Re: Towing - Leg up/down
EBG: Your assumtions are wrong. Can't prove it here so if you really need to be convinced, talk to a mechanical engineer. Tell you what, here's an experiment that will duplicate the conditions on the back of a boat. Hold a chair at arms length above the floor. Easy? Now bring it slightly towards up and up at the same time - duplicating the pivoting action of a OB on a transom. Feel easier?<br /><br />Bill:<br />You bring up a good point, I too have never seen damage caused by not using a TS. Then again, I rarely see heavier motors trailered without them.<br />But i still have to disagree with you on this ( a first). When the boat is being trailered, only the boat is supported. Furthermore, what we're really talking about here is inertia and overcoming it. By size (i mean like density), a boat is much lighter than an OB. Resisting the forces of interia are much easier this way especially considering it's done over the entire length of the boat - or at least over the area the boat is resting on. But even this is irrelevent. For the most part, the boat moves with the trailer and is supported by such. But the OB is supported only in one small area and add to that, it is heavy for its size AND sits in such a way as to act like a lever, compounding the forces of intertia. To me, it's only common sense to use a transom saver. Since the boat moves with the trailer and a transom saver essentially ties the OB to the trailer, all three units now move as one.<br /><br />I also strongly disagree with you on the forces on the water being the same as on the road. The entire idea of a transom saver is to make the boat and motor move as one, i.e. same speed and direction. When you're coming off a wave, it's doing that already. Boat hits water, water stops boat. Outboard hits water, water stops outboard. Where's the twisting force on the transom?<br />Besdies, let's see you dive head first into a pot-hole.
