Boat fired up fine this weekend after the winter layoff but after only maybe 3 minutes ticking over stopped, after checking a few things and eventually removing the top of the carb, I found to have water in the bottom - cleaned this out tried again but it stopped again - I removed the inlet pipe and pumped it into a clear container only to find a 50/50 mix of water/petrol!!!!.
I now intend to go back with a pump to suck the mix out of the tank - 1/4 full, change the fuel filter and see what I find.
Anyone else ever had this?
At the moment I dont know how much water I will find, maybe its just after that after 30 years there is enough water collected in the tank to reach the petol pump inlet.
I will let you know.

I haven't experienced fuel problems (yet), but I'm staggered as to how much water collects in the gas bottle container through condensation alone. I know of people who reccommend filling up the tank prior to Winter just to prevent the likelyhood of this happening.

Yeah I have read differing suggestions on either filling the tank or not - so 1/4 full is probably the worst of both worlds!

Anyone want to buy 10 gallons of petrol with a bit of water!?
Sucked out the contents of my petrol tank found quite a bit of watery stuff in the bottom - its hard to estimate how much, but its all just about out.
My fuel filter was full of water!
Conclusion is that after 30 years unless the tank had been drained out before water is bound to collect in the bottom through condensation.
I should have changed the fuel filter more often - because I dont use the boat very often I thought it shouldnt need much attention (I probably dont use more than 10 gallons a year!) but if I had changed it I would have noticed the water.
Do you know that the tank bottom slopes in line with the hull,
whilst this seems a good idea I think in this case it helped present the water nicely to the fuel pipe! But it did help me suck the mix up also.
Anyway I hope no one else has a similar problem - good luck.

Always try to keep the tank full!

Filter water out of Petrol by using a large glass container, and syphoning the two fuels, as one floats on the other.

You'll be left with a very small quantity you can't seperate...

I will try and seperate the water form the petrol but I woant risk using it in the boat - I should have enough petrol for my lawnmower for about 10 years!