Outboard Motor

An outboard motor is a self-contained propulsion unit for boats, combining an engine, gearbox and propeller or jet drive in a single assembly mounted on the outside of a boat's transom, and it is the most common motorized way of propelling small watercraft, providing steering as well as thrust because the whole unit pivots to change the direction of push. The French engineer Gustave Trouve designed the first known outboard motor, a small electric unit, around 1870 and patented it in May 1880, and gasoline-powered outboards followed a few decades later: a Michigan-built design begun in 1903 sold thousands of units under the name Porto-Motor by 1914, and the Norwegian-American inventor Ole Evinrude created the most commercially successful early outboard motor in 1909. Evinrude's design and its many descendants made outboard power practical and affordable for small boats, and outboard motors remain the dominant propulsion choice for such craft today.