Well, I thought I would give an update on this summer's adventure with "OffRoad Dancer" and explain where I’ve been all summer. Which is NOT on the water.
This will be long; if you don’t have time just go to the next thread… if you do, grab some popcorn and a cold one and sit back for a spell while you read about the adventure.
After a fantastic time at the CSR Charleston Rendezvous back in April
http://www.byowneryachts.com/forums/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2648 I blew my engine during that trip. It totally and completely locked up which I suppose may not be too surprising in a 17 yr old engine with unknown time way over the thousand hour mark.
This led to the dilemma of deciding on whether to replace or swap for a larger engine since it felt underpowered for my boat and so I started this thread http://www.byowneryachts.com/forums/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2725 to help sort out my options and get some opinions from you guys. After seriously considering several options and learning that no one including the Mercruiser techs could convince me that they knew how much work and modifications a swap would entail, I decided to stay with a simple replacement in order to keep the job simple and get me back on the water as quickly as possible. Oh boy did it go downhill from there.
My local SeaRay dealer did not want to do this job – I guess they only wanted easy maintenance quick in-and-out service jobs. :huh: My opinion of them went down a bit after they made clear they didn’t want to mess with my SeaRay. The other large boat dealer in town is Foothills Marine which among other things is the local Four Winns dealer. I visited with them in late April to tell them what happened with my boat the week before at the Charleston Rendezvous.
I approached the techs about the job and they had no problem volunteering to do it for me. At the time the service manager was out so I was corresponding directly with the guys that would be doing the work. Their suggestion was to rebuild my longblock using a local engine shop and reuse all of my other parts – ignition, carb, risers, etc to keep the parts cost down to just the longblock. One of the questions you guys brought up in my other thread was to consider if a local engine shop would actually rebuild it to marine specs or just use auto parts; but the Foothills techs informed me that their own personal boats had engines built by this shop so I was fairly assured of a good rebuild. Total cost estimate was $1,500 for the rebuild and another $1,000 labor for a total of $2,500. This sounded great to me.
The next day when I dropped by, the service mgr was there and made sure I talked only to him from that point out and not his techs. He steered me away from using the local shop and said to make sure there would be no issues he would only do the job if we used a crate motor from MerCruiser. Doing that, the cost would rise to “no more than $3,500 topsâ€. Now I had to mentally adjust to accepting another thousand dollar hit for the job, but I agreed. Something in me – an instinct of sorts – was telling me to bail out of this and go directly to the techs again and let them do it on the side at the engine rebuild place, but I didn’t listen to that little voice whispering to me. I wanted to do business on the up-and-up and also liked the idea of a new MerCruiser block in OffRoad Dancer.
I should have listened to that little voice. Hooboy, should I have listened.
A couple of days later I called to schedule bringing her in to them that Friday. I was told they were full for the weekend but to bring her in first thing the next Monday morning. During that conversation the service mgr mentioned the $2,500 job that had turned into “no more than $3,500†would cost “between $3,500 to $3,800â€. When I gave them the boat that Monday, the figure he gave me was a solid “$3,800, but I’m telling you that to cover any unexpected thing that may come upâ€.
We agreed that since it was an engine seizure there was no reason to replace other items besides the block and so I would still use my old carb, ignition, manifold, risers, etc. They got the boat on Monday April 30th along with a $500 down payment from me.
A couple of weeks later I got a call from the service mgr who told me he had “good news and bad newsâ€. The good news was the engine was in and ran great – (oh by the way the cost was way over $4,000) - but the outdrive was making a horrendous noise and needed to be checked. I had no choice to approve them digging into the outdrive (which had been rebuilt only last year and had less than 50 hrs on it).
The outdrive was also total toast. He showed me a bearing in it that he said was the wrong size for the gears (blamed whoever did the outdrive rebuild last year as not knowing what he was doing) and when it went it chewed up all the innards. I don’t believe in a whole lot of coincidences and am still left wondering if the engine seizing immediately and locking the outdrive could have stressed it enough with the wrong size bearing to grenade it also, or vice versa, or what (?) It didn’t matter, the bottom line was the outdrive now also had to rebuilt and that would cost “about another thousand dollarsâ€. :smt089
On May 25th the job was finally done so I went to pick up our boat. The total owed was now $5,459 which when I added in the $500 I had already paid, added up to nearly $6,000….. it doesn’t take much of an accountant to figure that was way over any estimate and promise made to me. I paid it with my American Express card.
