TOWING
TO TIE OR NOT THAT IS THE QUESTION
Securing your outboard motors while towing By Erwin Bursik and Ryan Hansen
These are adjustable support clamps with a “shock absorber” to reduce trailer vibrations and jolts to the outboard motors.
T
HE question is often raised as to how those of us who tow our ski-boats should secure the outboard motors while we’re towing. Seeing that one’s outboards make up the greater part of one’s rig’s value, it’s best to secure them correctly to ensure that they don’t get damaged and that the craft’s transom doesn’t endure more stresses than it is designed to take. In the past, before the days of hydraulic trims that most, if not all, of the bigger horse powered motors have as standard, a simple manual lever
flipped into position to stop a tilted motor from falling back into its vertical position. As this could and did easily happen, most of us towing craft at that time had a conglomeration of ideas and methods of ensuring that our motors were protected. This is especially important when one considers the road conditions back then, especially the old Sodwana and Cape Vidal roads, as well as the pre-war Moçambique roads from the border to the northern areas such as Tofo and Vilanculos. Innovative ideas — ’n boer maak ’n
plan — were plentiful. From wooden planks placed between a tilted motor and transom bracket, to engineering marvels that cradled the motors’ lower shaft in the desired position with the lower part of this stantion secured to the trailer. Much rope and/or a clamping system thus ostensibly prevented one’s motors from bouncing around and putting undue strain on the craft’s transom. Many pundits of the time spoke strongly against firmly tying or bolting one’s craft to its trailer as it was construed that the stresses the trailer expeSKI-BOAT January/February 2022 • 63
