I haven't managed as much time as I would like in the workshop so I decided that since our boat has been repaired after onlly 270 hours use (be wary of mercruiser 1.7turbo diesels!) whe have bought a mercury (daft I know...)4HP as an emergency standby.  I thought about all sorts of engineered solutions to lock the engine to the outboard bracket but in the end a stainless steel padlock fitted exactly!

However we like to have the outboard secured safely as well. Not locking in place but a chain or cable that loops around the bracket of both the engine and boat.  So a visit to the local chandlers produced a short end of stainless steel wire which was mine for the princley sum of £1.50 I thought that I could make up a couple of ends myself so headed back to the workshop.

After doodling for a while I thought I would keep it simple so turned up some ends that were then milled with an overlap and a 4mm tapped hole on one side and a countersunk clearance hole on the other. After silver soldering the ends and cleaning up we have a simple but strong cable with only half of the original piece used.

The picture below shows the finished article. If you want to knwo more about our fishing antics or the trouble with the engine then click here for the website link.