Personally, I've just had too many clamp-on outboards work loose. Unless you're swapping outboards with some other boat all the time, I would absolutely bolt it onto your Peeler.

   I know it's not fashionable but there are times when belt and suspenders is the way to go. When you see the stresses put on a motor and mount in sporty conditions and what would result if the whole thing came loose there is great comfort in knowing you've gone the extra mile. Do check the bolts from time to time.

   Never give a Navy guy a chance to tell a sea story AND fishing story - combined.  In the Navy we call this a "no shitter..."  Back in '82 as an Ensign at Orlando Nuclear Power School; several of us young studs decided to go fishing one weekend - drove to the Lone Cabbage Fish Camp (I just checked the web, looks like they are still in business!) to arrive in the wee hours before sunrise, rods, tackle boxes and beer cooler (full) in hands.  Luckily I brought my mask and snorkle, though I don't know why, just something I usually do around the water.  Did the rental boat thing and got underway.  We hadn't gotten very far before we discovered that our boat leaked really badly - no way we wanted to spend a day bailing constantly - so we quickly scooted back to the rental area to say "Hey!"  One of the good ol' boys working there decided the quickest way to get rid of us was to swap our motor onto a nearby boat.  While moving the gear between boats I did notice that the guy had trouble getting the mount clamps tight on the thinner transom, but being a resourceful dude he kicked off a flip-flop and put that under the clamps.  Away we went, thinking only of mega largemouths.

After battling one snake, a few fish, much sun and many beers, we found ourselves moving to a new location and zig-zagging though some weeds in the afternoon - at full throttle on the 15 hp or whatever it was.  The motor rocked up off of the transom, and the way it twisted the wrist of the guy who was driving (who was startled and tough enough to hold the motor for at least several seconds) the motor stayed on full throttle and tried to climb into the boat with us until he PURPOSEFULLY decided the better part of valor was to throw the thing away.  The hose popped of the gas tank and away went those viscious 15 horses. The world instantly went from screaming mayhem to D-E-A-D silence as we coasted to a stop, many miles from anywhere.

Not wanting to get charged for a lost motor, we rowed over to where it went down, and saw gas/oil bubbling up.  I screwed up my bravery (we'd seen our share of snakes and gators that day) put on my mask, held on to a fish stringer tied to the anchor line, and went down about 10 feet after the motor.  The bottom was so mucky and the water so coffee colored that I was litterally past my elbows in the goo before I felt the motor, but hooked a line to it on the first try.

We hoisted it up and were girding for the long row back to the camp when just at that time a Lone Cabbage airboat went by and we flagged it down.  They took the motor from us and said they'd be back in a while with another, so don't go far.  We just got back to the beer and the fishing, and sure enough, not long thereafter along came an airboat with a replacement motor and gas tank.

By the time we finished the day and got back to the camp, there was the good 'ol boy dude (IN MIS-MATCHED FLIP FLOPS!) just pulling the rope on our motor in the test run barrel.  He'd drained the cylinders, blew out the carb and cleaned it up and we got the "privelege" of seeing it start up.

Quite a day.  I've run many an outboard both before and since that day without through bolts because the motor was always being put on and off of various boats, but always did as Dad taught me - I put the clamps on tight, then use a long-shank lock between the two clamp levers so they can't be loosened.  But whenever the motor/boat is a fairly permanent combo, as this story might help to prove, I agree that a belt and suspenders approach is advisable.

While I'm on a roll.  Now about that time in the Med when there was an old Soviet derelict ship (rusty hammer and sickle on the stack) moored a few piers away and a few of us decided to sneak away from the burger cookout on the pier to go hunting souvenirs.  We discovered that the old Soviet lifeboats had both cans of water AND floating flame-flares in their safety kits, and they look much the same and nobody reads Cyrillic, but that once you pop the (wrong) top there's certainly a difference between the two... We all ran away around a bulkhead, but whatever it was didn't explode, and as we peeked back around the corner we noticed it was ready to catch the lifeboat cover on fire.  A brave fellow grabbed the thing from under the lifeboat where we'd inadvertantly set it off and thew it overboard.  We snuck back to the pier party.  As dusk was falling, several none-the-wiser shipmates started wondering why they were seeing flames reflected on the hull of the next ship over past the Soviet derelict.  Of course we had no idea (but hoped the thing would burn out soon, which it did).

Perhaps the moral of both stories is that there was too much (?) beer and testoterone involved, but combined with just enough luck and sense to keep thing from turning out too badly.

OK, I'm done for now.

   Previous post by Bubblehead.  When I write too much, with too many interruptions, I get logged out and the post goes unattributed. Maybe I should leave things that way :)

Now, there's a worthy story well told, Bubblehead.  Thanks for sharing.... <;-)

.....Michael

OK I'll do the bolt on (belt and suspenders) once I decide which motor will be permanent. And, yes, a threaded rod with nuts on each side of the clamps to keep them in place. 

Thanks for the story Bubblehead!

Charlie D