[erg153]

This all sounds too familiar. Care if I divulge? My dad owned a 23 foot Formula Center console that just became too much to handle for our short trips out in to the DE bay. Well after some thought he decided to sell it. A few weeks go by and finally a serious interest came about and he wanted to go for a sea trial. During the last trip and the time this potential buyer noticed the boat we had done some maintenance on the I/O which included taking the prop off and doing some cleaning as well as removing all the electronics for the winter. So the morning of the trial comes and we go to the Delaware City public ramp and put in. Everything is fine as we back up and go through the no-wake zone they have there. We get about a 1/4 mile out and in to the bay and my dad decides to power up the 454 to show the gent what she had. As he powers up we hear the prop slipping and know that something is wrong. My dad pulls back and we come to idle and shut down. We started drifting towards the hard stuff in the mean time I set the anchor. Turns out after all the outdrive maint. my dad din't put in a key peace of the prop assembly. I think it is called the thrust berring. So we were dead on the water w/ no radio. After calling the local fire dept. and waiting an hour or so 2 rescue boats come out tie us up and bring us in. My dad manages to talk the guy in to a second try after we get the berring assembly put back together. On the way home we are at a stop light and someone knocks on the driver's window. The guy proceeds to say that we are about to lose one of our trailer's wheels. We pull in to a parking lot and about 4 hours later it is fixed and we are on the way home. My dad finds the thrust berring and installs it. Long story short the guy bought the boat the next day. Sorry for the highjack.