Wondering how many annual engine hours Offshore guides, commercial fishermen or anyone that uses their boat frequently rack up on their outboard engines. Also at what point is it necessary to re-power ?

When i re powered, i had a 200 hp optimax. Had 845 hours on it. The guy i sold it to has put a little over 150 on it since. Still runs fine.
Using fuel conditioner treatments, and a little maintenance goes a long way.
Yes there always a chance something could break, Thats why its called
B, bring
O. Out
A. Another
T. thousand

The guides and commercial fishermen here will routinely put at least a thousand hours a year on a motor. A hard working crab boat will double that.
Now, the interesting part is, they'll usually run a motor five+years. How is this possible?

My observation on a lot of trade in motors, and owners of said motors, the shortest living outboards are the ones that were babied from the beginning. Broken in by the book, never see max rpms, etc etc. It goes against logic, but the results speak for themselves.

That is great information.
Thanks Guys

This depends on a LOT...is this a 2 stroke? A diesel? A 4 stroke? How many hours were spent idling? How well was the motor maintained?

4 strokes, if well maintained, can easily go 2500-3000 hours. My bay boat as an example is a 2012 and I bought it new...it has just over 300 hours on the F150 Yamaha.
Most offshore fishermen keep their motors running while offshore. If they're doing a lot of trips to the floaters (120+ miles out), chances are that much of the run time on the motors is at idle.
If they run bay trips or snapper trips, there may be more run and gun type fishing.
Most newer motors have diagnostic logs where you can see how the motor was run.

I had over 4,000 hours on the original Tohatsu 90 on my scooter. Thank goodness you can’t get arrested for outboard abuse or I’d be in jail. That thing drank a lot of mud over it’s life.

But I ran quality oil (never Wally oil) and fresh fuel and replaced the impeller every year. Babied? Not even.

But there’s not much simpler than a carb two stroke, if this Yamaha lets go I’m in a bind a four stroke will sink this boat.

A guide on Sabine lake told me he had 1400 hours on a 250 Suzuki (real common motor down there). It ran fine.