Preventing & Mitigating Injuries and Fatalities from Outboard Motors Flipping into Boats: Methods & Technologies Chart
As our list of outboard motors striking submerged objects and flipping into boats continues to grow, and we see no response, we thought we would provide a chart of methods and technologies that have been proposed to help prevent the problem, mitigate the injuries, and speed the recovery of survivors.
We hope this chart will stimulate discussion, encourage action, and help prevent some of these accidents in the future.
The chart is a very large pdf chart, best viewed on a very large monitor. It shows the various time intervals across the top and the groups that could assist down the left side. The matrix is then completed by filling in what each group or entity could do during each time interval to help prevent and mitigate injuries and fatalities from these accidents.
Mitigating injuries & fatalities from outboard motors flipping into boats
About a week after we posted this chart, we completed a paper reviewing ways outboard motors could be prevented from entering boats. It lists many technologies, methods, and approaches for those trying to address this issue. The paper is titled, Approaches to Prevent Outboard Motors from Flipping Into Boats after Striking Floating or Submerged Objects.
Last Thursday night to young guys in their 30’s hit something submerged and the motor flipped into the boat and broke bones and cut them bad. Many surgeries ahead for both. It was a mercury. Don’t know what model it is yet. We’d like to know as much information as we can.
Thanks for the information. We are aware of that accident and have assembled numerous news clips and a forum comment on it. I have not yet added it to our online flipped in lists but will do so soon. One article with about the most facts we have seen is the Duluth News Tribune 6 August 2022. https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/news/local/2-severely-injured-in-rainy-lake-boat-mishap We have seen a large Mercury outboard prominently featured in some of the news coverage but that one looks like it is still on the boat and may just be a generic outboard image. We speculated earlier that it might be a Walleye boat and later found a thread in Walleye Central titled “Accident Injures Two on Rainy Lake” but it does not confirm it to be a walleye boat.