jellyfish!

[Troutkiller2006]

after a few weeks of bad weather and other bad luck, saturday i finally got a real chance to work on the dually. didnt get her finished but i did get her ready for a test run, or so i thought. after completing a few obligations sunday morning i finally towed her to the fuel station and filled her up bout 3p.m. came home to pick up the wife and kid, smelled gas, found just a little gas out dripping out the drain hole!the culprit ended up being a loose sending unit, the part in the middle where the wire attaches was a little loose and dipping a bit. no problem, ill just tighten it up a little, rite? when it broke and a stream of non ethanol fuel shot up about a foot and a half into the air i plugged the hole with my finger and instantly realized two things. my phone was still in the truck and the family had no idea that i was back from getting fuel! well dayum! thats a whole nother story so lets just leave it for now with, i finally got it sorted out bout 9:30 pm. and since my alarm goes off at 3 a.m., shower then bed.

so 3 a.m. comes and i woke to one of the worst storms ive seen since katrina. it was BAD! now some of yall may know the feeling, when you wake up to a fierce storm and while still laying in bed realize. "oh sh!t, the windows are down in my truck"! add to that the realization that the boat was still hooked up also. there was zero chance of rain that morning so i had every intention of riding my bike to work. the toyota burped a clutch and the mazda is in the garage next to the jeep both getting ls swaps. so im fixing to get wet, no way around it.a look at the radar reveled from bay st louis to pascagoula was covered in red. thats three counties of coastline.

on my way to work (45 miles one way) and running late of course, im dreading the mile long walk to the gate then the mile long walk to my destroyer. thats when i realized that my rain gear was in my saddle bag, at the exact same moment that my windshield wipers quit working. before i can getpulled over and stopped, the radio quits, then the tail lights, then the head lights. pull the cover off the fuse panel in the dash and water poured out.

at this point yall are probably wondering what any of this has to do with jelly fish and thinking this dude had a bad day. well, i had a great day and im fixing to tell yall why i now hate jelly fish more than ever. cause yall gotta know that i texted my boss and told him to kiss my rebel d!ck, i aint gonna be at work. and with the way my day was going and a new to me v20 setting in the yard, ready to go plus a full tank of gas... who can blame me

bout 11 a.m. the sun came out and all was calm. a quick bike ride tothe beach revealed some of the calmest seas ive seen in quite some time. damn near perfect for a test drive! idling out the harbor i was thinking that it might be a good thing that my trim tabs werent wired up yet cause i could get a good before and after. at the end of the jetty first thing i realized is that this thing jumps up onto plane with little effort. i was impressed even though i expected as much cause my 225 is a very strong and reliable motor. very strong. second thing i noticed is that it wants to porpoise very badly. i had to keep the motor trimmed almost all the way down and slightly bound up. i know that trim tabs will cure this but i wanna move some weight around so that she runs at the right attitude more naturally instead of forced.

another thing i noticed almost immediately, and this concerns me, is that the boat wants to list to stbd. this is a must fix for me cause if im using my tabs to correct a list, then i cant use them the way i want to. and it means something is wrong. but i cruised her along the beach for about 5 miles @ 3500 rpm and 38mph. since i have plenty of faith in my motor and the boat hadnt sunk yet, i headed south nd made the 12 mile run to ship island. other than the list and the porpoising, played with the trim a lot, the boat felt very good. felt solid. i crossed paths with a tug making a big wake and went through it at about 40 mph just to see. boat stayed pretty flat, prop stayed in the water, re entry was pretty smooth and no one got wet!

dropped anchor in about 8 feet of water off our favorite beach on the south side of ship island. anchor line wasnt even tight before wyatt was doing a cannonball off the bow of the boat! he swam around to the boarding ladder, had a seat on the platform and asked for his goggles and snorkel
then he said ow, something bit me! then he yelled ow again. and before i could grab him and yank him into the boat he did the inexplicable as ten year olds often do and jumped into the water! JELLYFISH!!

they were all over him! i was in horror as i watched him slinging slime, pulling them off of his face! there was nothing i could do. luckily, my kid didnt panic. he reached his hand up and in a matter of seconds i had him in the boat pouring bottled water on him then vinegar. and thank the good lord they didnt sting him as bad as i feared. just a little on his face, his arm and back, but they got his leg pretty good. he never cried and i knew all he could do was hurt till it stopped hurting but he said, "i wanna go home daddy, NOW. as fast as this boat will go!" and thats why i didnt get any pics. plan was to take some and even do some fly by vids at ship. but that plan was aborted.

5800 rpm @ 55.8mph. not bad but i have to say that im a little dissapointed. this motor pushed my 25 foot, 5500 pound chapparal 52mph @ 5400rpm. maybe a little playing with props? needless to say, wyatt was fine and a strawberry shake from sonic fixed him rite up. tough kid!

got them home and grabbed my buddy and took the boat back out to cat island to do some fishing. since this post is a mile long and most of you have stopped reading by now, ill just say the dually fishes better than expected and i really like the layout. shes a keeper!

[phatdaddy]

Glad it all worked out, sorta. Haven't had jellyfish over here yet, but Walton county west of us had their beaches closed for a while because of them

Smart move taking him to dr sonic

[Destroyer]

Glad it all worked out. I hate those things (Jellyfish) One suggestion.... Like falling off a horse, make sure you get him back on the boat as soon as possible so in his mind he doesn't mind equate the boat with the Jellyfish pain.