[Rhodes22-list] Small temporary replacement motor; Yamaha 9.9 accident

[Rik Sandberg]

David,

No, I have not linked the motor to the tiller, although I have been meaning 
to try that. For maneuvering around the dock, I usually squat between the 
motor and the tiller and run one with each hand. Unless I need to turn very 
sharp, I can usually leave the motor set straight and just steer with the 
tiller. For very sharp both is certainly better.

Rik


At 12:29 AM 1/10/2003 -0600, you wrote:
>Rik--thanks for your information about the Evinrude 4.5.  Do you link it
>with the tiller, or are you doing tight turning with one hand on the tiller
>and one on the motor?
>
>Ed--The electric trolling motor sounds interesting, and I will look at them
>for temporary use--if the power is enough whils still being light, simple
>and reasonably economical.   Not being a fisher, I have never seen one.
>
>Yamaha 9.9 experiences--I am on a large lake, but the winds can easily be
>steady at 25-30 miles per hour, winds howling through the spars and rigging
>of the boats tied at dock, with heavier gusts, blowing onshore towards a
>rocky coast just about two boat lengths past my slip as I have to return by
>making a 90-degree sharp turn to port into a narrow slip (10 feet wide,
>probably, no more), when the "alley way" down between the boats before I
>make my turn is no more than about two boat lengths.  I have to alternate
>between forward (at minimum idle speed) and neutral (mostly neutral) not to
>be coming in too fast, and then have to alternate forward, neutral and
>reverse just to kick the stern around and turn sharply enough into the slip.
>Leaving the dock to go out on the lake can be the reverse of this situation.
>In the summers, the wind blows offshore, and everything is easier.
>
>My experience with the Yamaha 9.9 over the past year and one-half has been
>that it can maneuver successfully the above challenges (when the gears and
>throttle don't jam as they did in November, first into reverse rocketing
>towards the sterns and motors of the boats behind me after I had almost made
>it into my slip but had to reverse due to being blown too much to starboard
>to enter the slip properly), and in the nick of time forceably hitting
>forward and rocketing into the concrete and steel part of the dock between
>the inner-most slip and the rocky shore).  However, no outboard motor on a
>sailboat, set off as it is to one side of the rudder, seems to give the
>steering maneuverabilty for tight turns of a motor boat or a larger sailboat
>with an inboard motor.  Of course in no wind or very light winds, I can go
>in and out perfectly and think I finally have the technique figured out.
>Even in stronger winds, if not blowing directly onshore, docking sometimes
>works out just right, as if I were a skilled master at this.  But some
>owners tell me that they will not take their boats out at all if there is a
>strong onshore wind--and I may listen to them next time.
>
>I don't get the full benefit of the 9.9 heading out of close quarters into
>open waters, where I could open to full throttle.  This is because I don't
>feel that the steering is stable enough at full speed using the R22 tiller
>linkage.  The motor is at that time either connected to the tiller, which
>doubles the turning torque (sailboat rudder plus motor steering) or, more
>normally, is disconnected by removing the pin to let the tiller do all the
>steering but relying on the motor to stay put by itself in a straight
>position (requiring proper advance adjustment of a screw to control effort
>needed to turn the motor).  To avoid sudden swerving one way or the other, I
>slow down to, say, half throttle or less anyway, where everything is fine.
>So I am not ever using the full power of the 9.9.  In theory, though, it
>could come in handy in a bad storm.
>
>If I were doing everything again, I would buy a motor of half the power but
>try to connect it to the tiller and move the controls there--like Stan's 9.9
>setup--because, although I have not tried the other way, it just seems safer
>and more efficient to have control in one place and be able to look forward
>under motor instead of fooling around bent over the stern and trying to
>figure out what to do as between the motor steering and the tiller/rudder
>steering. Having said that, I would have been a lot better off in November
>if I had direct controls on the motor that I could get to, rather than
>jammed controls connected by cable on the tiller.  While the fault may have
>been with the motor, if I were guessing, I would think that I increased
>speed too much in reverse trying to avoid hitting the dock on the starboard
>side of my slip, and almost immediately had to (in high wind) avoid a
>collision to stern with boats behind.  I probably (but this is just a
>guess--it all happened so fast) tried to force the gear shift into forward
>while still not having slowed the throttle to neutral.  There is probably a
>safety feature preventing switching gears except at idle or low speed.  By
>forcing the motor into forward I probably jammed or bent cable connectors
>where they enter the gear area on the motor.  Once that happened, I was
>stuck in forward and at high speed.  Welcome to the dock ahead.
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Kroposki [mailto:kroposki@innova.net]
>Sent: Thursday, January 09, 2003 11:20 PM
>To: 'The Rhodes 22 mail list'
>Subject: [Rhodes22-list] Small temporary replacement motor
>
>
>David,
>        Did you catch the line in Rik's email about Stan using an
>electric trolling motor?
>              Ed K
>
>
>
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