Tomahawk Day x Day - Old Outboard Motors: 1922 - Outboard Engine Facts and Fancies

You May Own a Yacht as Big as a Liner or as Fast as a Hydroplane, but You Must Acknowledge that this Family is Having Fun

WHEN the Red Gods call you to the Great Outdoors there are many ways in which you can journey upon the Outbound Trail. Deep down in the heart of almost all of us is a love for the water. Probably this is inherited from our forebears who had to cross the ocean in cockleshell craft to reach these shores. Commercial necessity has pushed the population away from the coasts, but even though the environment is changed the old love for smiling waters and the sting of spray is with us all.

There have been days when one could not commune with Mother Nature without an amount of laborious travel that did much to dull the keen edge of enjoyment. The outboard engine has been one of the great factors in the increasing love of the open spaces and the possibility of reaching these places from the marts of trade without labor to which office-bound muscles are not suited.

A Crowd Does Not Seem to Bother this Outboard.

Rowing, as an exercise, is without doubt beneficial, but when taken with this result in mind, it must be assimilated in small doses. Even in the best of cases it becomes irksome at the end of a day when picnicking has brought somnolence. It is in cases of this kind that the diminutive outboard pays dividends. The modern outboard is probably the best example of multum in parvo that science has perfected.

If you have any doubts as to the progress of science and the untold values of engineering experimentation, look at your outboard. Small, concise, light in weight and economical, yet it opens up opportunities for exploration which may bring to the not too literal minded the supreme satisfaction of the discoverer. Carried up a woodland stream by the faithful engine, you too, may stand on a spot like Robinson Crusoe, "Monarch of all you survey."

All Ashore for Lunch! The Young Skipperess Has Made Her Landing in Exactly the Right Spot

Picture to yourself the situation. Above, the trees arch over the stream forming a green canopy tempering the rays of the summer sun. The rustling of the leaves are tuned by the Divine hand with the sweet songs of the birds into a sublime melody which no composer of this or any other day has even approximated. Ahead—there is another bend, other vistas of delight which ever beckon onward. Here the stream widens out into a quiet pool, the home of many turtles who plop merrily into the water at your approach. From an overhanging branch a chipmunk scolds you for disturbing his apparently aimless scamperings. A bit of white water is ahead. A touch of the throttle and the boat springs ahead. Careful there! Watch your course till you jump into the still water above the rapid.

For Towing a Fleet of Canoes to the Camp Site an Outboard is Ideal

The character of the stream changes. Instead of the gently rising, wooded banks, you glide through a stream-carved cut in living rock. Far above a bald eagle wheels, and wheels until it seems that his baleful eye has spotted you and he is ready for the sickening drop into your boat.

Mr. Eagle finally swoops out of sight as you swing around another turn and find a shelving sandy beach which says "welcome" just as surely as if a host was standing with outstretched hand.

An outboard will turn your canoe into a speedster in short order!

With a swing of the tiller and a snap of the switch you glide up the beach and come to rest for luncheon. Spread a blanket, dig up the basket of lunch and a pile of cushions and sit you down to a feast that rivals the nectar of the gods. Right here you realize one of the great beauties of the outboard. There is no need of fussing with an anchor because the boat cannot be brought close to shore. There is no dinghy into which everything must be piled and several trips ashore made until you are worn and sulky. The boat will wait for you safely until ready for the down stream journey.

Hours of Paddling by Using One Outboard to Tow the Fleet

If the trip is a long one it may be necessary to pour a little more gasoline into the tank from a spare can. Add a bit of oil and she is ready again. Compare this with the procedure of getting a larger boat under way. If the stream happens to be a mountain one it may be necessary for you to carry the boat around some particularly difficult rapid or a dam. With the ordinary launch this would be impossible without a wagon and a gang of men. With a light rowboat or canoe and the faithful engine, you can make a portage and be off on another stream in a short while.

Of course all of us do not live where we have woodland streams for our week-endings. Possibly we have homes on the coast where boating is more strenuous. Even then the little engines will come to be a most valuable part of our equipment, for they can be clamped to the dinghy and used to take us out to the moorings as well as saving the back-breaking row to favorite fishing grounds.

To the sailboat owner the outboard is a godsend, giving the advantages of an auxiliary for small sailers without the disadvantages of having a machine permanently installed.

Either the engine can be hooked to the yacht's stern or, if clamped to the dinghy, will turn that obsequious little craft into a tow-boat. For making the trips to shore for mail, ice, picture postals and pie, which are the chief articles needed on a cruise, the outboard engined dink is worth its cost every trip. Naturally under these conditions the outboard is as useful to the power boat man as it is to the windjammer.

When an outboard is carried on a power cruiser it gives one a sense of security. Even the best engines ever made will fail under certain conditions. Instead of waiting around for a tow, the owner drops the dink overboard, hooks on the outboard and tows home. The speed may not entitle you to entry in the express cruiser class, but you will get there, which after all is the main item.

ad from this 1922 issue

Outboards are now made in a variety of sizes, speeds and weights to accommodate them to practically even service that lies within the limits of their power. Some of the double cylinder engines are made up to 3-h.p., although the average is about 2 horse. This has been found by experience to be the power range required by the majority of rowboats and canoes. For many years some people considered the outboard as a sort of mechanical toy until they suddenly realized that all over the world thousands were being used by fishermen, guides, forest rangers and wilderness freighters, in their everyday occupations. If outboards are satisfactory prime movers for men engaged in making their livelihood from water transport, no one can claim that they are not suitable for pleasure service.

article from this 1922 issue

Travelers from all over the world, men who have braved snow-blindness in the frozen north and fever in the miasmic jungles of the Equator, come back and report outboards. A caller recently told the writer that on a 1,200-mile trip by steamboat through the Canadian wilderness, the only power boat he saw was powered with an outboard. It was engaged in towing food supplies up a rapid-torn river to a mining camp.

It must be remembered in connection with the use of outboard engines that a boat so equipped is a power boat in the eyes of the law and must be equipped with fire extinguisher, life preservers for all hands, whistle (a mouth operated one will do), a combination red and green bow light and a white stern light, as well as two copies of the pilot rules obtainable from any custom house. On boats of 16 feet or more length the numbers required by law must be displayed.