A 21 May, 2012 Yamaha UK press release titled “Professional and Commercial Users Now Powered by Yamaha in the UK” includes Yamaha’s small outboards for swift water applications. Among the small outboard’s accessories are “a new design of propeller guard, shaped to give greatest strength, with minimum water-flow disturbance to the propeller giving maximum performance when required.”

“For shallow and unpredictable conditions, a Plastic Prop Guard or stainless steel Deflector Guard will assist in limiting the chance of foreign objects fouling the propeller. In addition, these guards aid control of water flow from the propeller and can increase thrust at low RPM.”

The accompanying Yamaha Pro UK literature (partially copied below) notes propeller guards are now available for all Yamaha outboard models.

Yamaha UK Pro Outboard Accessories

We salute Yamaha for making propeller guards available on their outboards.

We note the Yamaha UK Pro product literature purely targets protecting the propeller and increasing performance. However, even this is vast change from the U.S. boating industry’s public stance that guards don’t work, cause problems, we will void your warranty if you use one, will damage propellers instead of protect them, decrease performance, cause harm to drives, create drive structural issues, etc.

Update on Yamaha Propeller Guard

Shortly after posting our coverage of this new propeller guard, Yamaha removed all public references to its existence.