Nehalennia II
New Member
Yesterday, the Admiral needed the “day off†and the owner of the 260DA we’re looking at offered a test ride. He lives on Washington’s Olympic peninsula and I live 45 minutes from the ferry to get us over there. The first trip we went over on a Saturday, with the vehicle, Admiral and twins. This trip we walked onto the ferry and he picked me and the twins up and brought us back to his marina. Luckily I did because the Olympic peninsula is a popular getaway spot for vacation homes, RV and camping and the return line for the Ferry would have been 3+ hours.
He lives in a great little key community that is surrounded homes with private docks and a marina for those in the community which are not “on the waterâ€. He has the boat at the marina. Once we got to his marina, we hopped aboard, started her up and he asked if I wanted to pull her out of the slip and head towards the opening in a small cut which leads us into Hood canal on Puget sound. We were fine for depth but he knows the channel well so he escorted her out into open water.
Once we were in the clear, I retook the helm made sure the twins were sitting tight, and throttled up. Trying to gauge the trim and trim tabs, leaving the tabs “up†and the Trim down I recalled comments here how to get to plane and adjust for the radical tilting.
Well I think I didn’t tap the tabs I pressed for a second throwing the boat into a port side list which I thought was pretty extreme. I didn’t think I would be able to “Adjust†my way out of this and slowed to “reset†and try again. Ok this time less severity but still had it list this time to starboard. I was able this time to adjust, level off and cruise straight for a little bit monitoring at what speeds the RPMs were and how the boat would “cruise†at. It was a perfectly calm day so it was nice to be able to really see how she rode without interference of waves or chop.
Well a ¼ mile into this straight and true cruise the helms wheel turn right really hard and I could not turn it back the left. I looked back fearing I hit something. I didn’t see anything and knew I was watching where I was going. Anyway we came off plane, he retook the helm. I said it feels like the power steering. He visibly got nervous, like he lost the sale. We stopped raised the outdrive to check for any viible damage or indication.Nothing. I asked if we could open the engine compartment and check the fluid level in the power steering. He thought that we wouldn’t be able to visibly see anything, so we just idled back to port. Well when we got to the mouth of the marina I again asked him to raise the engine hatch. My guess was correct, there was steering fluid on the bottom of the bilge and them the power steering pump started screaming like a cat in a fan belt. I was at first thinking that the pump had seized but it hadn’t but it was smoking from lack of fluid. As we got closer to the slip I noticed more fluid on the starboard side engine compartment bulkhead and thought something else may have gone.
Stopped at the slip I got my whole self in the engine compartment looking for the source of the fluid on the bulkhead. Vwalla- a hydraulic fitting on the steering ram had failed and it essentially spewed the lovely pink juice everywhere on the starboard bulkhead. No Juice, cooked the pump.
Anyway, you could tell he was rattled, and said “you better go find another boatâ€. I said, well this isn’t a deal breaker; if you can look into having it repaired, everything else ran like a top(I’ll definitely have to get used to the tabs) I’d be happy to know that the steering ram has been tested or replaced, new pump and hoses installed and we’re good to go. I really believe it was a defective fitting, unless a faulty ram created too much pressure for it to handle.
Either way we’ll see where things go from here.
He lives in a great little key community that is surrounded homes with private docks and a marina for those in the community which are not “on the waterâ€. He has the boat at the marina. Once we got to his marina, we hopped aboard, started her up and he asked if I wanted to pull her out of the slip and head towards the opening in a small cut which leads us into Hood canal on Puget sound. We were fine for depth but he knows the channel well so he escorted her out into open water.
Once we were in the clear, I retook the helm made sure the twins were sitting tight, and throttled up. Trying to gauge the trim and trim tabs, leaving the tabs “up†and the Trim down I recalled comments here how to get to plane and adjust for the radical tilting.
“Dave S†said:
Well I think I didn’t tap the tabs I pressed for a second throwing the boat into a port side list which I thought was pretty extreme. I didn’t think I would be able to “Adjust†my way out of this and slowed to “reset†and try again. Ok this time less severity but still had it list this time to starboard. I was able this time to adjust, level off and cruise straight for a little bit monitoring at what speeds the RPMs were and how the boat would “cruise†at. It was a perfectly calm day so it was nice to be able to really see how she rode without interference of waves or chop.
Well a ¼ mile into this straight and true cruise the helms wheel turn right really hard and I could not turn it back the left. I looked back fearing I hit something. I didn’t see anything and knew I was watching where I was going. Anyway we came off plane, he retook the helm. I said it feels like the power steering. He visibly got nervous, like he lost the sale. We stopped raised the outdrive to check for any viible damage or indication.Nothing. I asked if we could open the engine compartment and check the fluid level in the power steering. He thought that we wouldn’t be able to visibly see anything, so we just idled back to port. Well when we got to the mouth of the marina I again asked him to raise the engine hatch. My guess was correct, there was steering fluid on the bottom of the bilge and them the power steering pump started screaming like a cat in a fan belt. I was at first thinking that the pump had seized but it hadn’t but it was smoking from lack of fluid. As we got closer to the slip I noticed more fluid on the starboard side engine compartment bulkhead and thought something else may have gone.
Stopped at the slip I got my whole self in the engine compartment looking for the source of the fluid on the bulkhead. Vwalla- a hydraulic fitting on the steering ram had failed and it essentially spewed the lovely pink juice everywhere on the starboard bulkhead. No Juice, cooked the pump.
Anyway, you could tell he was rattled, and said “you better go find another boatâ€. I said, well this isn’t a deal breaker; if you can look into having it repaired, everything else ran like a top(I’ll definitely have to get used to the tabs) I’d be happy to know that the steering ram has been tested or replaced, new pump and hoses installed and we’re good to go. I really believe it was a defective fitting, unless a faulty ram created too much pressure for it to handle.
Either way we’ll see where things go from here.
