FITTING OUT APPUSKIDU
Engine
As with the bumpkin, I found on the Coaster that bits of the engine were inconveniently placed. The items listed below work for me on my Mercury (Mariner/Nissan/Tohasu) 6HP four stroke long shaft outboard and may or may not be applicable to other engines.
24 Engine Stand
The engine lives in the garage in the winter and a suitable
stand was needed. The result was made 
up
of bits of 
timber
that were to hand plus a couple of old door hinges and a handful of coach bolts.
The dummy transom is mounted at a similar angle to the Drascombe motor mount so that the engine will sit upright when transferred from the boat to the stand. It is made just wide enough to allow the toggles on the motor’s mounting bolts to turn freely when tightening the engine onto the stand. This makes the stand as narrow as practical. The sloping braces are fixed at the top with hinges. In the Summer when the engine is on the boat, the coach bolts at the bottom of the braces can be undone and the braces folded flat. The foot pieces are attached by coach bolts driven from the side so that they too will swivel up and fold flat making a small package that can go away until next lay up.
25 Gear lever
The
gear lever was brought to the front of the engine with a rod made from a piece
of heavy plastic 
conduit
tubing bolted through the hole in the lever that is provided for the regular
remote controls. The front of the tubing is supported by an iroko
block bolted to the front remote control mounting and the front end of the
tubing is finished with a wooden handle. The length of the extension is limited
by the need to be able to turn a partly tilted engine without fouling the deck.
It is accepted that the engine can now be fully tilted only if it is set
straight ahead or fully to left or right.
John Hother thought this was a good idea too and the picture on the right shows how he has achieved the same result on his Lugger using different materials. (It also shows his lowered motor mount).
26 Tilt lock
Releasing the tilt lock to lower the engine is not a
convenient operation when you are still doing several knots under sail and are 
single
handed, trying to steer and need the engine running as you pass through a
hazardous area.
It is now facilitated by a cord which passes from the tilt lock lever over a deck eye fixed inside the transom and back to the mizzen mast mount. The motor can now be quickly dropped into operating position when needed without having to grovel around under the engine. The tilt lock lever is not of large enough diameter to accept a hole large enough for the cord to be attached directly. The solution is to drill the lever with a small diameter drill and fit a “stainless keyring” of the type used to secure clevis pins, then attach the cord to that.
27 Shallow water drive
I have disabled this useful half way tilt position altogether. The reason is that when the boat is going faster than the engine is driving - when motor sailing and surfing down following seas - the motor is kicked up by the water flow under the boat. The motor then clicks into shallow water drive position and stays there with the engine racing and the prop dipping in and out of the water. If the motor is released the problem immediately recurs. Older outboards had a manual reverse lock catch which would work well in this situation but progress and automation have again taken a wrong turn so that you can’t lock the motor down .
A piece of dowel in the shallow water drive slot prevents this problem at the cost of losing the half tilted position which is so useful in shallow water. If anyone has an idea on how to turn the reverse lock into a tilt lock which will allow the best of both worlds please let me know.