The Leash, an outboard motor tether initially introduced on this site in February 2016, continues to win over an often skeptical audience.

In July 2025, The Leash announced another milestone. Phoenix Boats, a well known builder of premium bass boats, added The Leash as a factory installed option.

Phoenix Bass Boats now offer The Leash as a Factory Installed Option.

Testimonies and Credibility

The Leash continues to build credibility. Testimonies are piling up.

Personally, my favorite was Mike Wilkins talking about an incident in a high school fishing tournament.

Anther was the November 2024 feature article in Bassmaster.

A “Leash on Life” Bassmaster November / December 2024 issue.

While still around, skeptics continue to fade away in the presence of multiple “saves”. Repeatedly, bass boat operators running The Leash have lived to tell their stories. While non-leash accidents leave a wake of critical injuries and occasional fatalities.

Has The Industry Reached an Inflection Point?

Phoenix currently sells their bass boats with Mercury, Yamaha, and Suzuki outboard motors. All three marine drive manufacturers have avoided the use of tethers on production boats for many years.

Below, we go through the history of the industry’s efforts to defend themselves when outboard motors break off and flip into boats.

Early Defenses Began to Wither Away

A decade ago or more ago, when the unthinkable did happen, some outboard manufacturers denied it had ever happened before. At least one said it might not have even of happened this time.

The next time around they called them “freak accidents”. But that was hard to do in the face of:

(1) The 1953 Mercury Film Archives video of the Winnebagoland Outboard Marathon where tethers are seen on outboard motors built by multiple manufacturers, or

(2) The 1957 Mercury testing video showing an outboard motor striking a log and flipping into the passenger seat, or

(3) The 1972 Coast Guard article encouraging bass boat owners to tether their outboards with a chain inside a rubber hose to prevent “outboard flipped in” accidents like the one the Coast Guard recently experienced, or

(4) The lengthy list of “flipped in” accidents we began to publish.

One early approach was trying to say they had done enough or at least done all they could do.

Phoenix 721ZXL promotional image with Mercury Pro XS outboard

Relied on Log Strike Tests

They tried to rely on their log strike testing programs. But, with kinetic energy being related to the square of boat speed, failure to test at actual bass boat speeds quickly became a problem.

Manufacturers said their log strike testing programs were sufficient to stop the problem. But, failures continued to happen. Log strike testing has normally been performed as a durability test. Testing on dry land projecting objects at the outboard motor fails to incorporate the forward momentum of the outboard motor. Testing on dry land rarely if ever results in outboard motors breaking off at the bottom of their upward swing and entering boats. Outboard manufacturers did not and do not FailSafe impact test their tournament outboards at bass boat speeds.

Log strike tests began to crumble as a defense. The industry said they have no ideas for improving their existing log strike systems. They said if we started making one part bigger and stronger, something else would break.

Once Mercury presented to dredging companies saying they need to properly mark the location of dredging pipes. That was a great thing to do, but countless other floating and submerged objects remain.

Our Products Meet All Industry Standards

All industries try to rely on “our product meets all industry standards.” In the boating industry, most standards are set by the American Boat and Yacht Council (ABYC) in conjunction with the National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA). ABYC sets VOLUNTARY standards. Voluntary standards have been described as the lowest bar everybody can agree on. Once set, the NMMA offers “NMMA Certified” ratings to boats that meet those voluntary standards.

Confirming to ABYC standards has prevented many accidents over time. However, they are slow to be established and typically set a low bar.

If an industry is trying to avoid calling attention to an issue, they can just ignore the issue.

For example, in the instance of outboard motors breaking off and flipping into boats: there are no ABYC standards for log strike testing, for warnings on this hazard, for jack plates, for transoms, for preventing outboard motors from entering boats, for killing outboard engines before they flip into boats, for tethers to prevent their entry, or for monitoring accidents involving their products.

It is pretty easy to conform to all industry standards when none apply.

Plaintiff lawyers quickly destroy this legal defense with questions like:

1. Do any of these standards apply to outboard motors breaking off and flipping into boats?

2. Have you ever brought this issue up at one of the standards meetings? Why not?

All Other Manufacturers Do it the Same Way We Do

Mirroring your competitors places you at risk of not responding to significant hazards. Those risks and the results of not responding can be exposed in a fatal legal case. Other similar accidents will be discovered. The jury will not like you. A large award will cause your band of brothers to run for cover. Everybody will quickly address the problem.

A few examples are: off throttle PWC steering, 3 wheel ATVs, ag tractor rollovers without ROPS, and swimming pool drains.

The Spatial Geography Defense

Outboard motors breaking off and flipping into boats happens in diverse locations. Few locations see them on a regular basis.

While the industry was able to hide behind geography a while, with so many of these accidents tied to bass tournaments and to well known pro bass anglers, the media and the bass boat forums now cover these accidents. They even cover some of the legal cases.

Some even cover The Leash.

The cat is out of the bag.

We Have Exhausted All Possible Improvements

Outboard motor manufacturers said they have no ideas of how to improve their existing methods. But, we pointed out they had patented multiple improvements but never implemented them. Some of these patents specifically talk about outboard motors breaking off and flying into boats.

Somehow they must have missed our 2013 paper, Approaches to Prevent Outboard Motors From Flipping Into Boats After Striking Floating or Submerged Objects. It was later updated several times. Supplement #1 was published in November 2020. Together they provided over 225 pages of proposed solutions. The “We exhausted all possible improvements” excuse no longer held water.

