i have a new motor on my boat picked it up about a month ago got it installed ran it just havnt been to the lake yet. plan on going saturday however theres a hose on my lower unit its about 12 inches in length and im not quite sure what it is or where it goes its about 1/4" diameter maybe 1/8"

i dont want to leave it dangling.

it looks like it was hooked to something plastic before and broke off im wondering if it went to something on the boat it was on perviously

its on the front of the lower unit the side that is closest to the boat

should i cap it off?

any advice is appreciated.

It's the speedometer tube.

You will probably find your speedometer doesn't work unless someone installed a pickup on the hull.    

That's the speedo pickup built into the LU but sometime they get plugged and people install a pickup.  If they didn't add a pickup, you should find the other end at the back of the boat somewhere.

i was hoping it was something like that

however the boat has a pee tube speedometer built onto the boat.

can i plug that hose and not have to worry about it because i dont need that speedometer from that seeing as how i already have one on the boat. so basically i can cut it short and cap it off right?

I would just leave it alone, it's not going to bother anything.  Who know, you may want to use it one day, cut it off and sometimes they can be hard to replace