Thank GOD! I used the card instead of writing them a check.
At this stage I’m pretty ticked about the bill but at least we’re ready now with our brand new engine & outdrive and excited that we now have what is basically a new boat ready to go another decade.
Or not.
We plan a big Memorial Day splash and invite all of our friends from church, family members, etc and reserve a covered picnic area at a state park on the shore of the lake. We spent a lot of money getting all of that planned out and promised to give everyone a ride on our newly fixed boat. The Admiral and I decide to go down early and spend the night on the water Friday before the big day comes Saturday when all of our friends and family will show up.
Off the trailer, idle out to the no wake bouy, hit the throttle, and…… 2,500 rpm tops, it cannot get near enough oomph required to plane out, and the thing shudders so hard I think the engine is going to rip the motor mounts out of the fiberglas. It acted like it was way, way, WAY out of time or worse. It actually had a knock like the block was bad. It was hard to tell if the severe shaking was causing the knock or vice versa. We spent the weekend anchored. One of our Saturday guests was an ASC certified GM tech with 18 yrs experience and he confirmed that there was something internal wrong. During the test drive with him aboard it actually died about 45 minutes ~ hour into the run and wouldn’t start for another hour. :smt100
(In addition there were several other minor issues – no power steering (the pump was empty), the tach didn’t work right, the gelcoat had a new gash on the hull, the outdrive trim worked off-and-on whenever it was in the mood, the speedo didn’t work, etcetcetc).
With Memorial Day ruined I returned OffRoad Dancer back to Foothills Marine and was assured they would fix it and have me back out on the water by next weekend.
Right.
I got a call from mr expert service mgr that the problem was “a fouled plug.†He explained that brand new engines sometimes let a little oil by the rings before they set during the break-in period. One fouled plug caused all that. Hmmm.
I pick it back up and off we go the next weekend. None of the little things were done – the power steering pump was STILL dry – and the boat got up to only 3,500 rpm. It would just barely plane with only myself aboard. 45 minutes into the cruise the engine died outright. I got my cellphone and while on the water I called American Express on the spot, contested the charge and cancelled payment with the note that I would release the hold when the thing was actually repaired. I was left stranded on the water, had to wait for the wind to push me ashore, and spent the next day getting the boat to an alternate ramp, getting a ride to the original ramp to pick up my tow vehicle, and return to the new location to push my boat onto the trailer.
By now I’m starting to get just a little bit miffed. Also, about this time, we were eating after-church lunch one Sunday with some friends and telling them about this. One of them owns a boat and proceeded to tell us about his bad experience with the same place and let us know that he’d never let them touch his boat again. Wish I’d heard that ahead of time….
Back we go to Foothills Marine and I’m starting to wonder what moron would diagnose a severe internal problem as a single fouled plug (maybe the same one who isn’t competent enough to refill power steering fluid?). A couple days later and I have a new diagnosis. Since the engine died they concentrated on looking at an ignition problem and determined that some electronic part of the Thunderbolt ignition system had gone bad. I was speechless when mr. expert service mgr explained to me that the “higher compression of the new engine could cause a weak ignition to failâ€. Compression causes an ignition failure?!?
By now it was obvious to me that:
1) The service mgr was either incompetent or a liar, or probably both;
2) There was something seriously wrong with that new MerCruiser block; and
3) They were simply chasing parts at the problem and not admitting what is really wrong.
No one would listen to my assertion that we HAD to consider the itsby bitsy possibility that maybe that brand new crate longblock that MerCruiser sent just maybe, just maybe, might possibly perchance be a lemon. I had to wait again for them to locate the parts, ship them in from Utah, and work on the boat again. It is now late June or early July. I demand that the next time I pick her up, we will go to the lake together with one of the techs so they can experience firsthand what it is doing. When I show up, the owner of the dealership and the service mgr are furious because they had just learned that I had contested the original charge. During the ensuing argument they made clear that the problem was MY fault because I had “nickel and dimed them to death†by insisting on using some of my old parts instead of approving a total replacement swap (in actuality it was a mutual decision between the service mgr and me because of the fact that the original problem was an engine seizure, not a bad ignition). They insisted that I release the charge because they had done what I had hired them to do (I didn't release the hold on the charge).
