Yamaha 90 lost reverse?

[tlb888]

We were out of OI this morning in a buddy's boat casting eels for striper and 1 hour into it he tells me no reverse? We drive out of the surf and into the channel and shut the motor off to see what is going on. I disconnected the shift linkage at the motor and control works fine. Hook it back up and goes into forward but still bound going into reverse. Oh well atleast we can get back, think again now the motor will not start because we cannot get the shift lever back to nuetral. So now we are adrift in the middle of Oregon Inlet channel. We got the anchor out and the next boat coming in thankfully gave us a tow back.

The motor is a 2002 Yamaha 90 2 stroke with low hours. Any ideas?