With temps over the weekend dipping to a frigid 12 degrees on the Rainy River in Northern MN now is the perfect time to share a video that shows boaters how avoid the pitfalls of using a boat and outboard in cold temps.
Good tips James. Glad you covered the life jacket. Very important any time of year but more so this time of year. A couple of additional safety steps I have started to do is having a second throw cushion in the boat in case more than one person goes over the side. The other I need to get back in the habit of doing and that is a quick run down of safety equipment and how to operate the boat in case the driver goes in. Very important if those you are fishing with are not very familiar with boats or your boat.
Thank you, James, for posting this. I especially appreciated hearing the mechanic explain that we should not run our outboards even briefly to get the water out.
Tanks for sharing. I’m always learning something new from you fellas.
Thank you, James, for posting this. I especially appreciated hearing the mechanic explain that we should not run our outboards even briefly to get the water out.
The water pump housing he was holding in the video was melted so badly the water outlet port was completely plugged up with plastic from the housing itself. Unfortunately it really didn’t show up well in the video. I know guys that do run their motors for a short time after each trip that say they’ve never had issues. Tony asked me to start carrying a stack of his business cards so I could hand them out any time I see this done. In his opinion anyone doing it is on borrowed time.
Thank you, James, for posting this. I especially appreciated hearing the mechanic explain that we should not run our outboards even briefly to get the water out.
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+1 I usually kicked my motor over after getting it out of the water for a second when it is below freezing. I will stop doing that
thanks
I would imagine the person ran that motor out of the water for a long period of time. I’ll continue to hit the key for a short 2-3 seconds. Speeds up the drain time. I’m not concerned about excess heat building up in that short of a time period. Remember, that impeller is wet at that time, so there is some lubrication going on there. Plus its cold and there are no plastic parts in a Merc lower unit pump housing.
-J.
Very Good James.
If I can add one thing to your warm up point… not safety oriented, unless anxiety is considered as being dangerous. First time I hit pool 4, dropped in well below freezing temps, my outboard wouldn’t pee water. Couple minutes later, me still freaking out… someone at the dock said give it a while as it warms up… it has a thermostat. I never thought about that, and almost pulled the boat, thinking there was a mechanical failure. The boat motor will not pass water until the thermostat allows it to do so.
Without that person’s suggestion, I may have went five hours back home. Sure enough, it just took a while, and all was perfect.
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