Adventures with the Black Bastard

Much has been written about the Mercury branded Tohatsu outboard motor, known as the "Black Bastard", and to be honest the majority isn't complimentary. Vital bits are made of plastic, parts that need to stay in place are fixed by fiddly little plastic clips that can give and that's what happened to me today.

Put the boat in at Castor Bay at 6.15 with Justin Bieber Fan Club as crew, and we headed out to the 30m mark between Tiri and Rakino. I'd have gone further if I was riding 1 up, but JBFC's only 6 and she wanted to be fishing, not driving. We got a good drift going and had a few nice snaps on board before long when I decided to try the drift again. Hello, the starter rope was stuck. Off with the motor cover and quickly diagnosed the issue with a clip that holds a rod that prevents the motor starting while in gear... trouble is its spring loaded so the "detent" (blah blah) holder was jammed. I fiddled around for a while before calling the Coast Guard.

We deployed the anchor, gave Coast Guard our position and fished until they arrived. With no drift the fishing was crap.

The ride home was at a comfy 20kt behind a giant sea smoother.

Took the boat straight to Fish City and they agreed that the issue was the plastic clip thingy. When I started talking warranty there was some "err, don't know about that" so I responded that I stayed within the warranty terms and it WAS f-ing going to be a warranty or else... round about then the mechanic said
"hey that rod looks bent.." well, the rod in question looks like stainless but nah, I don't think so.

Just glad it didn't fail on the lake the other day, no Coast Guard way up there....

Shoulda got a yammie. Sure I went for cheap motor option but for Christ's sake, that's just bollox when an slightly less than 18 month old motor craps out like that.