Engine stops when astern

[Rikana]

It's a 18 HP engine on a 32 ft sailing boat. Never happened before, but the other day I was approaching the dock and as I put the gear in astern to reduce speed, the engine suddenly stopped, and I had to go for a crash landing. After that, the engine started without further problems. Any ideas? More info: the wind was strong from abaft, and the propeller was not as clean as it should have been.

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[silverseal]

Have you got Morse or similar cable operated controls? I would suggest that you carefully inspect the cables and make sure you dont have any slack, resulting in the engine going down to tickover, which then caused the engine to stall when load was imposed when going astern.

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[Rikana]

I'll check it out, sounds like it could be that. Thank you.

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