engine stops abruptly

                                              every now and then while running at cruising speed , 30 to 34 mph, the engine just cuts out and hast to be restarted.Points, plugs, cables, distributer cap are almost new. i'm assuming its an electricle problem because its easy to restart usually and because of its imediate loss of power.boat in question is a 86 skinautique

i'm usually the one skiing when this happens so i don't know but to the best of my knowledge vapor lock is like running out of gas, the power would die off slower with a little bit of sputtering. when it happens, you can hear the engine lose all combustion. but when we start it again its like nothings wrong. another thing, it only seems to happen over 3000 rpm.

Sounds like a electrical problem. Not much info to judge by. Vapor lock is not common on cool running boat motors and usually occurs at start-up.

I had water in the gas tank years ago and it would die abruptly.

What I have learned from similiar posts over the past months is that symptoms with seemingly obvious cuases can be decieving. So, you really must go through everything with the more common causes being:

Electrical:
Coil, condensor (if points), ignition module, ballast resistor, loose wiring connections, bad wiring/ground, faulty tach (shorting to ground), etc.

Fuel:
fuel filter, suction line air leak, kinked fuel line, fuel pump, etc.

Sorry no specific help....

If you are always the one that is skiing when it happens I think you should make a close examination of your friends.

I am new at all this so read this with a grain of salt:

I was talking to one of my friends and he described a similar story to yours. It turned out he had a leak, where water would get into his fuel supply. His boat would run for 30 minutes and just stop. When he got it going again it would do same thing. He used the throttle a couple of times to see what would squirt into carb and it looked like water was mixed in. A taste test confirmed. He found soutrce of his leak and problem was fixed.

niagararob wrote: points have been changed recently, if a ballast resistor is the one inside the distributor ...

That's a capacitor. The resistor is mounted on a plate at the rear of the engine.

If you have a ballast resistor, that's where it should be. The plate that has the main fuse, the voltage regulator (several wires) and the solenoid (to thick wires, a couple of small wires). My boat had a resistor wire as opposed to a ballast resistor. A wire from the resistor should go to the coil.
I'd replaced the coil first. Some people think coils don't wear out that often, but automotive coils installed on boats seem to. Put some B-12 Chemtool in the tank. That will help get rid of water and clean the carb. Also check all the electrical connections. Make sure they are tight, insulatated, and free of corrosion. A little bit of corrosion can cause big problems when you are only dealing with 12 V.
Good luck.