Shirley 1.0

Well, last post I talked about Shirley, and how she came around to being my jetski. Well, when she came home, it was a fun first trip. I went to the lake with Dwight, on a nice day in early May. However, things didn't get off to a good start. First attempt at putting it in the water, and the ski would not start. So, I put my battery pack on the battery, and let it set for a while, and then the ski fired up on the next try. So, Dwight happened to be the one on it, so he ran it a while, then I got on her, and she did quite well, although I noticed that the speedometer didn't work quite right, but ohh well, that was alright. So, it came time to put her on the trailer after a hardly successful first run, although I was disappointed about the speedometer not working. So, I started to the trailer, and was just getting close, and it died. Great, so now the first run was a failure. Worse, it's early May, water isn't warm at all. So I hopped in. I was only about 25 feet from the end of the dock, so I figured, no biggie, about waste deep. WRONG. Jumped in, and over my head. Whoa. I know what "take your breath away cold" is. Well, I got it back up on the trailer, and took in to Watertown to get diagnosed. Although I figured it was a bad battery. So, I put a new on, and hoped for the best. Well, it didn't work right. Battery wore down, and that was it. So, I decided that maybe it would be good to look to Sioux Falls' dealer for help. Big dealership, good equipment, easy to get the problem solved. Well, it wasn't the case. They didn't get it right, and charged me nearly two thousand dollars to do it. Well, that did not go well, but I thought it was fixed. Took it home, and put it in the lake. As I drove around, it was very quick, and very good, problem solved. WRONG. As I kept driving around on the lake, I noticed it getting slower, and sinking? Right back to the dock, and fast. Well, made it, but I was already sitting in water, although the ski was mostly under water. Well, I did get it back on the trailer, and back to Watertown, because the Sioux Falls dealership had not put the water cooling line back on, so the engine, which normally pumps water through the engine to cool it, instead, it was pumping it into the sealed engine compartment, thus why I was sinking. So, Watertown told me the problem, another several hundred dollars. Should have stayed with them to start with, but I learned my lesson. Anyhow, after getting it back from Watertown, it ran quite well. Was getting about 55 mph on it (according to other watercrafts that told me that since the speedometer did not work.) And, the fun that was had....more on that later. Anyway, the other thing was, I wanted to pull skiers, kneeboarders, and even a wakeboard if needed. Well, Shirley had a 2 stroke 135 horse engine, and wasn't too good at that. Kneeboard was ok, but the pulling the rest from dead stop was too much of a challenge for Shirley. So, I decided to sell....