Harness for lifting the outboard motor broke

[Akapeterc]

I had the buckles on the straps that hold my 15 hp 4 stroke break while lifting my outboard motor onto my tender yesterday resulting in it getting drowned. Got it going now. I would like some ideas on what people use as an appropriate bridle around there outboard please.

[bmm32005]

Were the buckles sun damaged? Mine start to get a lighter color and I change them out.

[robert sailor]

i always had a safety line attached in case that happened. sure bugger up your day esp with a 4 stroke

[Vasco]

Make a harness out of good 3/8 or 1/2 inch line.

[Jim Cate]

G'Day A,

I made ours out of one inch tubular nylon climbing webbing, hand stitched with heavy waxed dacron twine. It consists of two main loops, one fore and one aft, joined with a stitched strap on one side and a strap with a nylon buckle on the other side. The buckle does not take much of the lifting strain, but rather keeps the two load bearing loops from sliding off the engine, but allowing the harness to be installed/removed when required to open the hood of the motor. . It is now about 10 years old, the red dye has faded away on the sun exposed side and I'm sure that there has been some degradation of strength. However, the load is spread amongst 4 bits of webbing and the original breaking strength is something like 1000 kg, so I reckon that there is heaps of overkill left. Sure hope so, anyway!!

Out of curiosity, how deep in the mud did your motor plunge? The silt on the bottom of the lake is soooo soft!

Good onya for getting it going again, BTW. Bet some harsh language was used...

Cheers,

Jim

[Akapeterc]

It happened in rose bay in Sydney harbour. I was lucky that my young bloke was able to hold the handle of it until I got down to the tender to lift it out of the water. Couldn't believe it when I looked down to see him holding the throttle handle. Don't know how he managed to catch it. It was under water but at least it didn't go to the bottom. We were in 4 metres of water. Cheers

[SkiprJohn]

Lucky you caught it. That's quite a lot of weight and I'd not use buckles of any kind for that purpose. Snap shackles might be a better solution. Just a thought.

[Jim Cate]

Wow, to have the strength and reflexes of the young. Good on him... is one of his arms now several inches longer than the other?

Hope that you bought him a libation of his choice later in the day!

Good story!

Jim

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by SkiprJohn

Lucky you caught it. That's quite a lot of weight and I'd not use buckles of any kind for that purpose. Snap shackles might be a better solution. Just a thought.

John, as mentioned above it is easy to design a harness where the buckle does not bear the weight of the engine. IMO, replacing a one dollar buckle that is designed to work with flat webbing with a 30+ dollar snap shackle that is not would be a bad move!

Jim

[SkiprJohn]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

John, as mentioned above it is easy to design a harness where the buckle does not bear the weight of the engine. IMO, replacing a one dollar buckle that is designed to work with flat webbing with a 30+ dollar snap shackle that is not would be a bad move!

Jim

Yes, just a thought but obviously not a cheap solution. Cheaper still would be a knot.

[timor-bound]

Does anybody have pictures of a homemade harness? Our store bought is about to s#!t the bed and we would love to make one ourselves. I'm sure we could just copy the design, but if u've figured out a nifty way of doing it, please share.

[onestepcsy37]

I made one the way jim cates describes it. been using it for four years or more. don't know about you, but when I make something I tend to make it five times stronger than the same one you can buy at the chandlery...

[justlearnin]

Just a thought make it out of stainless steel cable.

[onestepcsy37]

stainless steel cable will cut into the metal (and worse, the plastic cover) of the outboard. even plastic covered (lifeline) cable might be damaging because it puts the strain on small points of the plastic cover. of course you could cover the cable with webbing, and maybe if you had a really heavy outboard the cable idea might be better.

webbing, a sailmakers sewing kit, and maybe a few (stainless) buckles and a stainless 2" ring. one evening, maybe two.

[eyschulman]

What I did was to use 3/8 line Dacron(soft) that would hold knots well. I experimented with the line making sure it would not slip off motor and made it so it stays on motor at all times unless I need to remove the cover. The basic shape follows the type sold for that purpose + additional pieces I thought would help. This may need to be different for different motors its just soft rigging the sort of thing sailors should be good at.