Increasingly Turned to Warnings as a Defense

Manufacturers said, we warn against the hazard. But, they only had some instructions in the manual, no warnings. No warnings were on the vessel or the outboard motor. Now years later, some manufacturers place warnings in the operators manual. We still have yet to see a warning placed on bass tournament outboards or on the boats themselves.

Outboard Can Flip Into Boat warning 2 Created by Propeller Safety as a possible example

Defending Not Using The Leash

Outboard manufacturers said they had not heard of or investigated The Leash. Then they said they had no test data on The Leash and did not know how to test it. They never even spoke to “The Leash”. But, several Pro Anglers of factory teams were running The Leash in major tournaments. They were even being supported by outboard manufacturer’s traveling service crews. The last thread of this defense broke when their company’s own pro anglers began testifying of and promoting The Leash.

Some outboard manufacturers tied on their own outboard motors during on water testing.

One industry expert witness testified about how safe it was to tie marine drives on during testing. The boats just glided to a stop if the drive broke off.

Mercury Marine patented and manufactured thousands of outboard motors with a tether in the past. Suzuki patented outboard tethers in the past.

Outboard motor manufacturers “litigating tested” propeller guards. Every propeller guard they ever tested except their own failed. Given that history, maybe they were unable to fail The Leash. If they did fail it, one thinks they would be telling the world about it.

Finding Someone Else to Blame

They needed to lay the blame somewhere else.

Alcohol / intoxication was their old friend in many accidents. Just say the operator was intoxicated and rest your case. But, alcohol is almost never present in outboard motor flipped into the boat accidents.

They blamed tournament anglers for excessive speed, lack of a lookout, running fast in shallow water, running in rough water, knowing debris could be floating or hiding under the water, and running in poor light. But, their own brochures, videos, and media images not only showed, but emphasized these conditions.

Big Air photo 16 by Shaye Baker at 2016 Bassmaster Classic in Tulsa

A few times they were able to point to transom or jack plate failures. But, the industry never established any performance standard for transoms or jack plates. Thus, this approach may fall by the wayside as well.

Blame the Operator for Hitting Floating Debris

The industry said it was the boat operators fault for operating too fast in an area that might have floating or underwater debris or obstacles. But, the industry has admitted floating or underwater debris / obstacles could be anywhere. Under that premise, why would anyone want to purchase large, fast outboard motors? That discussion is not good for outboard motor or bass boat sales.

A couple times they tried to lay blame on whoever let the piece of debris get in the water in the first place. But, it is very hard to find what they struck, prove that is what they struck, and prove negligence of wherever it came from.

Blame Bass Tournament Organizations

One of the last groups standing for outboard motor manufactures to blame are organizations putting on bass tournaments. But, without those organizations, large outboard motors built for bass tournament fishing would not exist. The organizations will remain blameless from the industry for the foreseeable future. But, tournament organizations are taking the heat from some fishermen injured by large outboards coming into the boat and boat collisions. They blame things like encouraging speed, launching in darkness or partial darkness, launching with fog on the water, not holding safety meetings, and other issues. We suspect outboard manufacturers may be assisting tournament organizations in these legal matters, just like OMC and Mercury teamed up to fight propeller guard lawsuits years ago.

With Lack of Anyone to Blame, They Tried Some Excuses

They resurfaced an old propeller guard defense. Outboard manufacturers said there are a few thousand boat builders. They have no idea where or how their outboard motors are going to be used. Boat builders are at fault. They are the only ones who know what their engines are going to going to be used on and how they are going to be used. But, a huge percentage of tournament bass boats are built by just a handful of boat builders. The Bass Pro umbrella (White River Marine / Ranger/ Tracker / Nitro / Triton), Skeeter, and Phoenix make up a large percentage of annual tournament bass boat sales. Some drive manufacturers even station employees at these plants. When an outboard manufacturer sells a 250 horsepower outboard motor to Phoenix, they don’t have to wonder where and how it will be used.

Some say our outboards are as good as or better than everybody else. But, everybody else’s outboards are failing too.

They say no outboard motor manufacturer or bass boat builder currently sells or provides The Leash as standard or optional equipment.

Phoenix just wiped out that defense.

Chris Lane, one of few anglers running The Leash at the 2016 Bassmaster Classic

A Few Good Things

Major manufacturers of tournament bass boat outboard motors are at least conducting some sort of log strike tests.

While most outboard manufacturers patented two-stage outboard motor tilt cylinders long ago, Mercury finally put one into production on today’s large Four-stroke tournament bass boat outboards.

Mercury developed an aluminum alloy that can absorb more energy without remaining permanently stretched or breaking.

Several manufacturers of large outboard motors have patented technologies and approaches to reduce the number of outboard motors flipping into boats. Some have patented systems and methods to detect objects in the water and avoid them, or prepare for impact, or control the hydraulic tilt cylinder in real time during impact.

Long ago, many patented approaches to kill the engine when debris was struck or the outboard motor flipped up into the air. More methods have since been developed.

Several marine technology firms rallied around the recent whale – boat speed limit issue off the East Coast. They demonstrated identifying objects in the water.

Gradual product improvements over the years have generally made things a little better.

If your tournament bass outboard motor manufacturer has made additional significant improvements, please contact us and we will list them here.

We commend the industry for their efforts and encourage them to place greater importance on preventing these accidents.

What’s Next?

It will be interesting to see what the industry does next. Will they consider the use of tethers, attack Phoenix, explore other approaches, or stay with the status quo. Time will tell.