They charged me $322 for the ignition parts but gave me free labor, what a deal.
I asked the service mgr if he made sure this time that it had power steering fluid before we set off to the lake and he assured me that it did.
Take a wild guess how much power steering fluid it had when I opened the engine bay. Dry as a bone.
Off to the lake, finally with power steering and a tech onboard, and she tops out at 4,000 ~ 4,100 rpm this time, it STILL vibrates and shutters, and 45 minutes later guess what happens….. she quits and dies. At least one of the techs finally is onboard and knows firsthand what she feels like. It wasn’t hitting as hard as the first time out, but it was still very much there – not a hard knock but a definite vibration and thumping. The best I can try to describe it is that the six cylinder 4.3 was trying to act like a two cylinder Harley. Whatever it was, it was not right. Still. And it died again.
The other tech was on another customer’s boat testing it and pulled over beside us and suggested we diagnose it right there on the water while it was acting up. It wouldn’t start by now, but we raised the engine hatch and he took off the carb cover. Voila ~ he notes that the carb is flowing way too much fuel into the engine and this is a carb problem, it needs a new carb!
The tech that was onboard with me gives me a strange look – he felt what it was doing and I can tell that he KNOWS that can’t be it – but he’s not senior to the other tech who wasn’t onboard and just diagnosed it as a carb problem. So officially according to the senior tech, this is all a carb problem. I wonder if this senior tech is the same guy who has already
a) screwed up the original engine swap; then
b) misdiagnosed it as a fouled plug; then
c) misdiagnosed it as a bad ignition; and
d) is incapable of refilling a power steering pump.
This newest diagnosis requires that I am now supposed to believe that my engine, outdrive, ignition, and carb ALL failed at precisely the exact same time… after all had been doing very well thankyouverymuch for well over a thousand engine hours.
Back to the shop and I FINALLY get the service mgr and owner to admit that maybe just possibly something may be wrong with that block but hey, the newest expert diagnosis after all IS a bad carb and I'm just a clueless customer so they are going to install a new carb first and test it again before going further. In other words, instead of getting the block I told them months ago that I obviously need ordered pronto and on the way, they are going to spend the next week or two waiting on yet another useless part to throw at the problem. :smt013
By now I’m ready to go postal
but at least I got them to agree to get the d@m# longblock ordered if the carb idea didn’t work out. There wasn’t any other parts left to blame it on by then and if that moron of a service mgr had the gall to come to me after the carb didn’t work and tell me “we finally figured it out, it’s the alternator (or starter, or bilge pump, or etc) I think he knew I WOULD go postal on them so he finally relented.
So I wait AGAIN – this time for a carb to come in and get installed (take two guesses as to whether the carb made any difference whatsoever and the first guess doesn’t count).
About this time I’m telling the saga to yet another friend of mine who owns a jetski. You guessed it, he said “you took it to Foothills? I let them try to work on my jetski once and I’ll never let them touch it again.â€
Finally, finally, FINALLY they order another longblock and install it. I go to – what is it by now, the fourth or fifth attempt on the water? – and join the tech crew for another adventure on the lake. Yep, it’s finally fixed now that it has the lemon longblock replaced that I tried mightily to get them to admit way back the week after Memorial Day at the first of the summer… except it’s August now and they screwed around with this for the entire boating season this year. If they had admitted it back then we’d have been on the water for the last two months. They got her in April and we got her back in August. Sheesh.
I handed a letter to the tech releasing the Amex charge and instructed him to return the letter to the dealership. I then pulled the trailer off of his truck, put it on mine, loaded OffRoad Dancer onto my own vehicle, and drove away without giving them the chance to try to entice me back to the dealership so they could charge me for a carb I didn’t need.
That tech – the one that was actually on the boat and felt what it was doing the time before – felt sorry for me and let me know that he sneaked a new fuel pump and a few other new goodies on it while he put the new block in, so at least I’ve got what is basically an all new engine, ignition, carb, etc except for the manifold/risers.
That friends, is where I’ve been all summer. We’re splashing her this weekend and hope to make what we can of what’s left of the summer. The only thing I have left to worry about is that I am supposed to take OffRoad Dancer back to this same shop after 10 ~ 20 hrs on the engine so they can retorque the bolts and change fluids after the break-in period. I’m not sure if a shop that can’t fill power steering fluid will do very well changing engine and outdrive oil while torqueing down bolts to spec. I’ll keep my fingers crossed and pray a lot, then they’ll never see me again.
