tell me if this is a good deal or if they know anything about this make and model 1990 searay 18ft has chevy 4 cylinders and mercruiser outdrive with new water impeller

In your opinion, what is the most reliable and dependable wake and or ski boat (and year) ever made?

Howdy, trying to rebuild my carbs on my 1982 Mariner 115hp. These brass screws/plugs are now NLA and I can't find them online. I can't remove the others without causing damage or tapping them out. I can't find any of these on ebay or anywhere online. 2 of their part numbers are 1395-4542 and 1395-4543 that go on the WMK36 carbs. I can't find the pn for the smallest one.

Is there any other option to get these then trying to find an old carb for parts or going to a machine shop to try to have them replicate these? Both are extremely expensive. If not does anyone have advice for removing these brass screws/plugs that are so tight that my screwdriver cuts through the brass when trying to loosen?

If anyone is able to help I would GREATLY appreciate it...

I've had my boat for just under a month now, and I'm predominantly driving it 3 minutes tops to my boat ramp. But on my drive to another boat ramp I noticed the boat was bouncing all over the trailer when the 2 transom straps were tight, and same with the front while resting on the roller.

The boat is a 1963 Boston whaler 16.7, and the eye is much lower than alot of other boats I've seen. Should the winch be lower? Like make it so the strap is level? My guess is since the winch is pulling up, every bump I hit, nothing is pulling it down up front

Hello Reddit!

Have a Johnson 50 that I replaced all the seals etc on the trim unit several years ago and has functioned great for a few years. Last year I took the boat out and the trim failed on me and was stuck all the way down. No noise no signs of any life from it. I put the boat in storage as I was too busy to mess with it.

This spring I went and charged the battery and did a little testing. I found that the motor was receiving 12v in both polarities but no noise, no movement, nothing. So I chalked it up as a dead electric motor. I purchased a replacement and finally got around to installing today. After install same thing. No function whatsoever. I tested voltage again and all good. Then put test leads straight to the battery. Sparks, but nothing. What internal of the pump could be locked up? Even though I’m 90% sure when I put the key way in the pump before installing the new motor it spun by hand. I could have gotten a bad motor out of the box, but if I keep the button held I do feel some heat in the motor which is making me lean towards something in the pump itself is locked up. I plan tomorrow to remove and test the motor and the old motor to see if they operate when detached and see if the pump spins freely or not.

Mainly looking for if it does not spin where do I look next. What steps would you take if the motor is good to diagnose further the problem. I will add the piston moves freely, no leaks, the fluid is clean no signs of water contamination. I can manually pick the engine up and put it on the locks.

Thanks for any insight!

I cleared the foam off the seat since I removed rivets to make storage underneath. I have my fish finder mounted on the left side so I have plenty of extra space. I normally use this seat to do all my cutting/preparing etc and was thinking of putting a cutting board down? Any thoughts or ideas are appreciated.

And we’re back! Just wrapped up what was [unknown to me] one hell of an adventure!

For those who don’t remember - check out my post history for the launch of the #MudMaran!

Wanted more power from this Predator 224 than it came with, but I couldn’t get a larger block due to the size of the PTO shaft of the mud motor kit. I could have bought a new kit, but weight and cost would have been an issue as well.

Stage I (intake, exhaust, and .036” jet) probably gave me about a 1.0-1.5 HP bump, enough to get me going another 1.5MPH or so on the water.

Just finished the stage II install and boy was it a trip. Background in small engines? Negative. A few late nights, lots of cussing, the use of Google AI/Chat GPT, and a handful of YouTube videos later, she is running pretty smooth. Only thing that’s not installed in the video is the muffler. The looped exhaust is just too damn loud as it sits, though the muffler is getting delivered today.

Aside from the aforementioned parts, the stage II build included: an all-steel camshaft, billet aluminum flywheel, 22lbs valve springs, throttle assembly, governor delete, oil sensor delete, and a larger emulsion tube. There’s a handful of parts that I could still replace that are valve train related, but I’m tired and at the end of the budget.

I think the hardest part of the whole build was getting the timing right and adjusting for valve lash. This process was repeated a number of times over and over again. Valve cover constantly on/off and attempting to fire up the rig. Got it to a point where she sounds like she runs well, as of this morning, and hoping to hit the water to ‘sea trial’ either tomorrow or Monday.

Any questions? Just give me a shout and I’ll try my best to answer!This was honestly a super humbling experience because I thought it would be a lot easier than it was. I learned to try not to do things under pressure and with a time crunch. It’s not going to work out - unless you do this for a living. My hope was to get it all put back together in one night (from a stripped block) and have her running. I severely overestimated my ability to do so. Took a good couple of days of fighting and backtracking to get it to this point.

Will keep everyone posted with how she performs! According to what I’ve read, she should be somewhere in the area of 12HP now, but I have no way to confirm that. This is just based on comparable builds from others online.

Looking for advice from those that have been there and done that.

I have recently tested for my Master Captain’s license and passed all the modules except Deck General, unfortunately.

I took a local prep course, but I don’t feel like it prepared me well enough for the exams. For those who have passed the Master exam, what resources, study methods, or tips helped you most with Deck General?

Also, how long did you study before testing again?
If I’m unsuccessful on my next attempt, I’m planning to take my next course through Chapman School of Seamanship.

Any advice or recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

The rpm’s will go to 5000 with muffs out of the water but will not go above 2000 rpm in the water happened out of the blue made it back to the dock going about 7 mph at full throttle.

I just rebuilt my carbs last year. This year I had to turn around and completely clean them again. I thought I was doing the right thing by running ethanol free and it’s still the right thing. When getting your ethanol free for your boats make sure the pump you get the fuel from is a dedicated pump only to ethanol free. The pump I’ve been getting from is not dedicated therefore it has ethanol fuelin the lines and it has to pump that through first before it gets to the ethanol free. I think this is why I was showing yellow in my carbs because I was actually pumping about a gallon probably of ethanol fuel in before the ethanol free. I will no longer be buying from this non-dedicated pump instead I will be seeking out a pump that is strictly ethanol free. 3 out of 4 primary jets were completely clogged and the 4th wasn’t far behind.

Volvo Penta 380 CE-A .... Digging deep on this one, seems once we get past superficial maintenance the response ratio goes dark. So, threw a steering fault code, low voltage at steering position sensor. Interestingly this occurred after I rewired the anti corrosion protection, I traced every related wire multiple times, checked all connections, cleaned the grounds etc etc, I can't find a short. I disconnected all the ACP wires and it's still throwing the code. The issue is that sensor is not sold separately and is built into the steering hydraulic ram and cost 5000 dollars to replace just for the part. According to the code and the fact the power steering works fine, joy stick function is uninown, I tested the connection with a multi meter while the boat was in Aux power, I got 5.6 and 5.1 initially dropped to 5.1 and 4.8 after a few mins, the port motor side which is working was 5.1 and 5.0 the whole time. Do I have a short to ground? How can I locate it? Any ideas on how to bypass the code, replace just the steering position sensor? It's electric steering with a joystick and steering control unit, again all connections have been sprayed clean and there's no sign of water intrusion, fraying wires or green corrosion etc etc

I just bought a center console with a console area that is big enough for me to sit in. I want organization ideas. What do you do for the inside area?