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 flip into the boat.

The Leash is available from Precision Sonar. The Leash prevented this bass fisherman’s Mercury outboard from entering his Ranger boat and killing or maiming him.

Mercury Marine Pro XS outboard motor broke off Ranger boat and was restrained from flipping into the boat by The Leash

This swivel bracket broke horizontally across the top near the serial number tag, as seen below.
The Leash is in the lower part of the image. Part of The Leash’s cover came off during the accident (see the brown rope-like color).

Mercury Marine Pro XS outboard motor swivel bracket broke in Santee Cooper log strike

This bass fisherman used his trolling motor to get back to the boat landing and lived to fish another day.

See this Precision Sonar Facebook post for additional photos and details on this accident.

More Information on The Leash

More information and several great photos are available from Precision Sonar’s Facebook Page.

The image below shows two Mercury outboards with The Leash installed. Other methods of installation are now available.

The Leash: left and right views side by side

Rex Chambers and his fishing partner were injured in 2014 when they struck a submerged log. The 250 horsepower Mercury outboard motor broke off, and flipped into the boat still under power.

Rex later posted a video on his Facebook page about The Leash.

We liked his down home, straight forward talk and how he is able to speak from personal experience of the need to tether large outboard motors. He has since passed on, but was and continues to be bass fishing great.