Spent the night last night surfing, boat ran under load for ~4hrs with no problems other than a blip in fuel pump pressure - damn relay...

While idling back to the dock we felt what we thought was the prop picking up a stray rope. We were ~200 yards away from the landing so we kept idling to it. At one point I throttled up slightly and the vibration increased and became severe. Pulled the boat out expecting to see a wrap around the prop but there was nothing there! Inspected everything under the boat:

  • cutlass bearing - in place and no play
  • prop - no sign of striking anything and no bends, nothing that appeared significant enough to cause that kind of vibration
  • shaft - intact, no bend, rotates with normal resistance



Once home I thought about the coupler bolts behind the V-drive - they are all in place and tight. All mounts (V-Drive, Tranny) are tight. If the flex plate began to break, could that cause what I was feeling? Do they break at idle conditions???


What should I look for next? Any chance it picked something up like a rope and when it stopped turning it shed it? Odd....