Patent ID: 7757656

Claim:
An internal combustion engine for a small planing boat, in which an internal combustion engine for driving a jet propulsion pump is mounted inside a boat body surrounded by a hull and a deck, with a crankshaft orientated in a longitudinal direction of the boat body, wherein: an oil pan is provided at a bottom portion of the internal combustion engine; an oil passage that communicates with an oil pump is formed inside the oil pan; the oil passage having at least one vertical wall which extends in the longitudinal direction of the boat body, the at least one vertical wall being partially cut away to form a first communication opening communicating between an inside and an outside of the oil passage; and a first oil strainer is interposed in the first communication opening substantially vertically so as to divide the oil passage into the inside and the outside, so that the first oil strainer extends substantially vertically and substantially parallel to the longitudunal direction of the boat body.