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I learned about boating from that... By Greg Howell Locking down an outboard motor. As all who have had outboard motors know, there is a lever on the mount of the motor that is used to lock the motor down. The lever may either be placed in the locked or unlocked setting. When I was younger I had a 13' Boston Whaler with a 40 hp. Johnson. The more speed we could get from the boat the better, so using what we thought was our best engineering abilities, my friend John and I, shifted the seats as back as far as they would go against the inner transom. The well between the inner and outer transom was always kept full of water, and we were running a 28 hp. Prop on the 40. It may not have been any faster, but from a standstill to a plane, the boat just stood on its prop until it finally nosed and took off. Anyway, in regards to the engine lock, in our 13-year-old wisdom we felt that the engine would be damaged if we left the lock on, in case we hit something in the water. So we never fan the boat with the lock set.
The day this comes into play is when John and myself drove the boat down to the marina to fill up with fuel. We had 2 six-gallon tanks in the boat, these were filled and we headed back home. As we neared my house, I could see that a car had pulled in the driveway. I decided to run the boat up to our dock, hop out and let John take it around behind the house to dock it. Shortly thereafter I realized that I was coming into the dock a little too 'hot'. I threw the throttle down but we were still heading straight for the dock. Boston Whalers, at least the 13 footers had the trait that when getting on a plane or slowing down from a plane, their bow always shot up in the air until speed was reduced. With the added weight in the stem of the seats, 2 occupants, water and 12 gallons of gas, the boat felt as if it were standing on it's transom. My next move was to throw the boat in reverse and hit the throttle. Without the engine being locked down, and much to our dismay, the engine rotated, lifting the prop out of the water, the noise of the de-cavitations along with the increase of the throttle only made the noise loud enough to alert everyone of our neighbors. So with all eyes upon us we landed the whaler on the dock, where it came to a standstill 4 feet off the water. I shut the engine down and much to our embarrassment we got out of the boat onto the dock to survey the situation. The Whaler was not damaged at all. Neither was the dock. The only damage incurred was to our pride. Whether or not there would have been a different outcome had the lock been set on the engine is unknown. At the time we both felt that if the lock was set we would have been able to slow the boat down in time. Ever since that incident, I have always set the lock on an outboard engine. It is nice to know however, that at one time I was able to land a boat on top of a dock. I may come in handy sometime in the future. Who knows?
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