Mercury 20HP Efi - Smoke on the water

[chris moody]

The plug was pulled by me the the organiser @harrison because 48 hours before the original organised test date nobody was prepared to put their engine on the test boat I had pulled in loads of favours to arrange, despite several people coming along having suitable outboards . I was very embarrassed by the whole sorry episode.

[ChrisParish]

@harrison you are assuming a level of organisation here that didn’t exist. It just kind of evolved. If we had been organising a test I would certainly have invited you because you have a T38 with the same engine as Brerabit. I just wanted to have a play with a Volaire. I worked a night the night before and hadn’t settled on taking my boat until the morning of the outing.

[sonny1]

Guys.. I knew nothing of this outing either, Blatantly everyone has a right to do as they wish- I do think though, a little heads up on this scenario would have attracted quite a lot of interest.

In my opinion, the first “comparison” was a flop from the outset, how you can consider putting two or more boats against each other with different loads, occupant weight and different outboards attached is completely beyond me.
A full comparison is what should have been carried out, that would include package size, weight, inflation time, cost, carrying capacity, speed, handling, economy.... a massive task to carry out in one day !
As much as I’d like to be involved in this comparison, I can’t offer the time required to carry out such a test, well... not to do it properly anyhow.

Chris P has put together a good write up of some of the main points, as it was a day out boating I don’t think it’s something we should all be jumping in as an unannounced comparison, more a “my view” of the craft in question.

Let’s just chill out a little, perhaps work together and leave pm’s for personal chat...
It really gets to me that people use pm’s for information that needs sharing on the forum. What’s the point in having a forum if members are going to discuss things privately ?
Things like that are what kills any forum off, so please - drop the private chats, share your info and questions and let’s keep this superb forum alive!

Martin.

[sonny1]

well said ,martin,. i love this forum and would hate for certain members to become polarised through differences of opinion. so this one is now history for me . so again i thank martin for his words of wisdom,

[Brerabit]

I'm about to start burning some bridges here.
I'm gobsmacked at your support @Martin for the petulant, childish and quite frankly belligerent attitudes of some recent posters. I initially put it down to the hot weather or maybe a bevvy or two too many but as it grew legs I was shocked by the vitriolic nature of the comments. Maybe there's some background here I don't know about and quite frankly I'm not interested.
This was one sibber offering another a chance to try before buying when a convenient opportunity presented itself. Instead it's been portrayed as some huge conspiracy that was planned to exclude everyone. It was nothing to do with anyone else.
This was the only time I've met Chisparish and not only did I find him extremely helpful, friendly and
supportive, I was also very impressed by his commitment to the forum, as demonstrated by his last minute decision to bring along his own T38 for a mini comparison. He did this because he thought others might benefit.
Instead he's been harangued and castigated and all because he went out of his way to help others which seems to be the dominant part of his nature.
I haven't spoken to Chris since this ridiculous persecution started but he appears to have had enough - and who could blame him. He's due a massive apology from at least three of you and unless and until that happens I don't want to be part of a forum that behave like this.
Over and out...

[harrison]

Over and out...

Thought you’d just done a VHF course!

We’re you asleep matey

[ChrisParish]

Ok folks. Let’s put this to bed now. No one was left out or excluded, the event wasn’t masterminded via PMs to keep it quiet.
@sonny1 I know you are really keen to get out as much as possible and had we have planned the day to work out as it did then we would have put an invite out.
This thread has got way off topic now - it was about smoke when starting one of the new Mariner 20 efi outboards - so with my Mod hat on now...

[ChrisParish]

Over and out...

Thought you’d just done a VHF course!

We’re you asleep matey

@harrison you just can’t help yourself, can you?

[harrison]

@ChrisParish don’t you dare pull the off topic rule here.

I’m invoking parley code;

“I’ve started so I’ll finish”

The original title is now so relevant.

[IanH 72]

This is off topic - the smoke is now metaphorical.
I don’t appreciate people having a go at me because they have got it into their heads that there was some sodding conspiracy to compare the two SIBs in secret.
Why can’t people get it into their heads that this was not the case? Originally it was just going to be me and Brerabit in his boat for the day but at the last minute Chris M joined us and I decided to take my boat as well.
I really really wish Chris M hadn’t mentioned that we had been out.
I could understand people’s reaction if we had planned to do a comparison from the outset, but we didn’t.
On a purely practical note, if you were going to set out to do a full comparison you wouldn’t want to invite loads of people - they would just get in the way and make everything take 10 times longer.

The utter overreaction to all of this has already cost us a member and doesn’t look good to anyone reading and thinking of joining. @Martin speaks of PMs killing off forums, but behaviour like this creates a toxic environment and that is what kill things.
Now grow up.