In our continuing coverage of large outboard motors breaking off and flipping into boats it is obvious that most incidents in recent years involve bass boats.

Some reasons are obvious: bass boats run fast, bass anglers are in a hurry in bass tournaments, and bass hang out in shallow water. However this paper digs much deeper into the issues.

It suggests the convergence of the bass tournament industry, the conditions present in bass tournaments, and boat & outboard motor manufacturers that created modern bass tournaments had the unintended consequence of bringing together conditions necessary for large outboard motors to strike submerged objects, break off, and flip into boats.

Note: this paper is about 5 MB in size and best viewed on a tablet or desktop computer.

click icon above to view latest pdf version of paper
Note paper is about 5 MB in size

Appendix I of the paper provides a detailed description of how large outboard motors can break off bass boats and flip into them.

The chart below summarizes much of the paper above and appears in it as Figure 22.

click chart to see pdf version