Dec. 1 , 2004--Outboard Motor: Friend or Foe?
by Michel & Jane DeRidder

Jane tells me I can think like an outboard motor. This dubious attribute helps us make friends, but also brings a certain unwelcome notoriety and some worries.

A dozen years after having passed through the Marquesas and the Tuamotus, we were greeted in Ahe by name by an old acquaintance with several sick appliances to be diagnosed and cured. The first time through, I'd resuscitated LPG fridges, sewing machines and a few outboards as I used to do in many places we visited. I'd cobbled together a usable outboard out of two clapped-out ones. Much to our horror, the following day, a family of five or six set forth for the next atoll in their plywood box boat, to visit relatives, powered with that single iffy 5hp Evinrude. (They made it...)

Our first boating experiences were acquired under outboard motor power. In 1955 we built a very small sports boat and bought a used 14hp Evinrude. The boat was good fun and we explored the inlets around Vancouver, the Fraser River and its lakes, even some of Vancouver Island. However the Evinrude was old and tired and gave no end of trouble. The crankshaft seal leaked oil and the ignition points had to be cleaned all too often. Removing the flywheel, cleaning and readjusting the points afloat on a bouncy little boat was a temper-testing operation. We did push our luck with it, crossing the Gulf of Georgia a few times. (The boat was only 9 1/2 feet long.) Once, camping nearly a hundred miles up the Fraser River, we hit hard on a rock and broke the lower unit bolts. A coat hanger tourniquet held it in place for our slow return trip.

Our first little sloop SCUTUM had a 10hp Johnson in her motor well that would help her clip along at 6.5 knots in calm waters--when the outboard was willing. The 1956 Johnson was a much friendlier motor than our Evinrude had been, but we did carry new spark plugs and points just the same, and we needed them!

Those sorts of experiences with outboard motors (we were not alone fighting the beasts) resulted in the bad reputation outboards had. We blamed our problems on our used motors. By fixing the faults myself, we at least kept our costs down. But the owners of new motors did not appreciate the problems.

Fortunately since that time the industry has improved the reliability of their motors to the nth degree. Today's outboards with electronic ignition, better alloys, low oil mixtures and innumerable refinements have become docile dependable little marvels. (Or very big ones.)

In the past I had been known to ridicule the technology behind the old British Seagull outboards--bronze bushings, 25-to-1 oil mix, noisy smoky hard-to-start little horrors. Then one year when we were anchored in Cat Harbor on Catalina Island in California, I woke up in the morning and saw a Seagull Outboard under MAGIC DRAGON in about 20 feet of water. We lifted it out with a grappling hook. While dismantling it, I noticed that the hot ignition wire was shorted to ground so it could not have been operational when it went down. We imagined a frustrated owner throwing it overboard in a fit of rage. Corrosion on the carburetor and other alloy parts indicated that it had been under water for a while. Nevertheless, we ran hot water through its innards, dried it and oiled it and dried the ignition coil by our heater. A couple of days later, with a Chevrolet's distributor condenser that I happened to have aboard to replace the blown-out corroded original, the beast came to life again. A San Diego auto mechanic teacher gave us $50 for it and we saw him commute from his moored boat in his dinghy powered by the smoking noisy little thing.

When we upgraded to a motorized shore boat for MAGIC DRAGON in 1967, we inherited a used 6hp Mercury from Leo and Pat Miner. We built the new dinghy in their Home Port base on St. Thomas where the 6hp Merc was abandoned in a corner of their shed. "It's seized," said Leo. But after close inspection I found that only the swivel brake, made out of zinc plated steel, was rusted solid. Leo gave us the motor, and I reimbursed him the $25 he had spent on parts for it. A year or so later it died of a rusted-out shaft spline that started to spin free in the crankshaft. We left it on the dock in St. Thomas with a sign that said: For parts--runs well--no spline--$0.00. It was gone the next day.

It must have been early 1968 when we bought our first new outboard, a 6hp Johnson. It seemed a good match for our dinghy. The only problem was that we got a lemon. After only a few months the cylinder block cooling chamber wall corroded away. The St. Thomas dealer would have exchanged the cylinder block but he wouldn't do the job. We were busy with charters and about to sail to Europe so I chose to patch the leaking block with sheet aluminum, some sealant and four self-tapping screws. Had I known the nuisance in store I would have taken the time to dismantle and fix it properly. During the five years that we ran that 6hp I must have had to re-patch the block with bigger and bigger patches a couple of times a year. Finally in Fiji in 1973 a young couple wanted a very inexpensive motor for their trailer-sailer, and they took on the challenge.

There we bought a Yamaha 8A. This one was a very peppy, very light motor and it improved the dinghy's performance considerably.

We nearly had two motors at that time. Ross Norgrove had bought a 7hp four cycle Honda for his wife. However, every time she went fishing, after a half hour running, the motor would die and not start again. We were in Nadi Waters and Ross had sent the Honda back to Suva several times. Each time it came back with the same problem. Finally, Ross dropped it in our dinghy and said, "You have the dumb thing--I don't want to see it again." I soon discovered that the gas tank air vent was faulty. I drilled it out and convinced Menine to try it again. They had never returned the tank to the Suva dealer, so he had not found the fault.

The Yamaha 8A had a long life with us, but not a trouble-free 18 years. After our experience with corroded bits on our previous motors, I took this one apart, removed and greased every bolt and separate assembly before we even started using it. At first it was very reliable, if rather hungry for fuel and spark plugs, even though we got it swamped a couple of times in the surf.

But then with age came challenges. Head gasket, water pump, seals, recoil starter, as well as the usual points and condensers had to be replaced more than once. Thanks to the early greasing, disassembling was never a problem, as when, in the 1981 Kerikeri River flash flood, the dinghy had been dragged upside-down through mud flats and the motor was filled with packed soft mud all the way into the crankcase and a cylinder. It took a few hours and some gaskets, but it ran just fine after the dismantling and clean out. We did many long trips with that motor. Once on Ponape we motored 15 miles each way through the lagoon to visit the ruins of Nan Madol. We've circumnavigated islands and explored rivers as well as running a daily commute, also often going diving and on other explorations. Eventually after well over 2000 hours' running, the poor thing died, swallowing its own bearing needles into its cylinder. I wouldn't have believed it possible. The top of one piston looked like a porcupine with all the needles imbedded into it.

This was New Zealand 1992. Finally we bought a modern motor. This Yamaha 8C has been a total surprise to us. Much more economical on fuel and oil (100-to-1 mix), it has been totally reliable for 12 years (so far). Maintenance has been greasing grease points, changing gear lube once a year, and spark plugs after six years (only twice so far), and filing dints out of the propeller. Only the stop button's rubber boot perished, a $5 expense for the replacement. To someone with my experience battling outboards, this is bordering on a miracle phenomenon. All the greasing that was done in 1992 may be useful yet but so far I have not had to test it. We may have gone for more than a year or two of constant use without even so much as removing the cover. I hope that all the later model outboards are as good and that ours is not just an exception.

Besides greasing it when new, I disfigured the paint job and scratched MD into the metal to discourage borrowers. Also I installed a hidden ignition switch and a pipe padlock for the same purpose.

It is a funny world. Now that we have a reliable outboard, friends who had borrowed a 12ft aluminum skiff of ours returned it with another Yamaha 8C on the transom when they left New Zealand. So we have a spare outboard waiting ashore for the day when the first one gives out. It seems the gods give pants to those who have no behinds.