Motor cavitation w/bracket in heading seas, feature or me?

[Ludicrous40]

2520XL with Yami 225 on a bracket, fairly large heading seas the other morning while heading out. Three times I had Engine alarms (oil light was flashing), causing me to shutdown in order to reset. I'm fairly confident the cause of the alarms was cavitation when the motor popped out when cresting over the swells. Question is this: Was this bad technique by me? Inexperience with the bracket given the situation? It was real dark out, and we were going slow (10 to 13kts). Each time the alarm happened it was basically large rogue waves that caused the bow to drop suddenly, effectively causing the unexpected cavitation. Needing to shutdown to reset the alarm was very disconcerting....

Was it rough? Yes. But we never felt out of control or in danger, and the forecast was for everything to calm down. This occurred outside the Merrimack river in Newburyport, MA this past Friday morning.

 

[DaleH]

Was your remote oil tank level low? You could have had phantom "low oil" alarms due to the oil sloshing around in the tank, as that may also have limited or restricted your RPMs at a certain point.

 

[Ludicrous40]

Remote oil tank? Do I have one with the 4 stroke?

I had checked the engine oil the night before, and the level was fine.

 

[warthog5]

Remote oil tank? Do I have one with the 4 stroke?

No you don't but the way you wrote the post...it alluded to that.

Check the engine oil first.

The first thing that popped in my head was you had the motor trimmed to high.

 

[ctown67]

i have had that happen to my 2520 MV as well. it has to be better than 6 footers in a following see for me to do this. i tend to trim back down and lay off the throttle a little. in a head see mine is all business and pretty much stays in, so much that my buddies got to calling the boat the Honey Badger.