Quote Originally Posted by MikeP View Post
The previous owner of our 53 told me that he twice had the system activated by visiting grandchildren pulling the manual handle. From that point on, whenever his grandchildren came aboard, he unscrewed the head and pulled the valve partially out so the firing pin could not hit the bottle release. He screwed it back in when they left.

He said that when the bottle fired, it sounded like a jet plane was landing ON the boat.
Grandkids... brings back memories. I used to cover the manual release handle with a home made piece of plastic that I screwed over the handle fixture when the youngest was aboard. Another time one grand kid unscrewed the pump handle on a manual head and the piston fell back into the cylinder requiring a disassembly. The second time he did it that day, he had to "help" fix it. Then there was the time he activated the autopilot while in the slip and I could not steer the boat (single screw) as I backed out. Good old days!

Bobk