water in the oil

by Dorothy Scharenbroch
(Forest Lake, MN)

I was anxiously leaving to go fishing with my son, and as I pulled out of the driveway, I did not swing quite wide enough and the back left trailer tire dropped down into the rocky culvert/ditch along the driveway. Stunned! Ok, probably not going fishing today. The motor Skeg was damaged, as well as the prop, and cowling cover. The tailer crank and tail lights were damaged. I was able to limp over to the boat landing and float the boat to reposition it back onto the trailer. I did start the motor to check it out, not good. Really bad vibration. I left it running for about 10 minutes. Checking for water to come out the cooling port. That was working. After returning home, I checked the engine out, inspecting for reason of vibration, thinking it was due to the prop damage. I found water in the oil. This is a Mercury 4 stroke 60HP, 2001 (60ELPTBF). It ran great prior to this accident. The head and base gaskets were replaced, this did not fix the water in oil. The insurance says that in no way the drop into the ditch caused this problem and refuse to cover the motor. What do you think?