This lady doesn’t need a man to take her out boating. She’s got woman’s best friend, an electric-start Evinrude Big Twin. And a dog. With Rover as her co-pilot she’s got a fun day on the water ahead. Heck, with a little training even the dog could fire up the outboard. I hope Milady brought enough Milk-Bones.

Evinrude first built electric-start outboard motors in 1930 with its 22-hp Speedtwin. The flip-of-a-switch system came with a 6-volt battery, a generator, and all switches and cables. It was expensive and never caught on. But by the 1950s, things had changed: Ladies wanted to go boating by themselves, or apparently with their dogs, but didn’t want to risk tearing a rotator cuff by repeatedly yanking on a cumbersome starter cord. 

So, in ’55, Evinrude brought electric start into the postwar era, offering it as an option on their 25-hp Big Twin, which “spins into action at a finger touch,” according to the ad copy. With electric start, all Milady had to do was touch a button and she’d be underway, propelled over the waves by 25 remote-controlled Evinrude horses. She never had to leave the helm.

Actually, it took two fingers, as the lady in the ad is demonstrating. Back then, outboards, like most gasoline engines, required manual choking on start-up to enrich the fuel/air mix in the carburetor. Today, carbureted engines have automatic chokes. One button on the Evinrude panel cranked the engine, while the other closed the choke. Hey, if this was easy, the dog really could do it. There was no ignition switch—closing the throttle all the way shut the engine down. Nor did the outboard have a generator, so the battery had to be charged on shore; a fully-charged 6-volt battery would start a properly tuned motor many times, and if it died, there was still the starter cord. 

Electric starting was now affordable and reliable; combining it with remote steering and controls gave women (and men) complete control of the boat, without sweating out their ensembles or overdeveloping one shoulder. Now all this lady needs is to teach Rover how to steer, and she can sit back and relax with a cool drink. What’s next? Maybe a radio, or even a depth finder, or who knows what? Electric start might be just the beginning.

This article originally appeared in the October 2026 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.