by Andy Bazar
As the owner of a Cape Dory 25 sail boat, I have found that one of the more physically demanding tasks is the installation and removal of the 9.9 horsepower Johnson outboard motor. On this particular sail boat, the motor is mounted inside a well called a lazarette. This gives the appearance of an inboard motor and keeps the motor under cover when not in use. Regardless of the type of outboard motor mount, if you are challenged by the task of getting the motor on and off of your boat in a storage yard, this procedure may be helpful in one way or another.
Motor removal and installation in my case has always been safer when done with the boat out of the water in the cradle yard. When I first got the boat, I would cover the side of the boat with blankets and then lug the motor up a step ladder and horse it over the side onto the cockpit bench seat. This was usually accomplished with the assistance of one other person to stabilize the step ladder and keep me from dropping the motor. This particular Johnson motor weighs about 100 pounds and is not easy to hold with one arm while climbing a step ladder. If a hoist were available, the best bet would be to sling the motor and hoist it aboard.
In the absence of mechanical hoists and other apparatus, I found that the simple two by four frame show in the photographs below permitted me to drag the motor out of my basement where it spends the winter, get it onto a wheel barrow, cart it to the car, drag it into the trunk of my car, drive to the marina, drag it out of the trunk, drag it to the boat, lean it up against the side of the boat, and then shove the entire thing up and onto my boat all by myself.
The process may sound slow but in the absence of helpers, it can all be done alone and safer than handling the motor by itself. The only mechanically demanding parts of the operation are placing the motor onto the frame fixture and removing it to lower it into the boat's motor well. Maybe this will give other boaters who have few helpers available some ideas for rigging up similar devices to avoid personal injury or mechanical damage when handling a small outboard. The frame helps to protect the motor and provides something stable to grasp for easy handling.
All images are courtesy of the author.
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