800 
FOREST AND STREAM 
The Purr of the Little Outboard Motor 
Hunters and Anglers Have Found That it Increases Their Range While 
Saving Endless Hours of Paddling or Rowing 
J UST about ten years ago, the first portable 
motor ever seen in this country was shown 
at a hotel in Detroit, Michigan, the prop¬ 
erty of a French traveler who had brought the 
motor from Bordeaux. Its appearance excited 
considerable interest among builders of gasoline 
motors, most of whom saw a big future for a 
motor of that type, to be constructed on im¬ 
proved lines. 
This first motor had a vertical cylinder and as 
might have been expected was both complicated 
and cumbersome. Several initial efforts to pro¬ 
duce a lighter and simpler type of outboard or 
portable motor, were more or less unsuccessful, 
until one manufacturer specialized on the type 
and produced what was probably the forerunner 
of the exact models of portable motors on the 
market to-day. 
The growth of this particular type of motor 
has been almost phenomenal. The improvements 
have been rapid and radical. The popularity of 
the portable motor has been established in less 
time and on a more solid basis than perhaps any 
other novelty of a similar class. To-day, there 
are more than twenty different makes of porta¬ 
ble motors and, for the most part, they are all 
reliable and will do what their manufacturers 
claim for them. 
The popularity of the portable moto» due 
to its adaptability. The average motor boat 
enthusiast is likely to lean toward a portable 
motor even though he may have a standard in¬ 
board engine installed in his pleasure cruiser, 
speed launch or runabout. The portable type is 
used as a tender and is often more extensively 
employed for attachment to small light open 
rowboats for fishing, hunting and “pottering 
around.” Its popularity has frequently led to 
misapplication of its limits. The concentration 
of from 2 to 5 h. p. within reasonable weight 
limits and on a general design of compactness, 
does not lend itself to robust construction. In 
the matter of speed, the portable motor is the 
equal of any other type of marine power, but 
they should not be employed on boats of heavy 
build and extreme breadth of beam nor on boats 
that are intended for heavy-duty purposes, al¬ 
though there is an inclination to impose condi¬ 
tions of this sort simply because the motors will 
frequently stand up under a strain they were 
never intended to provide for. 
In the earlier models, the sole idea was to ap¬ 
ply power in detachable form and in a portable 
design, so that the boating enthusiast might have 
at his command a mechanical pair of oars and 
enjoy the pleasure of boating, fishing and hunt¬ 
ing on the water, without the severe muscular 
strain necessary to the use of oars. The need 
of power of this sort was more particularly felt 
by vacationists whose muscular exertions were 
generally limited to vacation time. But the adap¬ 
tability of the portable motor to all kinds of 
boating requirements soon created a much wider 
field than was originally anticipated. The result 
of this has been a constant tendency, to improve 
the type, to expand its field and to build it in 
a variety of sizes and designs. It is questionable 
whether this tendency has not carried the por¬ 
table motor beyond its practical limitations. The 
main idea at first, was to build this type of motor 
within a weight limit that would permit of its 
being carried by the tourist or vacationist in a 
suitcase. The design has been extended to a 
horse-power scale that over-steps the bounds of 
portability, so that there is to-day a number of 
so-called portable motors weighing up to 150 
lbs. to 200 lbs. net and requiring a load capacity 
of more than the average man is capable of. 
Still, there is a growing demand for a detach¬ 
able type of motor without reference to its por¬ 
tability that undoubtedly justifies the building 
of that type in sizes up to 5 h. p. and even more. 
In successive years, the portable motor has 
been improved and developed until to-day it 
seems to have reached as nearly a point of per¬ 
fection as the laws of mechanics will permit. 
Some of the best known models on the market 
are equipped with high-tension magneto built 
into the flywheel of the motor, practically insur¬ 
ing a water-proof ignition system. Others are 
constructed on an adjustable bracket so that 
they may be installed or attached to boats of 
unusual stern-model, the propeller of the motor 
being adjusted to almost any position in the 
water that will allow of its operation. In other 
designs, detachable brackets have been produced 
so that the motor may be attached to the bracket 
itself and the latter appliance adjusted to fit al¬ 
most any shape or model of boat. In other 
models, a reversible propeller may be had, con¬ 
trolled by a lever operating in a ratchet-guide 
so that without changing the direction of the 
motor, its effective power may be exercised in 
different speeds forward or astern or the propel¬ 
ler thrown into neutral position. 
On nearly all the different models on the mar¬ 
ket, a simple spin of the flywheel is sufficient to 
start the motor and excite the magneto ignition 
system. There has been an insistent demand for 
a portable motor that would be practically self¬ 
starting, either by an electrical or a ratchet¬ 
spring device, and most of the boating maga¬ 
zines are now featuring a motor of that descrip¬ 
tion equipped with a pull-starter by means of 
which all cranking of the flywheel is done away 
with. 
Then there are two-cylinder portable motors 
from 2 to 5 h. p. furnished with gearless propel¬ 
ler shafts and still others with a variety of de¬ 
vices and appliances, all of which are aimed at 
flexibility of operation, simplicity of action and 
permanency of service. 
In a broad and general way, the portable 
motor may be regarded as a reliable, convenient 
power plant. Its popularity is established, it has 
“come to stay” and its uses are broadening with 
each boating season. 
Two facts should be kept in mind by the pro¬ 
spective purchaser of portable motors. One is 
that quality in this matter as in all other things 
of life is the foundation of price and that the 
manufacturers of outboard motors are too keenly 
alive to competition not to recognize that prices 
must be regulated by quality. You cannot get 
something for nothing in an outboard motor, any 
more than you can in other things that you have 
to buy. Still the price of the most expensive 
motor is so small comparatively that none need be 
deterred from the ambition to possess one. 
