Good evening! I recently purchased my first boat, a 2002 Pro craft 200 combo. Last week we took it for a test drive and it was great and the 200 HP Mercury was awesome. I was planning on taking it out with the kids for the first time tomorrow. This evening, I took the kids up to see it for the first time. While we were in the boat, I pushed the throttle down and it was very tight. This was NOT and issue when we took it out last week to test drive. Is this normal when the motor is not running or is there cause for concern that the cables are tight. Any help would be appreciated for this first time boat owner! Thanks

You didn't say if you have a hot foot throttle. It is ill-advised to shift an outboard into gear when the engine is off. It is designed to do this with gears turning, not sitting still. If you have a standard combo shift/throttle control, you are moving the handle through the range of the shifter first, then the throttle. You may be feeling heavy resistance on the gear-shift phase because you are not supposed to be doing that.

If the lower unit gears aren't aligned just right with the motor not running it wont shift into gear. Too much force can damage the shifter cable or linkage.

Exactly, I did this with mine because I am trying to adjust the control to clear my radio cover at WOT. I quickly realized to use the warm up button.