Put a chain on the damb thing already!!! I always have a safty chain on my kicker. I don't trust any part of the brakets. Here is a funny story just to prove my point. I launched my old glasply in the river at Port Renfrew. The tide wasn't too low and I never touched bottom. Unkown to me at the time I did suck sand into my leg and it took out my impeller. Oh ya, as I pulled the trailer up the ramp a tire came right off the trailer, boy we where glad that we got the boat in the water at least. So anyways we are motoring out of Renfrew heading for Swiftsure, we got about 5 miles out offshore and I noticed the temperature starting to rise in my Main. So we about faced and went back and tied up at a dock. With no parts and no trailer it was kind of a guessing game as to what the problem might be, so to rule out the thermastat I took it out, My freind decided to help me out and said he would put the housing back on, so I started doing something else and I haer a semi loud crack sound. Turns out he tried to superman the friggin nuts on there and cracked the houseing!! Try to find parts in Renfrew...LMAO. So after a trip to Sooke we put it back together without a themastat then we went for a run to test it out. We ran for about 15-20 mins around in the harbour and the gage never went pass way down in the green. So I figured ok that must have been the problem, so away we went again 5 miles out.. 10 miles out all good, 15 miles out I notice the friggin temp is climbing!! I knew it had to be something else at this point, so I shut down the main and we just started trolling back to renfre at about 5 MPH, we had the downriggers down and we were catching a few coho along the way, the seas where about 10 ft or so with a little roll on the top, so the motor inevitably was doing the old, in the water, out of the water, in the water, and out of the water.... We were glad that we where at least fishing, catching fish and enjoying ourselves when all of a sudden the motor kicks off the bracket and I run to the back of the boat and see it still running under the water for like 1 -2 seconds streached right out on my safty chain. I haul the poor SOB up and into the boat, it has stopped running by now. I think to myself ok what now? I have no main and my kicker just deeped 6'd.
So I fastened my kicker back into place and foe the hell of it I pull the cord, it coughs... dies. so I pull again and it sputters and coughs then much to my dismay it actually runs!!! We ended up catching a couple more fish and making it back to town all because of my little safty chain. Oh ya this trip was what led to this $144,000.00 purchase...
Take only what you need.
