From Docksider Reports:

http://www.docksidereports.com/small...ety_at_sea.htm

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Generally speaking, small boats such as outboards are far less sea
worthy than larger boats because:

The transoms are either wide open or cut down.
The cockpits are wide open, the freeboards are lower.
They have smaller and fewer bilge pumps, often only one.
They have smaller and fewer batteries.
Cockpit decks are not water tight.
Control cables have holes in liners that allow a lot of water entry.
Outboards have all the engine weight at the stern, making them stern
heavy.
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Further on, same source:

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Were I a lawyer, I could make a hell of a good legal argument that
boats that meet this description are not seaworthy to be out in the
ocean. But hundreds of them are out there every day and only a handful
of them meet with calamity. So why don't more of them founder? Mainly
due to dumb luck. It takes the right circumstances at the right time
to create the disaster. Like that loose bilge pump wire I mentioned
earlier.

One of those circumstances is when the fisherman stops and puts his
stern to the waves. Water is sloshing over the transom and what he is
not realizing is that the bilge is slowly filling up with water
through all those holes and leaks. It doesn't take much water in the
bilge before the hull looses enough buoyancy that one bigger wave
comes over the transom and fills up the cockpit. At this point, the
sheer weight of the water has turned moderate leakage into the hull
into cascades of water. The hull is now even lower in the water and
the next wave is the coup de gras.
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Be careful out there, especially the LTs among us.