I've done that twice. The first time the tank was totally full
(very little air space), and the motor quit after about 3 minutes.
I was about 50 yards from Coast Guard Island, and the wind was
blowing me past the stern of the "Morgenthau", towards the pilings.
I dashed around round like a mad fool, and dropped anchor, right
there within spitting distance of the watchful eye of the
authorities. I mean that they could spit on me -- I couldn't spit
on them, because the deck of the ship was 20 or 30 feet over my
head.
I fretted with the motor for about half an hour, and couldn't find
anything wrong. I put up the sail, figuring I would try to sail out
of there. Just one last little bit of fidling -- I noticed the
little vent screw, and a great light dawned...
The other time was last weekend. This time there was only about half
a tank of gas, and I didn't discover that the vent was closed until
we got back to the dock after an hours motor back down the Estuary.
When I turned the little screw the air screeched in for a couple of
minutes. In this case there was a lot of air in the tank to begin
with, and the volume of fuel used was not as great relative to the
volume of air in the tank, so the negative pressure was
substantially less. And obviously, if you only had a cup of gas in
the tank, you would run out of gas before the pressure differential
would overwhelm the fuel pump...
-- Kent Crispin "Do good, and you'll be kent@songbird.com lonesome." -- Mark Twain