1920 - Notes from India...Watermota and Knight Outboards

Indian Industries and Power, Volume 17

1920

 A large number of users are now adopting small motors of the outboard type owing to the price of marine motors in general. Outboard users are fitting them to dinghies and small boats for which they are.very well- adapted. The ordinary outboard motor has a single cylinder,but some of the newer designs are now being fitted with two cylinders, one of the examples of this class being illustrated in Fig. 3. 

This is a twin opposed cylinder engine developing 3_to 4 hp. It is known as the Knight engine, sold by the Knight Outboard Co. of Hampton Wick, Middlesex, at a price of under £50 complete. Apart from the fact that two cylinders are fitted, it operates on the same general principle as the average outboard motor , such as the Evinrude type, working on the two-cycle principle. Another motor of somewhat similar design with two horizontal cylinders but of American manufacture is the Koban which is sold in England at £45. It is claimed for the two-cylinder t y p e that the vibration which is always noticeable with an outboard motor is very greatly diminished, and it must be admitted that there is some improvement in this respect. The demand for these outboard motors at the present time is so large that it is difficult to obtain deliveries especially in view of the present restricted output and the trouble which was encountered as a result of the prolonged moulders' strike which had an effect on the marine motor industry as much as on the motor-car business.

Cheap Outboard Motors

Owing to the high price of marine motors, increasing use is now being made of the little outboard motors which can be attached to almost any type of craft at a low cost and driven at a moderate speed. The employment of these little engines should become. more general in India, for, with a little ingenuity, they can be attached to all classes of existing boats, and as the petrol consumption is very low the cost of operation is almost negligible. 

In the illustration is shown a 3 1/2 h.p. Watermota, the only British-built engine of this class, built by Walter D. Fair & Co., of Hampton Wick, Middlesex. It is fitted to an ordinary Thames punt which it drives at a speed of 5 to 6 miles an hour and is a remarkably good production selling at the relatively low price of  £50 complete. Usually the outboard motor is attached to the stern of a boat by means of clamping screws, but in the case of a punt a square hole is cut in the deck at the after~end and the motor is then attached in the usual way. It can be readily removed in two or three minutes so that it does not detract from the value of the boat when the motor is not required. There is a single-cylinder horizontal engine driving a vertical shaft,at the bottom of which the drive is taken to the propeller through bevel gearing, the rudder being attached to the casing in which is contained the vertical shaft. The whole unit is therefore very compact, easily portable and' eminently suited for employment on upcountry rivers.