The "Evil" Jet Boat

Can a boat have a soul, or perhaps be possessed by some sort of twisted personality? As silly as that may sound, there are evidently a fair amount of people who seem to ascribe a great deal of credibility to this theory.  Many people believe in that old superstition which states that if you change the name of a boat, you will incur "bad luck".  Indeed, as a testament to this theory, I have even seen an "official" published ritual which one needs to perform, in the desperate case where they absolutely must change the boat's name.  Apparently, if one carefully follows this ritual, it is supposed to "satisfy" the boat gods and spare the new owner from the bad luck which would otherwise come as a consequence of renaming the boat.  It all sounds silly right? Yea, that's what I thought too, but read on..........

What about registration numbers then? Will changing them also incur the wrath of "Satan", "Murphy", or some other demigod hell bent on making the lives of us mere mortals a living nightmare? What is all this superstitious nonsense anyway? A boat is, after all, nothing more than a hunk of molded fiberglass, a bunch of wire and hoses, and a big hunk of cast iron right? Well take a moment to consider this exhibit in nautical mayhem.....

The particular boat in question is pictured above.  The actual brand name of it we were never completely sure of.  While the boat had the name plate "Rally Sport" riveted to the side, it also bore the name "Samurai" on another tag.  I sort of assumed that Samurai was the brand name, and that Rally Sport was the dealer's name.  In any case, this boat was one of the many Sidewinder jet boat "clones" which had sprung up in the mid 1970's and was originally owned by someone in New Jersey who used it down at the shore (in salt water oh-oh!).  One of my local radio friends, Whitey had somehow located this boat and purchased it second hand in 1977 or 78, to replace his aging 1971 Sidewinder.  While Whitey owned this metalflake green monster, he changed it from a New Jersey registration, to a Pennsylvania registration.  Also during his ownership, he had to replace the starter, the steering cable, and the throttle control. During one season, he noticed a small amount of oil in the bilge. After some investigation, it was determined that the oil pan had a small leak in it. A little judicious application of JB-Weld epoxy, and the problem was solved.  Well, it was solved at least until the next season. It turns out that exposure to salt water  (The oil pan sits only inches above the hull) by the first owner had caused the oil pan to rust through and it would need replacement. This required engine removal (A seemingly daunting task at that point,  but one that would become routine for us in later years). After the new oil pan was fitted, Whitey used it for the remainder of that season and then more or less lost interest in the boat, and it sat on the side of his house for a few years. 

It was now 1984, and my good friend Art, having traded me his 14' Crosby a year and a half ago, was looking for another small trailerable boat to play with.  Well, Art was never one to turn down a hard luck case, and Whitey was more than happy to get rid of his "Grass Killer" at this point.  I knew we were in for trouble when we uncovered it and the strong smell of stale gasoline wafted out.  Oh-oh, it appeared that we had a gas tank leak.  The carpet was completely soaked and ruined beyond any hope of cleaning.  "No problem", Art proclaimed, and he just removed the carpet and the gas tank, and began checking it for leaks. After much testing, we could not find a leak.  So we reinstalled the tank, and Art replaced the carpet with some cheap indoor/outdoor stuff from the local home center.  We never did figure out exactly what had leaked, although we had a theory that the fuel shutoff valve had developed a small leak and coupled with a siphon action, started from heat expansion of the fuel, had emptied most of the tank over a period of time.  So it appeared that one problem was solved, and now it was on to the engine.  Well, the engine was a bit rusted, and the carburetor was in need of a rebuild.  But that seemed simple enough.  Sure enough, with a bit of luck, and a thorough carb cleaning, we managed to get the engine running and it now looked like it was time to head down to Barnegat Bay for the season.  Well.... Not quite.  It seems that the trailer also had a great deal of rust on it, and had to have some welding done in order to make it road safe.  So after that was completed, it was finally off to the shore.  Art would add a radio console and a few other things, and he used the boat for the 1984  (See this story about Art's boat encounter with a sandbar) and '85 season. A job transfer forced Art to sell the boat by the end of 1985.

The next "victim", for the ills of this boat, was a guy nicknamed "Spud", who was my oldest friend and next door neighbor at the time.  Spud bought the boat from Art at the end of the '85 season and he quickly took it down to our local hangout the Schuylkill River, to run it  a bit before the weather turned completely south.  On his first outing he ran it pretty hard, and the engine spun the main bearings.  A big let down to be sure, but Spud figured he'd have the engine rebuilt during the winter and he'd be ready to go the next spring.  Well, the engine rebuilder drug his feet, lost many of the original parts, and the engine that Spud finally got back, I had doubts was the original. To make matters worse, it was rebuilt using "car" parts and gaskets, which evidently were significantly different than the marine versions in this engine.  While we waited for the engine to be finished, Spud worked on the boat.  He had the seats re-upholstered, and added a fancier carpet than the indoor-outdoor stuff that Art had used.  He also added a set of new Sun gauges to replace most of the aging original Teleflex instruments.

Here is a picture of Spud getting ready to put the engine back in:

And another shot of the finished product:

 When we put the engine back in the boat, and took it out for a shakedown "spin", a small water leak was discovered near one of the heads, and we also noticed that the engine never quite warmed up. After a few more test runs, we noticed that the oil had started turning a milky color.  Oh-oh, looks like water in the oil!  The thought was that maybe the jet pump was sending water into the engine with too much pressure, and seeping past one of the "car" gaskets, so we installed a regulator valve to limit water flow.  Hopefully, this would allow the engine to warm up and would not put any more water in the oil.  We were successful in warming up the engine, but we did not stop the oil contamination.  It was clear that there was either a sealing problem with one of the head gaskets, or a problem with a leak in the block.  As it was, Spud had to change the oil after every two outings.  One such outing is shown here:

After playing around with the engine rebuilder and getting nowhere, and after a season of frustration, Spud finally bought a junkyard engine to put in the boat. This engine had high mileage on it, and I was not convinced that this was a good solution.  On his first outing with this engine, Spud bent a few push rods thanks to sludge clogged hydraulic valve lifters. I figured the lifters were plugged with sludge from the high mileage and needed replacing and wouldn't be a big deal.  But by then, Spud had had enough of this boat and when Art came back from California, he sold the boat back to him.

The next year, Art replaced the push rods and the lifters, and the engine then ran. But it had a problem idling. It was running a bit lean, and one bank (4 cylinders) was much worse. We found and plugged a couple of manifold vacuum leaks, and that helped, but it was still not quite right. A carb rebuild cleared out an internal clog and that made it almost perfect.  During this time, he also had a problem with the battery and the starter, and I had to tow him in once, when the engine would not crank over.  It took practically a whole season of fiddling to finally nail it all down.  Art also cleaned up the interior and added some more things.  I once remarked that his boat was nicest looking boat to ever grace a driveway, when it seemed that he was spending more time fiddling with it than actually using it.  This trend  would continue, with his next "project" boat, a 1982 Wellcraft Suncruiser.

Art would take the boat with him on a few camping/boating trips, including the Chesapeake Bay in 1991, Pequea Creek (Lake Aldred), and few excursions down to the Schuylkill River.  He used the jet boat up until the mid 90's, when he finally decided to get rid of it.  He was getting tired of the hassle associated with trailering, and preferred a return to the "in-water" marina route.  When Art finally sold the jet boat, the new victim, er... ah, owner was not anyone in our circle of friends and consequently, I never saw the boat again.  But I have to wonder just how much trouble it was for him....

So is there really a such thing as bad luck? What is the statistical probability of so many things going wrong to any one piece of equipment? Whatever the real reason, I'm just glad it wasn't mine.......