At least I’ve got what is basically a new boat now…. Hopefully next summer will go better.
This will be long; if you don’t have time just go to the next thread… if you do, grab some popcorn and a cold one and sit back for a spell while you read about the adventure.
After a fantastic time at the CSR Charleston Rendezvous back in April
http://www.byowneryachts.com/forums/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2648 I blew my engine during that trip. It totally and completely locked up which I suppose may not be too surprising in a 17 yr old engine with unknown time way over the thousand hour mark.
This led to the dilemma of deciding on whether to replace or swap for a larger engine since it felt underpowered for my boat and so I started this thread http://www.byowneryachts.com/forums/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2725 to help sort out my options and get some opinions from you guys. After seriously considering several options and learning that no one including the Mercruiser techs could convince me that they knew how much work and modifications a swap would entail, I decided to stay with a simple replacement in order to keep the job simple and get me back on the water as quickly as possible. Oh boy did it go downhill from there.
My local SeaRay dealer did not want to do this job – I guess they only wanted easy maintenance quick in-and-out service jobs. :huh: My opinion of them went down a bit after they made clear they didn’t want to mess with my SeaRay. The other large boat dealer in town is Foothills Marine which among other things is the local Four Winns dealer. I visited with them in late April to tell them what happened with my boat the week before at the Charleston Rendezvous.
I approached the techs about the job and they had no problem volunteering to do it for me. At the time the service manager was out so I was corresponding directly with the guys that would be doing the work. Their suggestion was to rebuild my longblock using a local engine shop and reuse all of my other parts – ignition, carb, risers, etc to keep the parts cost down to just the longblock. One of the questions you guys brought up in my other thread was to consider if a local engine shop would actually rebuild it to marine specs or just use auto parts; but the Foothills techs informed me that their own personal boats had engines built by this shop so I was fairly assured of a good rebuild. Total cost estimate was $1,500 for the rebuild and another $1,000 labor for a total of $2,500. This sounded great to me.
The next day when I dropped by, the service mgr was there and made sure I talked only to him from that point out and not his techs. He steered me away from using the local shop and said to make sure there would be no issues he would only do the job if we used a crate motor from MerCruiser. Doing that, the cost would rise to “no more than $3,500 topsâ€. Now I had to mentally adjust to accepting another thousand dollar hit for the job, but I agreed. Something in me – an instinct of sorts – was telling me to bail out of this and go directly to the techs again and let them do it on the side at the engine rebuild place, but I didn’t listen to that little voice whispering to me. I wanted to do business on the up-and-up and also liked the idea of a new MerCruiser block in OffRoad Dancer.
I should have listened to that little voice. Hooboy, should I have listened.
A couple of days later I called to schedule bringing her in to them that Friday. I was told they were full for the weekend but to bring her in first thing the next Monday morning. During that conversation the service mgr mentioned the $2,500 job that had turned into “no more than $3,500†would cost “between $3,500 to $3,800â€. When I gave them the boat that Monday, the figure he gave me was a solid “$3,800, but I’m telling you that to cover any unexpected thing that may come upâ€.
We agreed that since it was an engine seizure there was no reason to replace other items besides the block and so I would still use my old carb, ignition, manifold, risers, etc. They got the boat on Monday April 30th along with a $500 down payment from me.
A couple of weeks later I got a call from the service mgr who told me he had “good news and bad newsâ€. The good news was the engine was in and ran great – (oh by the way the cost was way over $4,000) - but the outdrive was making a horrendous noise and needed to be checked. I had no choice to approve them digging into the outdrive (which had been rebuilt only last year and had less than 50 hrs on it).
The outdrive was also total toast. He showed me a bearing in it that he said was the wrong size for the gears (blamed whoever did the outdrive rebuild last year as not knowing what he was doing) and when it went it chewed up all the innards. I don’t believe in a whole lot of coincidences and am still left wondering if the engine seizing immediately and locking the outdrive could have stressed it enough with the wrong size bearing to grenade it also, or vice versa, or what (?) It didn’t matter, the bottom line was the outdrive now also had to rebuilt and that would cost “about another thousand dollarsâ€. :smt089
On May 25th the job was finally done so I went to pick up our boat. The total owed was now $5,459 which when I added in the $500 I had already paid, added up to nearly $6,000….. it doesn’t take much of an accountant to figure that was way over any estimate and promise made to me. I paid it with my American Express card.
