On Jul 4, 11:06 pm, timW wrote:
I need some advice regarding our new boat.

We recently purchased a used 1995 Sea Ray Sundancer 230DA and took it
out for it's first spin today. All went reasonably well, though one or
two things left me a little puzzled, and I wouldn't mind some feedback
from others with more experience on the matters. I grew up around
boats back in my homeland of Australia, but as they were my father's
boats, and generally outboards, this recent acquisition is proving
something of a new experience for me.

The boat came with a 2-year old 5.0 Mercruiser and manifolds that were
replaced only 7 months ago, so I felt fairly confident about the
purchase of a boat that was otherwise 12 years old. It has a few
cosmetic issues that have to be dealt with, but overall we were happy
with the purchase, especially at the price we picked it up at.

We went out on Florida's St. John's river for the day this morning and
overall were pleased with the performance, but a few things cropped up
that had me wondering if there were problems with the boat, or what
the root of them might be.

Firstly, while it maneuvered fairly easily at low speed (so much so
that my 9-year old son happily steered the boat along under my
supervision) once at high speed it seemed like a real dog to steer, so
much so that I really had to grip the steering wheel firmly with both
hands to turn it in the direction I wanted the boat to go. Once or
twice it certainly seemed that I was fighting the tendency of the trim
tabs to want to pull the boat in a particular direction, but even
though an adjustment would ease the pressure on the steering wheel I
still felt it needed quite some effort to steer the boat - I don't
think my wife would have been capable of doing the job. Not having any
experience with a boat like this before I really have no other
yardstick to measure it by, so I was left wondering if this is normal,
whether there's a fault in the steering, or if the trip tab settings
were making the job hard.

Secondly, as far as manually setting trip tabs (we don't have an auto
system) are the settings sensitive to particular speeds? I'd set them
to a specific point to deal with the steering issues mentioned above,
only to find that as I accelerated or decreased speed I'd have to
contend yet again with a lean and/or a tendency to pull to the side
again.

Thirdly, when I found a few suitable areas to do it I opened up the
throttle to put the boat through its paces and found all was fine.
Once up on the plane I found that it could nudge up to around 40mph,
and it cruised very comfortably at around 25mph and 3500 rpm. After
that initial run though I started having a problem where the engine
started coughing and spluttering every time I left the no-wake zones
along the river and began accelerating up to cruise speeds. The boat
would sustain the speed for a while, then begin coughing and
spluttering until it slowed back down to 5 - 10 mph, when all would
return to normal. As soon as I started trying to speed up again the
coughing would return. We had a quarter of a tank left so it wasn't a
case of running out of fuel, though it seemed to be acting like it.
Just to be sure I threw some gas into the boat a mile or so further
back down the river and after that all seemed to be well. I got it
back up to speed and it didn't exhibit any of the earlier problems.
Still, if I was running low on gas I wouldn't have made it all the way
back to the fueling site. Could there be some crap in the fuel system
that was affecting the engine when it got down to a ¼ tank? I know
there's supposed to be a small portion of the fuel that is never
usable, but as far far the gauge was concerned I shouldn't have been
anywhere near that low.

Lastly, the instrument on the panel which indicates the trim level
just seemed to be stuck with the needle in the 'up' position. When I
was having the problems with the steering I wondered if an adjustment
to it might help, but I couldn't tell if anything was happening - I
certainly noticed no difference to the handling. A friend told me that
this particular instrument often fails on boats, so should I be
concerned with it?

Sorry for the long-winded post. Being a newbie with regard to inboards
has left me with a ton of questions regarding today's outing. I just
wish I knew someone locally with experience of these boats who could
come out with me to check the points out for me.

Thanks in advance...........Tim

the slowing down bit, sounds like water in the tank. Gas with
ethanol which has sat in a tank for a while will absorb water. Add a
can or two of dry gas or fuel treatment and you should be fine.