Picked up my boat from EQ today where it's been for the past few weeks for the annual maintenance and a few modifications to the fuel system. In tuning up the engines, Carl discovered that the throttle cables were set up in such a way that neither engine could reach full throttle. He fixed that.
When I got the boat, it was set up the "standard way" in which each engine drew off of it's own separate fuel tank. Well, when I was about 60 miles offshore this summer, I realized that this could be a problem. E.g. if I planned my fuel usage for 1/3 going out, 1/3 coming back and 1/3 in reserve BUT one engine failed, then the 1/3 I had in reserve turned into 1/6th since half of it wasn't available to me. Also, if I had to come back on one engine, I wouldn't be on plane so I could either wallow almost on plane and get terrible fuel mileage OR slow down to 6kts and have a 10 hour return trip. Wallowing might not be an option since the available fuel to return was calculated assuming the mileage on plane so basically a planned 2-3 return hour trip would become a 10 hour trip instead of something closer to 4-5 hours on one engine.
So (short story long), I had EQ rig the boat with a cross over system that allows either engine to run off of either or both tanks. I also had them replace the fuel filter/water separators with ones that had clear bowls as the ones that came with the boat were solid metal and you couldn't see if there was water in there. I also had them give the full boat a good look over to check out everything else and make any additional recommendations as needed. Fortunately everything else was OK (except for a non functioning horn which I'll fix myself this winter).
As always, the charge was not only fair but lower that what I expected. More importantly (much more importantly in fact), I know everything was done right - that's priceless in my book especially when I'm 60 miles offshore in pretty cold water.
