Dinghy outboard

[Valiente]

SD and TB are going to be upset with me. I bought the Honda 2HP with the "no neutral" option (the non-centrifugal clutch) for a very simple reason: I took my five-foot-tall wife to the boat show and this was the easiest one for her to lift one-handed. My six-year-old can lift it two-handed. It will likely push the Portabote from anchorages/moorings to shore, as I will tend to row the nesting dinghy.

I realize there's a trade-off in general gutlessness, but if I'm wrong and she does a few free-weight curls, we would select either the Yamaka or the Nissan/Tohatsu in the high 30s, weight-wise. Neither the Portabote nor the nesting dinghy will take more than a 4 HP, so weight savings really do make a difference...we wouldn't be in a hurry, nor are these tenders likely to go on the plane for laughs.

As for the Honda rotting, its tiny size means it won't go on the rail, exposed to the elements, because my forepeak "workshop" has a motor mount that's held a Mercury 9.9 for some time now without incident...so the Honda will "stay indoors" when it isn't running.

This was a hard choice, and I sure it would have been amusing to see me (I am a large man and can lift a BF100 with some grunting one-handed) going from boat show booth to booth asking them to hand their smallest outboards to my compact wife. But those were the considerations: getting an outboard on and off the tender every time it's used, in conditions that might include swells, on a metal boat with fairly substantial freeboard, and not necessarily with me there to handle the tender, the motor or whatever has been transported. The Honda 2 HP seemed the best compromised as an outboard that could power two rather different 10 foot tenders, and could be handled, almost, by a child (he'll be nearly eight when we leave, and presumably twice the weight of the Honda!)

If I'm wrong, the Honda is popular enough that I could sell or trade it easily.

[JohnRPollard]

We like those little Hondas -- they have a distinct (somewhat loud) lawnmower sort-of noise and we can hear them coming way across the anchorage.

I wouldn't worry too much about the lack of neutral. Yes, it would be nice to have FNR, but transmissions add weight and centrifigul clutches can be finnicky. I crewed a fair bit aboard a boat with an old British Seagull that not only lacked any transmission, it didn't even have an "Off" switch. You eventually became adept at guessing when to close the fuel line so it could run the carb empty and shut down, hopefully just as the bow of the dinghy nudged alongside the mothership or dock.

Out in the garage we are rebuilding an old Tanaka 2-stroke that can't weigh more than about 12 lbs. I should get some photos...

[Valiente]

That lack of neutral doesn't bother me much, consider I suspect with it at dead slow I could fend off with my little finger.

I've only seen those Seagulls once. They look like World War One airplane engines, and sound a bit similar, as well. If only the British did electricity as well as they did engines.