​Stabilize and triage

First move: slow the boat—reduce throttle, heave‑to, or anchor if there’s room—so the motion stops fighting your hands while you assign a helm, a damage‑control lead, and someone to mind the radio and the horizon for traffic or storms building over Biscayne Bay. Take a quick two‑step risk scan: threats to people (smoke, fire, flooding, MOB) and threats to seaworthiness (no steer, no thrust near a lee shore), then start with reversible checks before committing scarce spares. I keep a running log with times, fixes, and effects; you’d be surprised how often that timeline helps the Coast Guard understand what you need and how soon you’ll need it.

Last summer off Stiltsville, Javier’s Yamaha SX210 sputtered out; I dropped a hook in 12 feet over hard sand, killed the drift, and broke the problem into power, protection, and fuel—five minutes later, a loose ground told the whole story. Same day, same chop, a Boston Whaler near Dinner Key had seaweed choking the water intake; clearing the strainer and watching flow at the telltale got us cool again in time to make the tide through the channel without drama. When in doubt, keep the boat’s motion small and the jobs simple until the picture gets clear.

Radio and decisions

Grave and imminent danger—flooding, fire, collision risk—means a “MAYDAY” on VHF Channel 16: vessel name and call sign/MMSI, exact position, nature of distress, people aboard, assistance required, and a brief description, repeating until acknowledged and keeping the set on for homing. Urgent but not yet life‑threatening gets a “PAN‑PAN,” which raises priority without invoking full distress, and can be escalated if seas or a lee shore turn a small problem into a big one. If you’ve got DSC or an EPIRB/PLB, use them appropriately—clear information and steady comms let responders choose a tow, escort, or direct assistance, which matters in the narrow waters around Government Cut or New River.

I’ve copied hundreds of calls, and the tight ones all sound the same: position first, problem second, people third, and what help you need in simple words, then “OVER,” no drama, no essays. A buddy, Sofia at Dinner Key, swears by a laminated script at the radio with blanks for GPS and MMSI; I’ve adopted it, and crews hit the mic cleaner under stress because they’re reading, not inventing. When conditions deteriorate, call earlier than pride suggests—tows arranged in daylight end with fewer gelcoat stories and better photos at the dock.

This is where a hands‑on boat emergency repair mindset matters: do what stabilizes, communicate what you’re doing, and avoid painting responders into a corner with half‑information.

Engines: quick saves

Two categories show up the most—no‑start and won’t‑keep‑running—and both get the same quick loop: battery state and switch positions, protection (fuses and breakers), fuel and air, then cooling checks if it stumbled while hot near the markers outside Haulover. I carry a fuel pressure tester in the truck; last July at Coconut Grove, Ray’s Sea Ray 230 showed 35 PSI where spec called for about 60, and that $40 reading saved him a $1,500 parts‑roulette bill and a second tow. For overheating, I check raw‑water flow at the strainer, impeller condition, belt tension, and for plastic bags glued to the pickup—Miami marinas see more of those than anyone admits.

Impellers? Replace annually or at 300 hours, and keep at least one spare so you aren’t dead in the water when the hub shreds 2 miles east of Stiltsville; step‑by‑step replacements are straightforward if you’ve got the cover screws and gasket on hand. If you must maneuver without thrust, practice sailing approaches outside Government Cut before committing in close; plenty of skippers make safe moorings or anchor sets under main and a headsail with a bailout pre‑planned. If the fix doesn’t stick or daylight’s fading, call a tow—control beats courage when the breeze clocks onshore.

During boat emergency repair on Carlos’s Bayliner 285 last June, we found water in the separator after a sloppy fuel stop; a quick polish, new filters, and a re‑prime beat limping home on prayers and bad gas.

Electrics that bite

Start where power starts: verify battery voltage at the posts, then at the bus, and only then complain about black screens; plenty of “dead” chartplotters are really corroded grounds and loose ring terminals under a humid console in Fort Lauderdale. Open panels with respect, meter everything, and look for the dull clues—green crust on a lug, a breaker that trips when a pump kicks on, a fuse with a hairline break—before ordering panels and harnesses that don’t fix the root. I keep contact cleaner, dielectric grease, spare terminals, and heat‑shrink right next to the multimeter and a small oscilloscope for crank sensors when an EFI outboard throws tantrums by Bahia Mar.

Critical loads first: bilge pumps, VHF/DSC, nav lights, then plotter and radar, bringing circuits online one at a time and watching voltage sag and heat that hint at something still wrong. Keep notes of which breaker feeds what; laminated cards in the glove box have rescued more trips than Instagram remembers. For owners, a simple kit—fuses in all sizes you use, a decent meter, terminals, zip ties—turns a three‑hour chase into a 30‑minute fix at anchor off Key Biscayne.

One quiet boat emergency repair saved a kid’s fishing day near Stiltsville: dead VHF, panicked dad; the “fault” was a corroded negative bus; clean, re‑crimp, and suddenly Channel 16 sounded like Miami again.

