Two part story to mine, sorry its long...
Part 1....Son and I go out fishing and I let him drive the boat. While we are going he says "The engine is trimmed all the way up". I thought he meant that he trimmed it up, no big deal...we fish for awhile and he decides he is going to stand on the back deck. So he puts his hand on the engine cowling and as he steps up the engine trims up. He pushes on the cowling again, and it trims up some more. So I tell him to quit screwing around and I trim it back down with the switch and figure I have some kind of short in the wiring. We finish fishing ( which was our best trip of the year) text the wife let her know we're going to be home early and we got supper. Get back to the ramp, get boat on trailer and the dam thing won't trim up. After about 5 minutes (of course my son's trick of pushing on the cowling won't raise it now...), we unload and I tell my son I'm just going to run it around and maybe I can get it to trim up by jostling the short in the wires...nope...no cell service by the boat ramp so I run it out into the main lake. Call the boat repair shop and tell the lady I'm stuck on the water (didn't tell her the problem), she says the guy is busy with a customer and will call back shortly. Call the wife tell her we are not going to be back as early as we thought and that I'm waiting to hear from repair guy how to manually raise the engine. One minute later the wife sends me a youtube video on how to raise manually. Go back to ramp, son and I wade waist deep and raise it manually. Get home and wife tells me to not screw anything up and take it in so I don't turn a $200 fix into a $500 fix (she knows my repair skills well...) oh and by the way, the first repair shop NEVER called me back so I decide screw them, I'm taking it to a different guy. He changes a bad relay in 15 minutes and I'm good to go.
Part 2...The next trip out I take a former student of mine before unloading I run the trim up and down 10 times...yep good to go. We get going and while heading out trims up and down while on plane...everything is good and I know where the fish are biting. Pull up to the spot, turn engine off and dam engine starts trimming up on its own...dam it...hit the switch and can't stop it...double dam it...before I can get to the battery shut off switch engine has raised all the way up to the point where the cowling has hit the boat and still trying to raise. Spend the next hour trying to figure out what the hell went wrong and manually lower the engine (which by the way is a hell of a lot easier to do than manually raise an engine...thanks gravity) End up driving around with the cowling off so I could hook and unhook the relays quickly and easily so we could leave the battery on and still run electronics. Got asked half a dozen times if we lost our cowling or if we needed help...Fishing is pretty good and I tell my buddy we only need one more to limit out, and proceed to do that in short order with a nice 18"er. Tell him lets head for home so I can get another appointment, plus I'm mentally beat. Everything at the ramp goes fine and we pull up to fishing cleaning station. Tell him to put the fish in a bucket to take over and we are one short of our limit...I mis-counted...
Anyway, went to a different repair guy (first guy was great, just terribly busy and I knew he wouldn't get to it quickly) picked it up this past Saturday and ready to go this weekend.
Oh yeah, and I have gotten VERY good at putting the plug in while the boat is in the water...thank goodness for plugs that just screw in/out and stay attached...
Also, we have a ranger and always cover it (middle belly strap, ratchet strap on each side of the engine for cover and ratchet from trailer to boat) when my son and I go fishing he takes care of all of it on the passenger side and I do drivers side, its a good system and we are pretty efficient...except for the one time last year when I go to drive the boat off and it won't go...son forgot to undo the trailer to boat ratchet...I look down and the trailer is up off the bottom suspended, by this time the boat has swung around completely 180 degrees so I cant just pull it back onto the trailer. Luckily I was able to grab the strap and pull up enough to get it unhooked...