Thank GOD! I used the card instead of writing them a check.
At this stage I’m pretty ticked about the bill but at least we’re ready now with our brand new engine & outdrive and excited that we now have what is basically a new boat ready to go another decade.
Or not.
We plan a big Memorial Day splash and invite all of our friends from church, family members, etc and reserve a covered picnic area at a state park on the shore of the lake. We spent a lot of money getting all of that planned out and promised to give everyone a ride on our newly fixed boat. The Admiral and I decide to go down early and spend the night on the water Friday before the big day comes Saturday when all of our friends and family will show up.
Off the trailer, idle out to the no wake bouy, hit the throttle, and…… 2,500 rpm tops, it cannot get near enough oomph required to plane out, and the thing shudders so hard I think the engine is going to rip the motor mounts out of the fiberglas. It acted like it was way, way, WAY out of time or worse. It actually had a knock like the block was bad. It was hard to tell if the severe shaking was causing the knock or vice versa. We spent the weekend anchored. One of our Saturday guests was an ASC certified GM tech with 18 yrs experience and he confirmed that there was something internal wrong. During the test drive with him aboard it actually died about 45 minutes ~ hour into the run and wouldn’t start for another hour. :smt100
(In addition there were several other minor issues – no power steering (the pump was empty), the tach didn’t work right, the gelcoat had a new gash on the hull, the outdrive trim worked off-and-on whenever it was in the mood, the speedo didn’t work, etcetcetc).
With Memorial Day ruined I returned OffRoad Dancer back to Foothills Marine and was assured they would fix it and have me back out on the water by next weekend.
Right.
I got a call from mr expert service mgr that the problem was “a fouled plug.†He explained that brand new engines sometimes let a little oil by the rings before they set during the break-in period. One fouled plug caused all that. Hmmm.
I pick it back up and off we go the next weekend. None of the little things were done – the power steering pump was STILL dry – and the boat got up to only 3,500 rpm. It would just barely plane with only myself aboard. 45 minutes into the cruise the engine died outright. I got my cellphone and while on the water I called American Express on the spot, contested the charge and cancelled payment with the note that I would release the hold when the thing was actually repaired. I was left stranded on the water, had to wait for the wind to push me ashore, and spent the next day getting the boat to an alternate ramp, getting a ride to the original ramp to pick up my tow vehicle, and return to the new location to push my boat onto the trailer.
By now I’m starting to get just a little bit miffed. Also, about this time, we were eating after-church lunch one Sunday with some friends and telling them about this. One of them owns a boat and proceeded to tell us about his bad experience with the same place and let us know that he’d never let them touch his boat again. Wish I’d heard that ahead of time….
Back we go to Foothills Marine and I’m starting to wonder what moron would diagnose a severe internal problem as a single fouled plug (maybe the same one who isn’t competent enough to refill power steering fluid?). A couple days later and I have a new diagnosis. Since the engine died they concentrated on looking at an ignition problem and determined that some electronic part of the Thunderbolt ignition system had gone bad. I was speechless when mr. expert service mgr explained to me that the “higher compression of the new engine could cause a weak ignition to failâ€. Compression causes an ignition failure?!?
By now it was obvious to me that:
1) The service mgr was either incompetent or a liar, or probably both;
2) There was something seriously wrong with that new MerCruiser block; and
3) They were simply chasing parts at the problem and not admitting what is really wrong.
No one would listen to my assertion that we HAD to consider the itsby bitsy possibility that maybe that brand new crate longblock that MerCruiser sent just maybe, just maybe, might possibly perchance be a lemon. I had to wait again for them to locate the parts, ship them in from Utah, and work on the boat again. It is now late June or early July. I demand that the next time I pick her up, we will go to the lake together with one of the techs so they can experience firsthand what it is doing. When I show up, the owner of the dealership and the service mgr are furious because they had just learned that I had contested the original charge. During the ensuing argument they made clear that the problem was MY fault because I had “nickel and dimed them to death†by insisting on using some of my old parts instead of approving a total replacement swap (in actuality it was a mutual decision between the service mgr and me because of the fact that the original problem was an engine seizure, not a bad ignition). They insisted that I release the charge because they had done what I had hired them to do (I didn't release the hold on the charge).