Leaks and patches

Flooding demands pressure control first: slow down, keep the hole shallow in the water if you can, and get something outside against it—collision mats pulled tight from topsides work wonders when the boat’s positioned so water pushes the fabric into the breach, not across it. Inside, soft or wooden plugs jabbed into broken through‑hulls buy you time while someone braces a pad with a board and a Spanish windlass of line to keep pressure on the wound. Underwater epoxies and sticky sealants can slow a weeper below the waterline if roughly cleaned and compressed; they’re not pretty, but they’ll get you the last 6 miles into Port Everglades.

I’ve had owners use a T‑shirt and hose clamps to stop a hose split long enough to idle back from Nixon Beach; ugly beats wet, every time, and the permanent fix can happen dockside tomorrow morning. Rotate the pump crew, mark bilge rise against time, and be honest on the radio if inflow outruns your hands; help comes faster if you say “we’re losing the race” than if you talk brave and sink. Most humbling boat emergency repair moments are wet ones—and the mat and plug kit is cheap insurance that works.

Steering without rudder

Start with what the builder gave you—emergency tiller on the rudder post or a direct connection to the quadrant—and only then get creative with drogues and warps if linkages are toast on the ICW. Drogue steering with a bridle over the quarter gives precise turns once line lengths and loads are tuned; trimming left or right on winches “points” the stern where you want it without a rudder at all. In lighter air, balance the sail plan—more area forward to bear away, more aft to round up—and you can hold a heading long enough to reach calm water for bigger ideas.

I keep a scribbled cheat sheet at the nav table: bridle lengths, prefered cleats, and a “do this first” order because knots get sloppy when adrenaline spikes, and the wrong lead can undercut the whole plan. Avoid alongside tows in strong current unless directed; an astern tow with a proper bridle keeps everyone safer until the wind’s off your nose inside a basin. Getting home on good seamanship beats replacing parts in a bad spot every single time.

Kit that actually helps

I put this table together from jobs I’ve seen around Miami—what shows up, what fixes it, and how quickly you can usually get help when you’re between Coconut Grove and Bahia Mar.

Service type	Typical scope	Parts or tools that matter	Availability window
Engine repair	No‑start, stalls, overheating, fuel starvation	Impeller, filters, belts, fuel pressure tester, basic sensors	Same‑day mobile or next‑day yard in South Florida
Electrical repair	Dead circuits, corrosion, breaker trips, low voltage	Multimeter, terminals, contact cleaner, heat‑shrink, spare fuses	Same‑day mobile for essentials; schedule panels
Leak control	Holed hull, failed through‑hull, hose splits	Collision mat, soft/wood plugs, underwater epoxy, clamps	Immediate if you carry kit; tow if inflow > pumps
Steering fixes	Quadrant/tiller failures, rudder loss	Emergency tiller, drogue, warps, strong bridles and winches	Deploy on scene; escort or tow into flat water
Comms & nav	Distress/urgency calls, position reporting	VHF/DSC, laminated script, backup GPS/compass	Continuous on VHF 16 in local waters

I started fixing Mercurys with my dad in the ’90s, and to this day I still cut open every fuel filter I pull—black goo means water, glitter means pump or tank wear, and either one gets a phone call to the owner before I spin another wrench. Last June, Carlos at Coconut Grove spent $2,500 chasing a Bayliner 285 fuel demon before we found phase‑separated gas; a polish, new lines, and verified 60 PSI later, he was shaking his head but running smooth past Dinner Key café. Sofia’s Marine Repair keeps spare impellers and belts for Yamaha and Mercury in a Plano box at the truck door, because salt and heat in Miami eat rubber and patience in equal measure.

If it sounds like a rant, it is: shops that guess at parts instead of checking pressure, voltage, and continuity first are spending your money to hide their homework, and that drives me nuts. Weird? Not really—most failures around here come from three things: corrosion, heat, and bad fuel, and all three are fixable with better habits and a slightly heavier toolbox. Keep tanks full, swap impellers on a calendar, and open the panel only when your meter’s in your hand, not after.

For owners building a “get‑home” bag in South Florida, here’s the short list: collision mat, plugs, epoxy, clamps, sail tape, soft shackles, Dyneema lashings, low‑friction rings, spare filters and belts, a multimeter, and a laminated VHF script with your MMSI and GPS format taped next to the radio at Dinner Key or Haulover. It weighs less than a 12‑pack and works a lot harder when things go sideways off Stiltsville. The rest is judgment—knowing when to patch and press on, and when to call the day and ride a towline through Government Cut at sunset.

One more for the road: I’ve seen 70% of my callouts boil down to three thirty‑minute checks—clean strainer and verify flow, meter voltage at the battery and bus, and confirm fuel pressure against spec—so start there before you invent exotic failures. That’s the quiet logic behind every clean save from Biscayne Bay to Port Everglades. And yeah, sometimes the fix is a T‑shirt and a belt on a hose until you’ve got a proper part tomorrow at the yard, and no one on my dock judges that outcome.

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