Thanks Devonte007! It was a relatively short tow, maybe 30 minutes under tow, and at idle speed for the pontoon boat pulling us. I don't think I have water in the engine itself, although there was water in the bilge area that ran out when I pulled the plug at the dock.....no more water than normally comes out of the bilge area when I unscrew the plug after a day on the lake. The oil on the sticks look like oil and not a muddy milkshake, but I am going to have the oil changed ASAP just to be sure.
I dug into the problem, starting with the most simple diagnosis...replacing the battery. Turns out it was 5 years old, so I figured even if it WOULD take a charge, it was on its way out anyway. I then checked every connection for tightness....all good. Then I went to the fuses. As I referenced, in searching for solutions I saw a post on Green Hulk about a green 30amp fuse and inline fuse holder that gives problems. It's in the charging circuit apparently. I also saw reference to that same fuse in the Owner's Manual as a place to check if the battery is in constant discharge. So, I found the fuses, (best access is to remove the rear seat cushions and then remove the plastic buckets by removing the two slot-head, stainless screws) and one by one I checked each of them...until I came to a green 30amp fuse and low and behold...it was melted inside of the fuse holder. I'll try to post pics later. I don't think I've ever seen a fuse melted like that one was. It had apparently take some serious internal heat and melted before blowing. The fuse holder was in pretty bad shape inside too...no indication of anything wrong on the outside, so if anyone is reading this with a similar problem, open the holders up to reveal and test the fuses inside! So, off I go to the local Auto Zone and purchase a new 30amp fuse, and a new water-tight 30amp fuse holder with water-tight butt connectors to replace the one that was destroyed. Got it all buttoned up, put the voltmeter on the battery and was initially reading 14.2VDC. Turned on the battery switch and no change. Plugged up the lanyard, the voltage dropped to 13VDC, got the regular beeps and I cranked the starboard engine and revved up to around 5K rpms....the voltage continued to decrease slightly.....cranked the port engine and the voltage came up and remained at 13.5VDC. All that was within about 30 seconds before shutting everything down. I didn't have a flush hose connected, so I didn't want to overheat anything. A little water shot out the rear pumps when the engines cranked, but barely enough to notice and not even enough to run off the driveway. They seemed to run very smoothly in that short time.
Since there showed a discharge when just the starboard engine was running but charging with both engines running, is there still something wrong here? Is the regulator/rectifier on the starboard engine shot? I did not have time to go through the process to check that. I guess I'll have to get in a little deeper.
