[riverat]

Well unfortunately I have several, but this the most memorable.
It was a beautiful day for a ride on the big lake and so we(four adults) headed out of Wolfeboro back bay in my 18' Rinkerbilt with an evinrude 70hp. We decided to head towards 19 mile bay, the lake was calm and all was going well. We fueled up at 19 mile bay and headed back and got out to the broads and made the turn towards Wolfeboro and the engine quit, after several attempts of starting with no luck, not even a sputter, I pulled the cover. It was 92 degrees and calm, with no breeze and no shade. I pulled the plugs and so on and determined it was getting fuel but just not firing.
After an hour or so of trying everything I could, I gave up. And every time we tried to wave someone down for help, they would wave back and keep on going.
But this was also my fishing boat and I had a trolling motor on the bow and used it to get back to Wolfeboro which had to be atleast 10 miles away.
Hours later, four extremely sunburned people loaded the boat and left. Next day I tried for hours to troublshoot the problem only to find that the rubber cover that kept the emergency stop button in the "in" position had dry rotted and the button had pushed through the rubber, killing the engine.