Thanks to all! You guys were right on! It does appear that I have
an older carburated engine and indeed it did need to be pumped a
little in safety mode (with gear shifter pulled out).

When I first started it (first in my driveway), it sounded like the
battery could not generate enough power. Took the battery to
Wal-Mart, they tested it and said that the battery was dead and needed
to be replaced. Bought a good one, went back home and after a bit of
fiddling around with the pumping, the boat finally started!

Drove to the lauching place, put the boat in the water and from that
point on I had no problem starting it or going to forward or backward
(no stalling). All in all, our first day of boating was a great
success (especially that our destination was our new oceanfront cabin
that we just bought)! Thank you very much for your help!

Andre

PS: only thing that doesn"t seem to work on the boat is the
tachometer (speedometer?). Is this likely to be just a loose wire???
Or would there be an actual fuse (which could be dead) just for this
function?