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Outboard Flipped Into Boat

Mercury Pro XS Fatal Flaw video: flipping into boat

“MERCURY PRO XS FATAL FLAW! ARE YOU AT RISK?” video was released on YouTube October 28, 2023. The video was produced by Team Marine Service, a La Crosse, Wisconsin based marine service & repair business. It focuses on recently manufactured Mercury Marine Pro XS outboard motors breaking off and flipping into boats. Andy Houser of […]

Monitoring outboard log strikes: Yamaha Patent Application

Yamaha’s U.S. patent application, “Collision Information Providing System, Collision Judging System, and Marine Vessel” was published October 12, 2023. Yamaha’s system classifies and monitors three different kinds of collisions. 1. Outboard motor / Marine drive collisions 2. Propeller collisions 3. Vessel collisions These types of collisions are monitored. They are classified. Their intensity is rated. […]

The Leash Saves Bass Angler From Outboard Motor

A bass angler was fishing on Santee Cooper Lake in South Carolina. His Mercury Pro XS outboard motor struck a floating log at about 55 miles per hour. The outboard motor broke off at the swivel bracket during the October 2023 accident. Several large Mercury outboard motor swivel brackets have failed, allowing the outboard to […]

OSCAR detects floating debris: avoid log strikes

The origins of OSCAR, a collision avoidance system for boats from Austria, unfolded when Raphael Biancale, a European automotive engineer and founder of the BSB Group, was returning from a 6 month sailing trip in 2013. He searched for ways a sailor could safely navigate at night. His work on intelligent systems for automobiles led […]

Design Chart to prevent outboard motors from flipping into boats – UPDATED Feb 2021

We updated our Design Chart to Prevent Outboard Motors From Entering / Flipping Into The Boat After Striking Submerged Objects today (3 February 2021). Primary additions include: Auto detection of floating or submerged hazards using sonar, radar, infrared, fish finders, depth finders, lasers, computer vision and other technologies combined with the potential to automatically take […]

Preventing Outboards Flipping in Boats: Supplement 1

We previously published, Approaches to Prevent Outboard Motors From Flipping Into Boats After Striking Floating or Submerged Objects, and twice updated this extensive list of approaches. Our last update was published in 2018. This time we published a separate 2020 supplement to the 2018 third edition of the report. Many new methods have come on […]

Suzuki patents outboard tether in Japan in 1992

In January 2016 The Leash was released as a means of preventing bass boat outboard motors striking submerged objects from breaking off and flipping into boats. Previous to The Leash we saw examples of individuals and one state government agency creating their own tethers. We found the Coast Guard recommending home built tethers on bass […]

The Leash awarded 2nd U.S. Patent

The Leash was awarded U.S. Patent 10,435,128 “Outboard Motor Tether” on October 8, 2019. This new patent enhances their patent portfolio increasing their level of patent protection beyond their earlier patent, U.S. Patent 9,771,136. The Leash, a tether to prevent outboard motors from breaking off and flipping into boats, continues to be a popular accessory […]

Rex Chambers passed 15 June 2019

We are sorry to learn of the passing of Rex Chambers, well known professional bass fisherman. He spoke out about outboard motors breaking off and flipping into boats after his May 2014 accident on Lake Wheeler in Alabama. In that accident, his 250 horsepower Mercury outboard came in on him and Danny Pettus. Both men […]

The Leash: Bassmaster Tournament: ACA outboard flipped into boat accident

American Christian Academy (ACA) of Tuscaloosa Alabama’s bass fishing team was fishing the 2019 Bassmaster Southern High School Open on Lake Guntersville (Alabama). Mike Wilkins tells the story on video above of how 295 boats took off that morning. Mike, his son Hunter Williams, and another high school angler, Jackson Elder, ran out about 45 […]