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Outboard Motors

In the summer of 1898, race car designer Harry Armenius Miller clamped a four cylinder engine to a rowboat and showed his friends how to enjoy their afternoons off. Although Miller didn’t develop his idea further, one of his coworkers named Ole Evinrude did and the rest is history. Evinrude eventually founded three successful outboard motor companies. The Johnson family developed the first truly lightweight outboard and Mercury Marine founder, Carl Kiekhaefer, developed the first high horsepower outboards.

Cameron B. Waterman, a Yale law student and later successful outboard motor builder, was the first to use the words “outboard motor” in advertising. As a result, Evinrude and anyone else in the business called their product outboard motors.

The outboard motor is probably the most popular source of propulsion for boats. They come in horsepower ranges for 1hp to 250hp and more and can be used on boats for 8’ long and up. The outboard motor is relatively simple in design. It consists of a motor, attached to a drive shaft and housing with a 90* gear drive at the bottom, with a propeller fitted to the end of the gear drive. The whole unit is attached to swivel bracket that clamps onto the boat’s transom. The propeller that is powered by the motor through the drive shaft propels the boat.

Evinrude, Johnson and Kiekhaefer Mercury are and have been the most popular names in outboard motors through the years, but others such as Buccaneer, Champion, Chris Craft, Chrysler, Elgin, Etto, Elka, Firestone, Gale, Homelite, Martin, McCulloch, Oliver, Scott-Atwater, Westbend and many others were also well known.