Same ornery boat motor as in my other 'hard to start' thread, lol. Today, I boated 4 miles up the lake to fish a spot. Leaving there, the motor was ornery, as usual, and finally would not turn over at all. This has been coming on. Last couple of times, it has not always activated the starter when I turn the key to the right. Now, this is in a sequence of maybe a dozen times or more of turning the motor over and over to try to start it -- the starter would sometime not activated when I turned the key. And I would turn it off and then back on and the starter would activate and turn the motor over. And eventually I would get it started. Today, in one of those episodes where the starter would not activate (after several times when it did)... that was all she wrote. I thought it might be a poor battery connection... seems that one time jiggled the cables and got it to turn over again. Anyway, that didn't work. I took the cover off and didn't see anything amiss but I am no expert. After a few attempts, I gave up and found my rope/handle and eventually got the bad boy started by hand. Which seems a miracle.

Wouldn't you know it, I have fished like mad this year and today, they are finally biting and my boat does this. Is there anything anyone can think of I could try other than take it to a mechanic. Probably a backlog to get a boat fixed now. Do these motors have a solenoid?

After it quit working, I heard a slight buzz when I turned the switch. I don't hear well but I didn't hear a click, I heard a slight buzz. Had to listen to good to hear it but it was there; it was getting power.

1997 Tracker, 40hp Tracker motor by Mercury Marine.

Thank you!