[m&mmariah]

Let's say, hypothetically, that somebody is launching their boat. The have it off the trailer and in the lake. It's a busy day at the ramp, so to be polite and considerate of all the others waiting to launch, they want to hurry up and pull away from the dock. They fire up the engine, let it idle for about 20 seconds, then notice the the trim gauge is in the full up, trailering position. They then quickly lower it. If this situation were to happen, just for the sake of discussion , would there be much damage to anything? If they boated for the next four hours without any problems or unusual outdrive noises, would everything probably be ok? Just asking in case something like this ever happened, in the future, of course!

[ShabahZ280]

For a short period of time, it should be OK. Anything more than say 5 minutes or so, I'd start to worry. Operating the drive in the trailer position puts extreme stress on the u-joints and all the other flexible parts.

[indykoch]

Good to hear YOU didn't actually do this... just wondering for future possibilities, right?

If it's not in gear, there shouldn't be any problems. The only thing to worry about would be whether the water pick-up is low enough to get water in. Most boats I've seen are still plenty low, but that's really the only thing happening in the drive during idle. No moving parts other than the impeller sucking water.

However, Chris is exactly right when it's in gear. There's a lot of stress on those parts at that trim position. But shouldn't hurt if only for a few seconds.

So, hypothetically, you should be in the clear since it hasn't even happened yet!

[m&mmariah]

Wow, I feel---uh, I mean if somebody should do this, they should feel reassured that they didn't do any damage to the outdrive. BTW, we hypothetically checked to see if the water intake was still submerged when the outdrive is fully raised....It was, so no impeller damage.