They charged me $322 for the ignition parts but gave me free labor, what a deal.
Take a wild guess how much power steering fluid it had when I opened the engine bay. Dry as a bone.
Off to the lake, finally with power steering and a tech onboard, and she tops out at 4,000 ~ 4,100 rpm this time, it STILL vibrates and shutters, and 45 minutes later guess what happens….. she quits and dies. At least one of the techs finally is onboard and knows firsthand what she feels like. It wasn’t hitting as hard as the first time out, but it was still very much there – not a hard knock but a definite vibration and thumping. The best I can try to describe it is that the six cylinder 4.3 was trying to act like a two cylinder Harley. Whatever it was, it was not right. Still. And it died again.
The other tech was on another customer’s boat testing it and pulled over beside us and suggested we diagnose it right there on the water while it was acting up. It wouldn’t start by now, but we raised the engine hatch and he took off the carb cover. Voila ~ he notes that the carb is flowing way too much fuel into the engine and this is a carb problem, it needs a new carb!
The tech that was onboard with me gives me a strange look – he felt what it was doing and I can tell that he KNOWS that can’t be it – but he’s not senior to the other tech who wasn’t onboard and just diagnosed it as a carb problem. So officially according to the senior tech, this is all a carb problem. I wonder if this senior tech is the same guy who has already
a) screwed up the original engine swap; then
b) misdiagnosed it as a fouled plug; then
c) misdiagnosed it as a bad ignition; and
d) is incapable of refilling a power steering pump.
This newest diagnosis requires that I am now supposed to believe that my engine, outdrive, ignition, and carb ALL failed at precisely the exact same time… after all had been doing very well thankyouverymuch for well over a thousand engine hours.
Back to the shop and I FINALLY get the service mgr and owner to admit that maybe just possibly something may be wrong with that block but hey, the newest expert diagnosis after all IS a bad carb and I'm just a clueless customer so they are going to install a new carb first and test it again before going further. In other words, instead of getting the block I told them months ago that I obviously need ordered pronto and on the way, they are going to spend the next week or two waiting on yet another useless part to throw at the problem. :smt013
By now I’m ready to go postal
So I wait AGAIN – this time for a carb to come in and get installed (take two guesses as to whether the carb made any difference whatsoever and the first guess doesn’t count).
About this time I’m telling the saga to yet another friend of mine who owns a jetski. You guessed it, he said “you took it to Foothills? I let them try to work on my jetski once and I’ll never let them touch it again.â€
Finally, finally, FINALLY they order another longblock and install it. I go to – what is it by now, the fourth or fifth attempt on the water? – and join the tech crew for another adventure on the lake. Yep, it’s finally fixed now that it has the lemon longblock replaced that I tried mightily to get them to admit way back the week after Memorial Day at the first of the summer… except it’s August now and they screwed around with this for the entire boating season this year. If they had admitted it back then we’d have been on the water for the last two months. They got her in April and we got her back in August. Sheesh.
I handed a letter to the tech releasing the Amex charge and instructed him to return the letter to the dealership. I then pulled the trailer off of his truck, put it on mine, loaded OffRoad Dancer onto my own vehicle, and drove away without giving them the chance to try to entice me back to the dealership so they could charge me for a carb I didn’t need.
That tech – the one that was actually on the boat and felt what it was doing the time before – felt sorry for me and let me know that he sneaked a new fuel pump and a few other new goodies on it while he put the new block in, so at least I’ve got what is basically an all new engine, ignition, carb, etc except for the manifold/risers.
That friends, is where I’ve been all summer. We’re splashing her this weekend and hope to make what we can of what’s left of the summer. The only thing I have left to worry about is that I am supposed to take OffRoad Dancer back to this same shop after 10 ~ 20 hrs on the engine so they can retorque the bolts and change fluids after the break-in period. I’m not sure if a shop that can’t fill power steering fluid will do very well changing engine and outdrive oil while torqueing down bolts to spec. I’ll keep my fingers crossed and pray a lot, then they’ll never see me again.
At least I’ve got what is basically a new boat now…. Hopefully next summer will go better.
