Re: transom saver
Dingbat has a point, the transom is made to withstand a beating. It probably will last many years without a transom saver, and the T/S might not extend it's useful life significantly.<br /><br />But although the transom will support the weight, it will flex with every bump, and weaken with every flex, and when trailering you have the trailer right there to absorb some of the shock, so why not use it. <br /><br />And, not only does the water absorb shock, as quantumleap so graphically illustrated, but at 40mph the motor is in the down position, and will exert vertical force, but not horizontal force like when it's tilted up for towing and the center of gravity is shifted out and away from the boat. Try to break a pencil by pushing the ends towards each other (not a sharpened pencil!). Now put your thumbs in the middle and push out against your fingers.<br /><br />That's just my perspective; wonder if the transom saver concept really has engineering data to back it up or if it's just one of those clever marketing ploys?
) And the boat is powered by a sustained net thrust with a large torsional moment (which the boat is designed for) which does not happen on the trailer. It is not a fair comparison between the two. Furthermore, it depends on the speed and surface in either case, as well as weight of the entire setup. Add trailer suspension variables to it to. Please do not ask me to come up with formulas and mathmatical explanations- I'll leave that to the real engineers and physicists. <br />Bottom line- 1. both have their stresses and strains. 2. Depends on how hard you hit.<br />3. Total forces might be greater while on the water, but forces while trailered may be much sharper at times. Quantum's point is well taken here. The boat will tolerate a level of each- but short duration impulses ARE significantly different in nature than a slower, drawn out force. Often, with many types of objects the sharper impulses do the greater damage. A lousy example might be dropping a light bulb from three feet onto concrete versus dropping it from six feet onto a cushion. Onto a cushion it will have a lot more energy total though the decelleration is much less intense- the impact is spread out over a longer period. <br />So the m-y wedge may slow the impulse and be helpful, though the transom is indeed still subject to pretty much the same total stress. I'm not sure if the hydraulic ram will be happy to take the force in its housing near the seals instead of the normal way, but it could actually work. The argument gets much more complicated than this, but I won't be trading off my transom saver (with rubber bumpers and spring inside) anytime soon.
