Hopefully someone here will say, "oh yeah, that happened to me, and the way to fix it is ....."
i have a brand new 2-stroke Mercury 9.9 hp outboard, with remote controls (no tiller)

i attempted to run my brand new engine on saturday. started on the first crank (well, maybe second, forgot to prime the first) and purred just fine.
so after idling for a few minutes, i decided to see if it went into gear alright.
closed the hatch (but not the wooden panel) and backed out. got 30 yards from the dock and the engine just died (can't remember if it was sudden or a steady decline)
of course tried to start it again, cranked and cranked and nothing.
anyway, after miraculously floating right back to the slip and tieing up, opened the hatch, tried to crank - nothing.
took the upper cowl off - nothing.
finally after like an hour, many primings and futile attempts to crank, then for no particular reason, it finally kicked over.

see, i first thought that it was the engine choking on the exhaust fumes in the lazerette, but once the hatch was open (and even the top cowl) i would think that exhaust fumes would dissipate and she would fire up again.

and then i thought "well, maybe it flooded" but it makes no sense that it would flood once running. but it does fit the scenario after the engine died. but again, how did it flood while running.

anyone with an idea?

hopefully i will figure this all out by saturday (first sea-trials under sail)
thanks to all,