Fred, Here is the Dramatic Death story
Where do I begin.......We were on our way out for some day sailing off Bailey Island. It was the second summer that we owned the boat. The boatyard where we had a mooring required motoring for anywhere from 45 min to an hour before we could finally put up the sail. So, we are about 10 minutes into our trip and just passing Pole Island, I am at the wheel & hubby is in the cabin. The engine starts to race like I've never heard before and black smoke is pouring out the back end. Hubby yells "Put it in neutral", I do and engine continues to race. Next command is "Shut it off" I try but it won't shut off. So now he is taking the stairs off to get at the engine and doing something. We don't know if what he did stopped the engine of if it just died on it's own but it stopped. So now my leggs feel like spagetti, my heart is my throat and my first thought is to throw out the anchor so that we don't end up on the ledges at the end of Pole Island. Ken goes forward to get the anchor out but before he gets to the locker a powerboater pulls along side and asks if we need help and Ken says that we could use a tow back to the mooring. The tow itself was pretty interesting because the kid driving the boat is sort of meandering back & forth through the channel. I commented to Ken that I hoped our rescuer didn't ground us before he got us back to the mooring. We made it back to the mooring & had a good stiff drink. That's the story !P.S. Boatyard says Yanmar Dead. Moved boat to different boatyard (that's another story), replaced engine with Westerbeke, 18hp (I think) Decided to re-do whole damn boat. Everything that could be taken apart & off is off. Took some pictures of the demolition so that we could show before/after on the Photo Forum.