Trailering with outboard on the mount?

[Zeroice]

I was thinking about trailering with a 3.5 2-stoke motor I picked up this winter. I am going to use one of these multi posion motor mounts and was wondering if any of you had experience with these. My concern is if it is ok to leave the motor mounted on the boat while I'm trailering or will this not be stong enough on the road? Any thoughts or experience would be appreciated!

[attachment over 4 years old deleted by admin]

[capt jake]

Personally, Iwould not trailer with it in place. Too much tress. In addition, if you make a quick stop somewhere; you have this huge 'steal me' sing written all over the motor. This happened to a friend of mine as a fast food place.

[Sailor3356]

That

[Zeroice]

Thanks for the advise. That makes up my mind about the matter. Now i just have to decide how to transport the motor. I may either put it in the back of my truck till I get to the launch or figure some way like was mantioned to put it in the boat for the road.

Thanks again.

[Steve Day]

I used to fly a sailplane around Florida and into North Carolina on occasion. The sailplane had a "G" meter on it to measure the loading we put on it while flying. The meter also measured the "G" forces in the trailer when we towed the sailplane on the road.

We always found it hard to believe the numbers we saw when we took the aircraft out of the trailer. On the order of +9 and -6!

There are a lot of short duration loads that get put on a boat while on the trailer. I would highly recommend you not have the motor in place on the boat while towing.

This is why a lot of the bass boats with those really large motors have a support running from the foot of the motor directly to the trailer. To save the transom.

Steve

[Mike Pennington]

I never heard of the forces being measured like that. I am amazed at those numbers but I believe every G. Just standing in the cockpit at the boat launch while my wife drops the boat in the water, a person can get thrown a round a bit. :roll:

Smart move not trailering with your motor, our boats might take it on short distances, but long hauls would be asking for trouble. Think of your motor as a lever, working up and down on the transome.

3.5 hp may be light, but it is also even more tempting to the light fingered.

[Frank Hagan]

One very common solution is to have a fixed mount up near the trailer tongue which can accommodate a cable lock (like you see for bicycles). The bouncing is much less up there, and the cable lock slows down the thief at least a little bit!

[Zeroice]

My trailer really doesn't have any extra room in the front or actually anywhere else with the boat on it. I was thinking of setting up a mount to put in the bed of my truck that would hold the motor at about 45 degrees or so for transport. I'm not sure that the engine would be ok set over at that angle but that would be the best I can think of. As in the diagram.

[attachment over 4 years old deleted by admin]

[capt jake]

2 strokes aren't usually too picky about how they are stored or tranported. Usually lay it on the mounting flang straight in the bed. This way you won't have to build another support.

Now some of the Honda 4 strokes have a specific side they are to be transported on, due to the internal lube in the lower unit.

[Ken]

Since there are both long and short shaft motors out there - which one are most of the Weekender sailors using now? And beginning to plan for the motor mount, I would like to find out what some others have set the height to - how many inches below the transom is the bottom of the propeller (in the water below the bottom of the boat? I know it will depend on which motor I find and it's length, but I want to have a guideline of where to mount it when I do.

BTW:

Update..... After flipping it, my weekender now has three bottom coats sprayed on - probably three to go before I feel I hae good coverage. I'll post a few pics when I get a chance.

THanks, Ken

[capt jake]

Well, I have 3 short shaft motors, and I went electric. Reason? I need a long shaft and can't afford to pay the price.

Long shaft, definitely!

[Zeroice]

good info guys!