Nobody will guess what Baldy did today!!........

[thumper]

And you'll never guess what the motor was on what pulled him in???
And you'll never guess where the the propshaft was that got that HST on plane!!!!!!!!
And you'll never guess what was broke in the motor that pulled him in and suffered no damage even pulling an HST!! Did I mention, on plane???????????
Ask Balzy for the gory details! HeeHeeHeeHee

[Balzy]

too dark outside for pics to do this post justice. I will get pics in the morning to explain in detail all of Humpty Dumpty's ramblings........... All I gotsta say is the NAPALM brothers are back in action.

BTW, Skip, told ya in your cartoon post about ben der, dun dat. Well, ben der again today. Life sucks when an OMC has ta pull ya to da dock.

[LaveyT]

I lost Spinnelli at 94.4 on the Ohio river,and the prop shaft,and a fishing boat with a v-4 pulled me in!Balzy,the good prop shaft cost me $580 bucks.Ive got the lowerunit sittin in the garage.(for sale).

[Riverracer280SS]

Could of had a Honda pull You In ! On a Poontoon! OH GOD NO!

[PaulR]

Time for a sportmaster! I don't use my boat to much in the fall, THINGS ALWAYS SEEM TO BREAK!!!!!!!!!

[NPK2003]

Oh Boy;

As the offical observer of the two ring Amigo Circus on the Wolf River yesterday, I can report that as I was running side by side with the infamous Balzy boat at 98 mph on his gps, when them checker boards on his boat's butt started swooping over to my starboard STV stickers. Now Balzy's got BALZs, but he ain't a bad driver, so I knew it was T-time. That's right THUMPER TIME, aka as Tow Man (T-man has many meanings)!

After waiting 5 minutes for T-man, who finally came back after us when he figured out that he didn't pass me and Balzy up 'cause he was faster in the cold air, the T-rope was tossed to the the HST! BTW, did you know what HST stands for? It means Help! Send Thumper! Just ask Steve A, the third Amigo! hehehe Back to the story.

Well by now I am feeling a little sorry for my bud Balzy. After all, he did introduce me into this S&F, Hot Boat running in the first place. So as I kept circling his crippled 'stream, I could see the entire cross-section of his NEW 200 JC'd lower Unit and wanked 24 ET he was gonna let me try today! Looking at the L.U. closely, I noticed it wasn't totally destroyed and even tried to cheer my buddy Balzy up. "Hey Mike! Looks like your reverse gear is still in perfect shape!" Temperature suddenly dropped 10 degress around me, so I took off with the STV for a couple of 100 mph slolum runs. Figured they would be towing back for quite a while.

About five minutes later I am flying back and start slowing down as I approached the curve in the river were they should be and they're no where in sight !! Holy $hit! What happened? I punch it and head toward the landing and in a bit I see them way up ahead. For a moment, I wondered if Balzy was actually running that case? No way! So I slow down coming up next to them and no one is in Balzy's boat. He's with Thumper and that OMC Vector is towing the HST at 46 mph on PLANE! Unbelievable, even if Thumper has had a lot of practice with towing Mikes boat. It's on plane, No BS, because I know some of you are thinking nothing but a tug boat could get Bazly's HST up on plane seeing that it weighs so much!

Well, this is getting too long so >>> T-man pulls Balzy to the docks, Balzy jumps out and starts to pull in the HST. The river current wants to pull the boat 90 degrees to the ramp so I motor over and shove my dock hook pole into a checkered orifice and shove it up and around. A few minutes later and boat is on it's trailer in lot and Balzy jumps in my rig and we join T-man to finally go eat something and have a drink or two.

Balzy's driving the STV with me holding his GPS to check the speedo to the satalite reading when suddenly Thumper's Vector takes to squating down in the river real fast. Now what! Balzy slowed down and doen't seem too upset cause here's his chance to lite another cigarette. As we approach, T-man's a$$ is looking up at us, facing the bow and moving side-to-side. He surfaces when we're close and yell's that his glasses blew off and he's looking for them. (The OMC is still alive!) T-man shouts he's legally blind without them and we gotta go back now so he can drive home before it gets dark.

Off we go and five minutes later we're on the trailers. By now, Balzy is taking it pretty well and standing by his lower unit yells to me that I was right about the reverse gear. Then I hear Thumper say "No $hit, look at this". Well, the hood is off the Too-Thirsty-Five and we see that the plastic retainer that secures the timing advance link is off, allowing the motor to run fully advanced at all times. Now I love my Merc's but I gotta tell ya that I'm impressed.

Here is an old OMC powerhead, put together by a legally blind guy, who also forgot to hook up a bunch of wires that were just flopping around, using the motor to pull in the heaviest HST made, at 46 MPH going upstream in 40 mph gusts, two guys sitting in the front of the Vector, and the timing is running around 25 degrees and he pulls him 8 miles or so and the dang thing evens idles. Go figure.

Thumper. Glad to see you made it home alright Dam. it's 60 degrees, sunny, slight breeze and I have no one to boat with. Guess I'll clean my garage.

[AnthonySS]

Great Story Nick...Felt like I was there and I could even smell Balzy liting a butt!

Maybe its time to start a collection for Balzy!

Glad no one got hurt!

