Sooooooo... I cracked my knuckles, put on my hip waders, found my vee'd stick. Then I departed to the murky depths of the web. I wanted to find all the throttle options for my engine. I had many perils and adventures too long to relate here. I broke my vee'd stick fending off a slithering spam URL. ...

Re: Mercury throttle I am not sure. The new throttle has the ignition and trim switches built in. Maybe there are models of this engine which get a different control unit. The one without power tilt might be smaller. The dealer said this was the only throttle available with this particular model eng...

Like the theft resistant finish?

The dinghy is certainly a topic of endless debate among cruisers. I finally had to build my own Mac specific dinghy, since i needed one with certain parameters namely, towing at speed (although now with my 20 HP engine I wont be doing that any more) and still rowing extremely well and being dry. Sai...

The place which did it is having problems with their help, only I didn't know that when they gave me the proposal. The guy is a sailor but didn't neg the Macs, and we chatted a bit. He's a decent enough guy but the shop, I later learned, is moving to another location, so some workers are busy with t...

The engine was finally installed after 2 1/2 months. They had to get a tech in from Tampa after 2 other techs ghosted the job. He came in on Saturday and I agreed to assist him. He left at 8PM, after first start, run and function check https://i.postimg.cc/YhHW7crp/IMG-3598.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/...

Re: port captains for different locales, I like that idea. Even without a boat, if you were traveling somewhere new.

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The Luke is kind of a Keys specific anchor. I've drug a bruce, bunch of times, rocna, spade, danforth, delta, barnacle, northhill, and none of them were small either. the Lukes design means a heavy anchor which still fits on the boat. So over yanking out anchors during bad squalls at 2 AM. I wont sa...

ive only ever put it up and down, once in the water, far from witnesses.

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re: lifting large anchor
i installed a windlass for oversized anchors. the Luke is used mostly in water less that 15 ft deep. Its "catted" just like on old time sailing ships, off the side of the bow, so it never comes aboard.

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50 lb Luke anchor for the win. At least in the Florida Keys. On an all chain rode.

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i though about mounting it horizontally and adding an extra support panel down to the cockpit floor, but i told the mechanic he would have final say. I could incorporate a shelf or catchall box to the front of the binnacle to make it seem intentional. i was surprised to see how large the control uni...

hi. so they are working on my boat this week. the control unit for the engine is going to be on the left. its much larger than the west marine unit which was originally equipped for the etec. has anyone mounted this type of control unit? if so, in what fashion? the mechanic said the only way it woul...

heres a few other spots of interest to cruisers also: there is a public ramp, and poorly maintained park about a mile or two south of Bamboo key. leave Bamboo key anchorage, and proceed along the shore, past a very small private island and keep on until you see some coconut palms and a small lightho...

re: launch and leave: try Countyline Marina. Its way off the beaten path but it seems like they deal mostly with trailerable sailboats. There is a storage lot in key largo which seems to offer longterm storage of vehicles. It should come up on a google search. Its only a few miles from pennekamp sta...