Visit the author's website - Buckeye Bassin'
What Every Tournament Angler Needs to Know:
How to Manually Trim your Outboard
by
Thomas Hack
This may be a fundamental idea for some fisherman, but you would be surprised with the number of tournament anglers that do not know how to perform this task when needed. This could spell disaster for any day on the water, but it could be a major catastrophe on a tournament day. This past summer, I found out the hard way. I was a co-angler in a BFL event on Lake Erie, and the Mercury outboard of my boater just trimmed up and wouldn’t trim down (My only reasoning was that the water in the battery compartment because there was a lack of a working bilge pump, shorted the trim relay). To make a long story short, the makes of a promising day ended very abruptly. I tried to remedy the situation, but I wasn’t familiar with a Mercury’s manual release. As boaters in draw tournaments, we need to be familiar with the operation and safety mechanisms for our rigs completely.
When you are just idling along or just fishing, and for no normal reason your outboard trims up/down like it has a mind of its own, the problem is with one of your trim relays (see figure 1). The location of these relays varies among manufacturers, so use your owner’s manual to identify their position. The times that this has happened to me, the outboard trimmed up as far as it would go, high and dry. This is a bad predicament because you can’t use the outboard until you remedy the situation. You have two relays, one for up and another for down.
Figure 1
I always carry a spare in the boat. Only one is needed
because they are identical. Remove the hood off of your outboard and isolate
which one is causing the problem. How is this done? Remember, your trim is
acting on its own and is running, so you will hear it. The relays are very much
like electrical plugs, so you can pull them one at a time until you hear the trim
stop. If you carry a spare, switch the bad relay with a good one.
If you don’t have a spare, you can still get your outboard down (if it is stuck in the up position). To do this, isolate the bad relay like mentioned before, and then place the good one on the opposite terminal. Trim the outboard down, then immediately remove it and place it back on the original terminal. You will not be able to trim your outboard up, but at least you have your outboard in a position where you can use it and get back in! If you don’t remove it, you risk ruining this relay as well (just ask my boater) if you accidentally hit the trim when the co-angler in the boat told you not to!
Okay, so you fried both trim relays and your outboard is stuck in the up position, what do you do now? All outboards have a “Manual Release” valve. On OMC outboards, it is printed clearly on your outboard’s mounting bracket (see figure 2). This makes it pretty much idiot-proof (sometimes I need all the help I can get).
Figure 2
Be sure you know where the location of the
manual release valve before your next outing. As in my case, I didn’t know
where Mercury’s are located. Consult your owner’s manual or your
authorized dealer.
To
release the outboard down, simply place a heavy-duty screwdriver and gently
turn to release the tension (Did I say screwdriver? I will be writing a future
article on proper tools and accessories necessary in the boat).
Just familiarize yourself with the above steps and how to perform these functions on your boat and you would be prepared when and if it happens. Don’t be one that learns safety precautions by accident; be prepared!
Contact
the author:
or
Copyright © 2002 by Thomas E. Hack. All rights reserved.
Revised: 30 Nov 2002 19:44:15 -0500.