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Went fishing out of Ocracoke, NC in the gulf stream this past weekend. Fishing was decent, plenty of dolphin. But the highlight of the trip for me was finding a 20 gal. gas tank in great shape floating along a rip. I bought a montauk a while back and it has 2 6gal tanks but i wanted a single tank. didn't want to pay. a few weeks later and i find one. It is in great shape, with working gauge, and it looks like it will fit perfectly. Wonder where it came from. Sunken boat?
Was it filled with 20 gallons of fuel? Now that WOULD be a great a find.
A few years ago I actually lost a six gallon tank overboard during a few very hairy and very scary minutes in Moriches Inlet, Long Island. I had run there for a morning's fishing but found a ripping outgoing tide and really nasty conditions on the ocean. One peek was all I needed to decide to turn around and spend the morning fishing more sheltered waters inside the bay behind the inlet. Unfortunately my engine decided to act up for the first time ever the moment I throttled up to leave the inlet. Each turn of the key would fire up the engine but it would stall out as soon I put the motor in gear and a load on the engine. Long story short before it was over I was out the inlet, taking standing walls of water over the side and stern, before a group of very helpful gentlemen in a 34 foot center console with triple mercs on the back were able to shoot me a line and tow me in to a safe area. At the time I kept one six gallon tank in the stern behind the pilot seat and the other under my console. I took enough water over the gunwales and stern that one wave washed the tank overboard pulling the fuel line from the primer bulb.
After getting a tow home from a friend I spent the afternoon draining carbs, replacing the fuel line and relocating both fuel tanks to under the console. I never did figure out definitively what the problem was that day. The motor is a 70 HP 2000 Johson and has been nothing but reliable ever since. The Johnson Parts Guy I used suggested there may have been some air getting into the fuel line somehow... all I know is after setting everything up and cleaning out the carbs it started and ran like a champ.
Good luck with the tank! I have wondered occassionally who wound up with mine...
That is entirely true; It is charted as non-navigable. Despite that fact and the fact more than couple of boaters have had fatal encounters there, it is very heavily traveled and fished. Believe it or not I had a discussion with some Suffolk County PD Marine Bureau guys who pulled the same capsized boater out of the water at Moriches not once but TWICE last year! I am VERY selective about the conditions under which I will even think about heading out of Moriches. Then again I have friends who have taken 13' foot Whalers through there on the right days. Definitely a great place to fish but not a place to fool with if you aren't highly confident in your equipment and abilities.
