An ode to the outboard motors of yore.
INHERENT TO THE EXISTENCE OF ANY MOTOR IS A MYSTICAL COMBINATION OF HOPE, FRUSTRATION, SATISFACTION AND GLORY, WITH EQUAL PARTS UNPREDICTABILITY AND RELIABILITY IN THE MIX.
I visited coastal communities to photograph these particular motors with this idea in mind: that these motors, in one way or another, were intrinsic to a wave of exploration that opened up remote coasts to the solo mariner in the 20th century. Others in the past have travelled and explored the world’s coastlines by canoe, by paddle or by sail, like the masterful Polynesian seafarers who first navigated their way to Aotearoa New Zealand. More recently, though, for smaller outings around the headland or a quick rip across the channel, these small outboards surely coaxed baymen and townies alike beyond the range of most human-powered craft.
I see purpose and determination in the design of these outboards. They resemble willing droids. Some are adept and reliable, like an R2-D2, keen to help. Others are like C-3PO: clumsy and bumbling, overly complicated, inevitably leading to danger, frustration and disappointment.
Some of the motors I photographed were heavily used, worn out, seized, dead. Others were nearly 100 years old and yet restored to minty near-new condition. Most had been properly abused for hundreds, if not thousands, of soggy nautical hours until they had sputtered to obsolescence, their histories written in dents, scratched paint, and dinged props. Today, they are destined for nowhere but a dusty barn, a scrap metal recycler, a curiosity at a boat show, or a listing in the Antique Outboard Motor Club classifieds. Their aquatic jig in the brine has long ago expired.
These images are a nod to both the engineers and designers of those times, and to solo mariners and their curiosity about what lay around the next headland – an odd lens through which to remember. And while they are inanimate objects unable to verify tales of gigantic fish landed or lost, these motors were there, and that is a fact.
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Words and Images: Ilja Herb
