Do you know if there was fuel in the boat when you got it, and did you put any other fuel in the tank or just go with the fuel it came with. Your problems could be due to contaminated old two stroke fuel that may have water and other gunk in it. Try draining all the full from the tank and the carburettor bowls, lines and filters . Put in some new fuel after cleaning the plugs and see what results you get the.

 Around the bung itself is the usual place for leaks

So another related question, if I was on the water, and water is between the hull & the deck, how do I know and how do I get to it ? My small bilge pump is just beside my battery, and there was very little water there, and it has its own bung. Am I set up wrong ?

Just seems dangerous to me that I had so much water on below the deck & didnt realise. Is it normal ?

 Tub. If that much water has been in the hull for a while it could of damaged the wood underneath over the years

Just a thought

 With your motor to me it sounds like that the boats been filling with water and your too heavy to get on the plane. using a lot of fuel cause because your working the motor hard with it strugling to push weight, that's why your plugs would be fouled because your pouring fuel in the motor and its not getting the fuel out and burnt properly 

 Ok this may sound dumb, could it be that rain got in? Was the boat stored with the bow up and bungs out?

With the water you could always use the old trick of putting a hose to the bung hole and start putting water in

If there's a crack/hole on the bottom of the hull you might see it leaking out

I thinks its a good chance the bungs are leaking as they weren't put in tight enough. 10L/hr can easily leak in to the boat through leaky bungs.

The work on your outboard really depends on the condition and age of the engine. I am thinking its a very old outboard and potentially the Mercury blusline series in which case I would scrap as it will continually give you issues.

If you want to clean out the carbies, try spraying some carbie clean through it.

Another mechanic you can contact is Arthur Page, who is honest and reasonable, only issue is he doesn't travel out of Rockingham.

Thanks for the info & tips all. I didnt get home early enough today to try working on her.

Early in the trip she did get up to 35kp/h(per Navionics on my phone) - that was fun for my first time getting on the "plane", it was later on that she was dog slow. But even just 20 minutes in we had difficulty starting her(came within 1 meter of being run over by a huge sailing yacht), and we had to use the choke & fast idle. This became the norm to get her started, even though she was warm.

So she will run at high revs, but she is still cutting out on idle & low revs & difficult to start. Makes its tricky getting back into the jetty & manouvering around tight spots. Rather than getting the carbs cleaned, I might just ask a mechanic to give her a service &  diagnose the issue. I really want to be confident she will start when I want her to.

I'm not confident about the fuel lines either, they are held together by cable ties, rather than clamps - thats not normal is it ?

I forgot to mention, its a 1995 Mercury 40HP 2T 1040312RD - dont know if that matters ?

just an idea, maybe state your location and offer up a carton to see if there is an experienced member on this site near you who is willing to come around and have a look at your boat and give you a run down of some of the basic boating "what is right and wrongs".

being fairly new to boats you can end up learning a lot the hard way and that's costly and no fun!.

For example -there is nothing wrong with cable ties holding fuel lines in certain circumstances - but without looking at the actual application its not possible to answer
You are getting water in your boat, have you spoken to the previous owner to ask if this was an issue? - if there are no cracks in the gel coat below the water line it really narrows it to the bung or any other below water fittings.

hope you get it sorted as life on the water is good :-)

I'd be tempted to remove the bung housing and install a new one for the sake of a few bucks... Use a good amount of sikaflex around it and get a really good seal.

On our old boat we had a similar problem (not nearly as much water though by the sounds of it) and turned out to be a small leak around the bung housing. Doesn't take much to let water in over a few hours.

I know there are differing opinions on tightening the bung, some blokes I know use spanners to tighten them. The O-rings are there for a reason, I hand-tighten only, enough so they wont come out, but not to squash the o-ring because that can make them leak too...

Hi All,

Thanks again everyone for your tips & comments!

I worked out that my hose on jet setting puts out roughly 10 litres per minute. Over 5 X 2 minute full hose squirts, I put in roughly 100 litres through the bung hole, with the jockey wheel down.

I put the jockey wheel up and nothing came out anywhere on the hull until the very last 20 litres, where there was a very small slow drip from the left bung, and bung housing, would that cause lots of water intake ?

The only other thing I can think of is, on Sunday I reattached the transducer bracket. The old one had snapped off, (apparently steped on by previous owners friend, way it was when I bought it - easy fix) but the bracket base was still attached to the hull. I didnt think much of it until I read thses comments. I took it off, repaired it, and put it back on using silicon on the screws.

I wonder of there was a small hold there, that would let in lots of water over the 7 hours on the river.

There's only 1 real way I can know for sure, that is by putting her back in the water. 

To do that I must fix the engine. Im thinking Ill just book her in for a service and tell the mechanic about the issues & get her checked out rather than getting carbys reconditioned. I doubt she has seen a mechanic in years.

BTW im in Beeliar

 Hi smidsy

Here are my thoughts on your boat issues.

