tophatyachts.com

Hi Gang, Gypsea again with one of those questions. Does anyone with an o/b leave it in the well fulltime? I figure you should be able to get some sort of antifoul to protect it and can't see how the drag would be much worse than a fixed prop ala i/b. Cheers and happy sailing. Gordo.

I tried it for a few months, to my and the motor's detriment.
Thankfully that was with my old outboard and not my new one.

I now have a block and tackle set up to easily lift it in and out of the well without needing muscles and I leave it chained up in the cockpit.

Take it out of the water!!!!!
Diana

I was thinking the same thing, there are plenty of stern drives left in the water all it would take is some antifoul crikeys most of them dont even do that. there's a bloke a few berths up from me who leaves his in the water and it seems fine after 2 seasons of doing that. so long as yuou keep an eye on the growth around the intake, or more to the point make sure the tell tail is pumping water I cant see any harm. We used to leave the outboards in the water all summer on the dive boats no problems.

Hi everyone Seeing that we a talking Outboard Motors does anyone flush their motors with fresh water and How do they go about it when on a swing mooring ? PS I like to keep mine out of the water
Cheers Ray

Ray,

I use a plastic jerry can with the top cut off.

Just stand the motor in it (out of gear!) and give it a run in the cockpit

My Suzuki has a thermostat so it needs to be warm to flush all passages.

Takes about 15 litres.

Yes, it was a drag taking all that water in the dinghy each time but you may be able to fill up at a pier when you are out sailing.

Tom

Okay I saw one on a thunderbird 26 that was out on the hard that had antifoul on the outboard leg and was left in the well. The guy was from Mornington where he has a swing mooring and says he has always done it. He said he puts a sacrifial anode on the leg though.

Do you recall the make of the outboard motor Rob ? It would make a great advertisement for the manufacturer !

My old outboard grew an amazing array of barnacles in 3 months in winter.
And in chipping them off, also chipped off a lump of metal which I presume was the anode.

When I bought my new outboard I have never left it in the well for more than 3 weeks.
Even with that I start growing stuff.

Mercury

I would never do this... as the thing that most overlook is that the antifoul is only on the outside of the leg. With the cooling vents etc you do get corrosion, animals living on the inside of the leg. I purchased an endeavour years back where the inside of the leg was like a marine park inside the leg despite antifoul on the outside... them little critters are tricky suckers.