"The... Evinrude rowboat motor ... had a wooden 'knuckle buster' starting knob on the flywheel"
The Practical Encyclopedia of Boating
Ole Evinrude (1877-1934) did not invent the first outboard motor. However, his was the first to achieve great commercial success. He built his first motor in 1907, received a patent for the device in 1911, and by 1913 the Evinrude Detachable Row Boat Company was selling almost 10,000 outboard motors a year.
Some consider the inventor of the outboard motor to be Cameron B. Waterman, who received a patent for his version in 1907. In 1905, he had attached a propeller to a motorcycle engine and hung it off the back of a rowboat. But Waterman was not the first inventor either—the American Motors Company had built a "portable boat motor with reversible propeller" as early as 1896.
Whoever the original inventor, the outboard motor revolutionized pleasure boating. Typical outboard motors propel boats at 9 miles per hour (15 kph)— about three times the speed of rowing. The outboard motor also acts as a rudder to steer the boat, and tere is plenty of water for cooling, simplifying the design of the engine and lowering the cost. Outboard motors are much cheaper than built-in motors and are light enough to be carried from one boat to another.
More than fifty companies began making outboard motors between 1910 and 1930, and by the 1950s, more than 500,000 outboard motors were being sold each year.