[Balzy]

Well, Nick, T-Man and I played hooky on Friday afternoon and went boating. Windy but nice out. 50 degree dry air. Motors are just crackling and are running really snotty. Warm em real good so as not to cold stick one. All was well, we went up river from Fremont until the water was getting a little low. Turned around and went back Fremont and had a brewski at a bar that has been expanding with a huge deck, outside bar, humugo TV outside that can play back videos instantly, etc. Talked to the owner for quite a while and it looks like this will be the site for a lot of "Balz to the Walls" fest next summer.

Well, back to boating. We take off heading down river. Everything is going just great. Being careful coming out of corners due to the gusts of wind. Nick and I are running about 90 MPH side by side when we come out of a corner and we both see a long straight away with just the right wind come at our faces. Perfect ripple too. We look over at each other and we both knew what was next. Time to stand on em and see what they will do in the cool air. I am running a 24 Lightning ET with lots of cup in it so I figure I can pull on Nick's STV for a while anyway. We both mash the hotfoots and it's off to the races. I pull him by about 1/2 boat length. Up on the jackplate button and the tachs are climbing. I saw about 8300 on the tach and it was still pulling real strong. I was just about to bump the jackplate up a little more and settle the score. That's when all hell broke loose. Nick is about 30 feet to my left when my boat decides to go over and sat hello to his STV. Bow dropped, Figured I broke a skeg or slung a blade or lost another propshaft at this point. Hit the down button on the jackplate and trim at the same time while steering to the right big time. No avail, it don't wanna turn for ****. Popped the throttle once to try and get it to turn and everything started shaking real bad. Now I knew something was bad wrong. Nick did a great job of driving when he saw me coming over to him. He kept the STV under control and steered out of my way. Eventually got it slowed down and stopped. Pulled the tether and turned the motor over. All sounds good while cranking. Started it in neutral, all good yet. Put it forward and ka nock, pop, smack, crunch, etc. Now I notice the ugly smell of gear lube in the air. Not good I figure. So I trim it up only to find what you can see in the attached pictures. Not a good day for parts but it was a good day for safety. Nobody got hurt, that's good. Sure am glad I have a HST with training wheels. It just settled in like a little baby again. Very dependable, predictable boat. Well, now it's time to look at the GPS and it read 99.6 MPH as the max speed when the gearcase let go. It was still pulling strong too. I think it would have easily gone 101 to 102 with that little 24 ET yesterday. This thing would have roccked yesterday with a good 28 on it. Man those 2.5's like that cool dry air. Well now it's time for T-man (Towman) and his twothirstyfive Neverrude to come to the rescue again. Tie up a rope and jump in the Vector. he tromps it with the jackplate set even with the pad. He forgot to trim in all the way so I slid my ass up and across his deck while he held onto my foot and we got both boats to plane. 43 MPH on plane all the way back to the ramp. Got back to the ramp and loaded up the HST. Jumped in Nick's STV to go for a ride. Nick's arm is hurting so I drive. We find T-man and he is looking all over his boat for his glasses that flew off his head. He is legally blind without them so we decide to pack it in for the day. But not until Nick and I go for one more spin. His STV is a dream to drive. 101 MPH with both our fat asses in the boat was no problem at all. All in all it was a good day other than the broken parts. Worst part of this whole story is that while I sit here typing it is a beautiful day out for boating and my other gearcase is still up in Avon MN at Randy Pierson's shop. I hate when that happens

Here is a link to the page on my website for more pictures:

http://www.fortunecity.com/olympia/montana/513/id33.htm

[NPK2003]

OK. Truth is I found out that my Graffig Monster White Faced Memory ReCall Supreme Speedo seems about 2.5~3 MPH faster than GPS reading. So Tug-man was only pulling Balzy's HST at 43 not 46mph. As you can see by Balzy's pictures, the reverse gear is PERFECT! So it's up to you, the S&F reader, to decide which version to believe! Anthony, you should have smelled his lower unit oil. Or it that SLOWER Unit?!?

I will look for some pictures to post of the tow-job!

Nick~K

[thumper]

this isn't the new merc lower unit race cut????????????
Did I say dat?
PS - Nick, you da man!! your story is even better than I remember! You humble me!

Gearcase AND prop, that would shoot my boat budget for two years!!

[Mach2]

Glad to hear everyone is alright.

Balzy, did you change your shorts before or after taking Nick's STV out.

Thumper - how about painting that rude black. Would be less embarassing for Balzy next time. And while we are at it, how about a dedicated tow line for the HST....

[Balzy]

and just wanted to go make out with Nick's Euro. Nick's Euro is a female like Steve's HST and mine just wanted to go get a piece of %^& I guess. LOL. All kidding aside, Nick did a great job of getting out of my way cause I was just kinda along for the ride at that point. It actually handled it very well. Nothing real spooky about it, just didn't want to steer very well at all. Now I would have been in a pad-V boat I am sure it would have been a whole other story here. Gotta love those training wheels.

[SleeveA]

Hey Baldy, did it pull like the time you jacked HER out of the water at 80+ on the same river and on a tight corner? You remember, the 1st motor I blew and you were giving me a ride back to the truck and it went left HARD. I’m sure the trees remember.

Thumper, nice tow job!! No longer will I call you "Toad man" just Towman.

Nick, was it the sun glaring off Baldy's head that made you notice he was suddenly changing direction?