Which Small Outboard is Most Reliable

[Lin Pardey]

Five years ago we bought a 2.5 yamaha longshaft four cycle outboard and used it on our Fatty Knees tender. It worked well for one season. We then stored it carefully on board Taleisin and sailed south. It began giving us a lot of grief. The manufacturer replaced the carburetor at no cost. But still the bloody thing has never worked well, always seems to be carburetor based problems. Makes us glad we never really needed it, just used it for pleasure. But now we have a little trailer sailor we want to take up some rivers around here so we want to replace it - don't want another dud. Any thoughts on the best small outboard - must have a long shaft model available.

Hope to see some of you this summer, we'll be at Annapolis and a few other places doing seminars to introduce our new DVD program and help raise some funds for CRAB (Chesapeake Regional Accessible Boating).