I'm quite a hands on type of person and like yourself, try to save money by doing things myself.  However, when it comes to boating, SAFETY is the most important thing!  You mentioned its your first  boat and you have limited experience. Therefore, you should have the boat completely checked out by a qualified professional before using it any further. 

If your car died on the side of the road, help is nearby.  If a boat starts taking in huge amounts of water or the motor dies whilst your out on the water, realistically how safe will you be when weather conditions change for the worst?  Sea rescue do a great job but they cant be everywhere..

And if the guy that sold you the boat knew there were problems and didn't mention them, let's just hope some bad karma goes his way!

What make & model is your boat?

 Thats a fair comment but being honest, I didnt pay much for my boat, so I can't be mean about the previous owner. I dont think he knew what he was doing either. He did try to tell me she was great in every way, but I knew she wasnt, and after dropping $1,000 on the asking price he dropped another $500 to get rid of her, as I was about to walk away because of the engine issues. I knew I was buying a minor project boat at best, and she hadn't been cared for. However, every issue I came across so far was a cheap, time consuming but $10 fix(ie. a bit of TLC), until the leaks and the engine. Thats where Im out of my depth, but everything is fixable and I think I know my limits.

I cant afford to but a boat right now. Its smarter for me to wait till next season & get a good boat, but I couldn't walk away from this one either. So I got to either fix her up cheap, or walk away & sell her for what I paid(or more :) ).

She's a Swiftcraft Sea Hawk.

Today a mechanic had a look and he reckons she's a keeper, but needs some cleaning up, new coil & service, total $600 of work and engine will be good, thats ok by me.

He reckons she leaking at a spot that looks like a leak, but when I filled her up no water came out. I got to clarify that.

 Tracking problems like yours need to be done methodically.

Rule #1-start with the simple cheap and easy stuff before handing over $500, even if someone else "says they did it already".
Very first thing to check when you found water in the hull-is it fresh (rain thru a deck leak) or salt?

Could be looking for a hull leak til the cows come home but if its freshwater, you wont find the leak.

Fouling plugs-is it premix or auto mix?
Did you add oil to the fuel and where did you get the correct ratio from?
Is it auto mix and you've added oil to the fuel also, not realising?

Just an update for anyone who's wondering.

Engine ....

When the mechanic came out again, he tried changing one of the coils which he thought it was - it didnt work. She just wouldnt start.

He said she has a weak spark, and he couldnt tell, but it was either the stator, trigger or control box, and could cost $1,000+ to replace all the parts, with no guarantee it would work. He recommended I just sell her on as a non-runner. He didnt charge me for the work, which was nice.

I was disappointed with that, and brought it to another mechanic with my fingers crossed for a "better" second opinion. Anyway, after playing around with it for a morning, he ended up telling me exactly the same thing - and charged me $100 for his time. I asked him what was most likely of the 3, and he said stator would be his best guess.

(PS. An American marine mechanic wha was helping me out via email told me that the local marine mechanics should have had a DVA reader for a multimeter, and with that they could have found out exactly what part was the problem.)

Anyway, I took a gamble & bought a used stator on Ebay from Michigan, US for $240 all in & fit it myself(Perth boat shop wanted $1,000).

First time cranking and ........ VROOM, VROOM !! SHE WAS ALIVE !!

Anyway, problem solved. One of the mechanics told me I needed a new coil also, so I bought a couple from a scrap yard in Brisbane for $90 delivered.

So all in, I dropped $430 - and she's running great !

Leaks...

Went up the river to the wineries, engine 100% all the way, and a total of 5 hours on the water. I noticed she had lowered a couple of inchs into the water since we set off - no biggy.

The boat ramp was empty, so when I took her out on the trailer I kept her on the ramp at a steep angle, and water flooded out of what looks like a harmless paint scuff/crack, but is actually a big crack.

However, its a bit baffelling that it was sealed tight when I filled up the boat with water that time, so that testing method isnt fool proof. 

Anyway, I bought a cheap angle grinder $30, flapper disk $10, and fibreglass repair kit $35. I sanded back to the fibreglass, and applied a few layers of fibreglass & epoxy. It had marks on both sides, so I did both, which took me about an hour.

Its not pretty, but it works very well - she's sealed tighter than a nuns **** !

 But glass should not crack if the hull is internally stiffened properly. It sounds to me, although I could be wrong, that you may have major rot problems under the deck. If stringers and frames rot, the hull will flex, and this is where the cracks come from. You said the water that came out of the bung was brown. There can be two causes for this--either there is something steel rusting away under there, OR, you have rotten timber. This will also give you brown water, and is, unfortunately, the most common cause, as far as I know.

Tyr getting under the boat on the trailer, and start tapping the hull hard with a rubber mallet. If you get rattles or noises, this is a bad sign. If you can't hear anything, and don't want to dig in, just keep an eye on it. If it recurs, well, you don't want a split hull at sea. 

 Glad to hear it.