Lifting outboard bracket
Posted: Tue Nov 10, 2015 10:54 am
Hi All,
I thought other swifties might be interested in my solution to the outboard problem I mentioned in a previous post. My boat lives in an area which seems to suffer badly from fouling (top of Southampton Water), and I didn't like the idea of leaving the outboard down in the well. I equally didn't want to have to haul it in and out of the water every time I wanted to sail. I looked at various options (transom bracket, cutting holes in the boat to tilt the motor, etc) and didn't like any of them. I then came up with a new way of doing it, which I've not seen anywhere else - effectively taking a lifting outboard bracket that would mount on a transom, but putting the outboard inside the bracket rather than on the back. This has the advantage that I have an outboard inside the boat, where the controls are easy to use, and when the outboard is down, there is no real additional space taken up (and the outboard still has enough room to breathe in air).
The bracket is constructed of aluminium, with A4 stainless bolts. The lifting mechanism is variable S/S gas struts which you can adjust to get the right amount of lift. It took a little bit of dusted off trigonometry and measuring, but I can now raise the outboard with 1 finger and the strut has enough upward pressure that the motor is solidly up when not in use (I don't need to lock it off). When I push the motor down, I lock it in place with 2 gate hinges with carabinas through (sadly I hadn't added these when I took the photos, so they're not visible), so its solid to the deck when in use. I've designed this so that I can lock the motor securely to the mount, and the mount is locked to the boat, so whilst nothing is secure, its reasonably safe.
My outboard was modified by the previous owner to make the gear shift easier to access, so the whole setup now works very nicely. You can also see my modified B+Q sack truck which transport the motor around
Anyway, hopefully this will be of interest:
https://goo.gl/photos/oA6aefoPA8uRn23k9
Cheers, Pete
I thought other swifties might be interested in my solution to the outboard problem I mentioned in a previous post. My boat lives in an area which seems to suffer badly from fouling (top of Southampton Water), and I didn't like the idea of leaving the outboard down in the well. I equally didn't want to have to haul it in and out of the water every time I wanted to sail. I looked at various options (transom bracket, cutting holes in the boat to tilt the motor, etc) and didn't like any of them. I then came up with a new way of doing it, which I've not seen anywhere else - effectively taking a lifting outboard bracket that would mount on a transom, but putting the outboard inside the bracket rather than on the back. This has the advantage that I have an outboard inside the boat, where the controls are easy to use, and when the outboard is down, there is no real additional space taken up (and the outboard still has enough room to breathe in air).
The bracket is constructed of aluminium, with A4 stainless bolts. The lifting mechanism is variable S/S gas struts which you can adjust to get the right amount of lift. It took a little bit of dusted off trigonometry and measuring, but I can now raise the outboard with 1 finger and the strut has enough upward pressure that the motor is solidly up when not in use (I don't need to lock it off). When I push the motor down, I lock it in place with 2 gate hinges with carabinas through (sadly I hadn't added these when I took the photos, so they're not visible), so its solid to the deck when in use. I've designed this so that I can lock the motor securely to the mount, and the mount is locked to the boat, so whilst nothing is secure, its reasonably safe.
My outboard was modified by the previous owner to make the gear shift easier to access, so the whole setup now works very nicely. You can also see my modified B+Q sack truck which transport the motor around
Anyway, hopefully this will be of interest:
https://goo.gl/photos/oA6aefoPA8uRn23k9
Cheers, Pete