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Hit-n-Miss wrote:Correct me if i'm wrong but i was told that due to the higher torque that a 4 stroke has. That moter should push like a 35 or 40 2 stroke. I had a 25 2stroke on a k16 Sundance and with a Stingray jr. hydrofoil it planed and ran great with 2 poeple and gear. Fished all day on 6 gallons of gas.

Yamaha, Suzuki and Honda are closing the gap, but a direct-injection two-stroke still has a better hole shot and torque than a four-stroke with the same power rating.

silverking wrote:

Hit-n-Miss wrote:Correct me if i'm wrong but i was told that due to the higher torque that a 4 stroke has. That moter should push like a 35 or 40 2 stroke. I had a 25 2stroke on a k16 Sundance and with a Stingray jr. hydrofoil it planed and ran great with 2 poeple and gear. Fished all day on 6 gallons of gas.

Yamaha, Suzuki and Honda are closing the gap, but a direct-injection two-stroke still has a better hole shot and torque than a four-stroke with the same power rating.

AMEN... Four Strokes just don't have the hole shot.

I ran a 1648 welded G3 with a 30hp Yamaha 2 Stroke. With me and another guy with gear it would run alright, and usually fast enough for the conditions. Not going to be able to run much over 20mph with a 16ft boat across a 1'-2' chop unless you enjoy loose teeth.

Good eye BBC, but still a little worried about being under powered.

mbweimar wrote:Good eye BBC, but still a little worried about being under powered.

Are you completely sold on the idea of an aluminum boat, or is glass still an option for you?

Troy Landry was running a 115hp Merc tiller on his boat tonight ob Swamp People.

i would say im partial to aluminum boats, but not completely sold though.

mbweimar wrote:i would say im partial to aluminum boats, but not completely sold though.

PM Sent

The folks on Swamp People run 115 tiller steer on their boats. Looks tough to handle, but I guess you could get used to it. It's hard to figure what HP is right any more. Some boats that used to be rated for a 25hp two stroke, can't handle the weight of a four stroke 25hp. Since they stopped making the two stroke in 2006, a lot of boats have to drop back to a small hp because of the weight issue.
I've found that each boat has to be tested first, no matter what the data plate says it is rated for. One other note, I don't think any aluminum boat that is not an "All Weld" will hold up to the punishment of the Gulf without starting to leak after a while. I've seem more than a few start leaking at the rivets after a few seasons.

I used to fish a Bass Tracker Tournament TX17 with a 45 (Classic 50) with a side mount steering wheel. It had a rivet hull that would leak and required a lot of patching. The thing would float in about 6 inches of water though and with me would run about 28mph wide open and cruised efficiently at about 22 to 24 mph. I found out a hydrofoil on the motor REALLY helped with hole shot, taking chop riding over it instead of porpoising down into the next wave, and not sliding in a sharp turn. It cost about 1mph but was well worth it in ride quality on the older, flatter hull.
The pitch on the prop was very finicky. Move from one to the next and I'd gain 3 or 4 miles an hour but with another adult in the boat I'd have a lot of trouble planing out. I settled with less mph to haul a bigger load. The boat was rated for up to 75 or 85 hp, I can't remember right now.
The motor size was OK for short runs but if I ran over 10 miles I was always wishing it would go a little faster on the ride back, especially if clouds had started building. Around Albany get the owner to let you put in on Lake Chehaw and do a test run. You can check hole shot, top end, etc., but you won't get much chop like you would at the coast. For the test run you can move around the boat to see how it reacts and you could take an extra battery to move around too.

I personally wouldn't want to drive a tiller motor all the time. It would be tiring and would be difficult to see and adjust you depth finder and gps while sitting in the far back with a hand always on the tiller.