Great 4th, engine prob and blown tire on sing axle

Long post, but I could use any input that you may have on my engine issues.

Blew my first trailer tire towing my 97 Sport Nautique up to the lake on Thursday night. Knocked out the side light and bent up the fender pretty nice but no major damage and the truck/boat weren't as hard to control as I had feared a trailer tire blowout would be on a single axle.

Anyways, I'll prelude the next section by acknowledging that I'm an idiot. So I finally dump the boat in on Saturday morning and make 9 1/2 minutes of the 10 minute trek to the lake place before I realize that I forgot to put the plug in (first time I've done this, and hopefully the last). Quickly got the boat to shore, cut the engine and got the plug in while turning on the bilge pumps. Needless to say, water was up to the bottom of the engine/even with the floor and the bilge pumps ran for about 20+ minutes. Anyways, used the boat that afternoon and it seemed to be running well until I went to trailer it that night. Here's the issues that I noticed:

1) The boat was taking longer to get into gear (having to go further on the throttle to get any acceleration).
2) Top speed was about 6mph less than normal.
3) Excessive exhaust the faster I'd go.

I checked the oil and transmission fluids for any signs of water and didn't notice any. I can't imagine water got into the gas tank since that should be completely self contained (at least I'd think). One thing I did notice is that between last summer and this, my rubber seal from my water filter has gone missing. A slight amount of water drips out of the filter but I can't imagine that would result in that much of a decrease in engine performance (but yes, I know I need to get one asap). Dumped the boat in again yesterday just to test it out and it seemed to be running with the same problems.

Any ideas on possible troubleshooting of my engine problems?

"my rubber seal from my water filter has gone missing."

The raw waterpump sucks through this filter, so without the seal you might be sucking air. Could you have overheated your boat?

"3) Excessive exhaust the faster I'd go."

What does this mean?

My rule was that the bilge pumps were always left on automatic. That way if it was taking on water it would start pumping and we would know something was wrong, long before it ever became a problem. Plus with two 1100 gallon pumps it will almost keep up with the plug intake. Yup, I have been there a few times and just causually put the plug in.

Peter,

Thanks for the comments.

After talking to the local dealer, I'm pretty sure my issue lies with my Perfect Pass. Everything I described (sans the poor description of the exhaust) chimes with a Perfect Pass problem.

I'm also fairly certain that the engine hasn't overheated, but obviously I'm getting a replacement seal ASAP.

Good call on leaving the bilge on automatic. Just wasn't sure if that was bad for the pumps...is leaving them on fairly common?

Neil,
Other than the "excess exhaust" (which I still am curious what you meant), the other two issues happened to me with my Perfect Pass, except, mine was so bad that the throttle would only go to idle. I had to open the engine cover and push on the throttle body of the carb to get the boat to the dock and on the trailer. The dealer had to replace the throttle cable takeup unit on the Perfect Pass.

Leaving the Auto bilge on is OK on the pump. The Auto one has a float and will start/shutoff on it's own once the water reaches the float level or goes below it. Don't run the manual one without any water in the bilge, it runs all the time and will burn it up.

Good to know we aren't the only ones who have boat problems.
When we bought our boat in April bringing it home a tire flew off the trailer and we had to replace the whole axle.

Also, been there done that on the plug. Never happen again on that one