July is a month of celebration. It’s the celebration of the country and the people who serve in the military and emergency services. A sincere thank you for your support. Those of us that have not served don’t really understand what it’s like. My father-in-law spent four years as a prisoner of war in Germany. The stories he told (and didn’t tell) do not give us half of what it was really like. This time of year reminds us to show support for the people and products that were developed to help them in their service to our country.

My search started by looking for military inventions that we use in recreational boating. Things such as GPS technology, duct tape, sonar, etc. all started as military products and then they were filtered down to everyday use in boating, cars and such. I found a couple but then I got sidetracked by a few outboard engine details.

Anyway, apparently the first inflatable life jacket was designed in 1928 by a guy named Peter Markus. The original design was used by Air Force pilots. It was a perfect vest for them in the cockpit of their planes because it took up very little room but could then be used if they needed to ditch in the water. Apparently, that’s where the nickname “Mae West” vest came from because of how it looks after it was inflated. I think of “Mae West” jackets as the typical orange life preservers we see in today’s boat supply stores.

I do have inflatable life jackets that I bought when we were sailing. They were compact and made me feel comfortable knowing that if I was ever tossed overboard I could be kept afloat. I bought the manual system, which meant if I was knocked out I was still in trouble, but I probably should have had the automatic version for sailing.

Disclaimer: I have not been able to confirm the following but it is said that the “Naval Surface Warfare Center’s Panama City Division” designed and patented the quick release outboard motor mount. This would allow a person to quickly and easily attach or detach an outboard boat motor to the boat. This was supposedly for the Navy Seals, but again, the Internet is full of stories.

On a side note, the rest of the following items were not military developments. Just cool tidbits of information.

Most pontoons use outboards with a few pontoons having electric fishing motors. It appears the first electric trolling motor was designed around 1934 by a guy named O. G. Schmidt. He relocated the business to Fargo, N.D., which was close to the Minnesota-North Dakota border. Hence the name Minn Kota Manufacturing and Minn Kota trolling motors.

When I was a kid, a big boat in our dealership was maybe 20 or 22 feet long. And usually, the biggest outboard was an Evinrude 90 horsepower V4. But as the boats increased in size, bigger outboards were needed. Around 1975 both Mercury and OMC (which was Evinrude and Johnson at the time) came out with V6 outboards. OMC engines were the first 200hp outboards available to the public.

Mercury designed a 300hp V6 in 1979, but it was 1982 before it was available to the public which was good because no one had a boat designed to handle that much outboard horsepower. Typically boats with that much power were inboards or inboard outboards. Which brings up another tidbit. The first sterndrive was designed by Jim Wynne in 1959 and was called the Volvo Penta Aquamatic.

In 1984, OMC developed the first V8 outboards and in 2004 Mercury introduced the Verado line of supercharged outboards with horsepower from 200 to 275.