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The boat yard owner just told me that the parts on my moter weren't broken but that the bracket holding them on melted due to the overheating problem.  Just exactly what caused the overheating, I don't know.

The prop could have been the problem.  It seemed to choke/overheat when running at higher speeds.  It came back from the boat yard last spring with several broken parts inside - not sure who's fault it was.

Our Nissan has not been very satisfactory.  Borrowed an older Johnson 6 "sail master" for last season and it worked flawlessly.

We uncovered our beloved "Pearl" yesterday and started thinking about this spring's projects.  Among them is figuring out a good way to fasten the outboard fuel tanks which float and bang around in the lazerrette.  Has anyone devised a good way to fasten them down.  Maybe just bungies?

We bought one this year through Cabelas.  Runs great starts easy, pushes the boat nicely although I think we should get the smaller prop.  Is there a site online where one can buy Nissan accessories such as prop, flushing plug, controls, and pull-start-through-the-top thing?  Also, the owners manual says not to store motor in sideways position, only upright so we have been leaving it in the water.  Has anyone had any problems laying the motor in the lazarette?

There seems to be a glass ceiling for Pearl - around 6.25 knots.  Occaisionally we hit 7 or a little more when "surfing" down a large swell.  I've read that hull speed is 5.75 but I've read some posts that say they can cruise at 7 with enough wind.  We are still using  a hanked on working jib and wondering about installing the roller furl genoa that came with the boat.  Would this give us another knot?  Here is Pearl in a 15 knot or so breeze outside of Christmas Cove, Maine:

And the other one:

I hope this pic is the right size

One more:

I'll try again:

Here are some transducer pics:

The Garmin 178C is awesome.  I am sure there is enough technology in that thing to get you to the moon should you put a Saturn 5 under your Ariel.  Great easy to read color screen, many options that I haven't explored yet.  The transducer extends about an inch below the bottom of the transom.  The boat is in the water so installation was a bit tricky.  I got 5 family members to sit on the bow once I had marked where the screws were going and that lifted up the stern enough for me to use a cordless drill.  I'll include some pics ASAP.

I don't know if anyone else has tried one, but I bought a transom mount transducer to go with our Garmin 178C plotter/sounder.  It was a $50 experiment because I didn't want to haul the boat this time of year  to put in a through-hull. The results -  it works great.  The Ariel/Commander with it's motor welll is one of the few sail boats where that type of transducer will work.  I moved the motor slightly to port (Pearl has a slight starboard list anyway) and mounted the transducer to far starboard side of motor transom.  Hard reverse was the only time I got any bad info with the sounder.

We will be permanently mounting the screen on a swing arm into the companion way.

The connection in the bilge seems to have been the problem.  After some cleaning and WD-40 the knot meter is working.  The VDO site helped, too.  Glad I didn't need a new transducer - 178 English pounds.

Thank you all.  I think this year we might go charger-free and order the part for next season.  There is power at the dock and we can tie up overnight when we need to.

Overton's sells a solar trickle charger that might be worth a try.

Cabelas sells the NIssan 6 at a very reasonable 1187.00 but were unable to supply the rectifier kit.  What the local dealer was selling sounded more like a full scale altenator.

I dreamt about sailing last night.