Hi Bill, Let me chime in with my reasons for NOT trailering with a motor attached.
1. Inviting as all get out for any thieves who eye a lovely motor hanging out there with it's tongue panting - Steal Me...........Steal Me, and all they have to do is undo the mounting screws and remove it, or grab their Sazall, and it's gone. $800 or so that disappears off the back of your boat almost instantly. (See story last week on the M-site about being at a lake, and leaving boat and motor there for a launch in the morning, and then finding the motor was sawed off during the night, leaving big hole in transom) 2. Look at the physics of the trailering problem. The motor weighing probably 40 lbs, is hanging on a fixed bracket that is about 10 inches deep. On my M15, trailer wheel location to motor mount distance is about 6 feet = 72 inches. Now add the motor mount distance (10 inches) and you have a total length from bounce source (trailer wheel hitting pot hole) to motor of 82 inches. Now multiply the weight of the motor (40 lbs) x (82 inches) and you wind up with a load of 3280 inch - lbs. - which is a hell of a big hammer - that has to be held by the motor mount bolts and the area of the transom where the bolts are mounted. ...........and subjected to this punishment for (????) trailering miles? Robb Walker in one of his articles in MESSING ABOUT IN BOATS, recounts finding an outboard lying in the road that had broken off the transom, with transom and motor lying in the road. 3. Best practice is to keep motor in car - locked up - and motor weight off the motor mount. That way the motor doesn't suddenly develop "a craving to travel" and disappear, and the transom remains a transom, and not a hole in the boat that you discover when you arrive at the launch ramp. Connie M15 #400 _______________________________________________ http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/montgomery_boats
