diskord
Cadet
- Joined
- Jul 14, 2010
- Messages
- 23
So I am in the process of replacing my transom, just waiting for everything to finish and then the big project has officially turned the corner and I start the process of putting everything back together.
When I removed the motor, I noticed that the motor was mounted a good 2 inches or more to the starboard side, it wasn't totally noticable with the motor on, but once the motor is off and you look at the drain hole in comparison with where the mounting holes were, you can see the port side mount hole is almost in a vertical line with the drain hole.
Here is the deal, I only owned the boat for about 2 weeks before I realized I needed to replace the transom, so I can't really tell you too much about how she drove. Also, the boat is a 1966 Reinell, and the motor is a 1968 Mercury, and I am 99.9% sure where the motor was mounted was where it was mounted when it came out of the factory. So it has been mounted there for 40+ years.
My question is, should I just mount it back where it was, over on the starboard side, or should I center the motor in line with the centerline of the boat? I primarily will use the boat for pulling tubers, skiers, wakeboarders, etc with "some" pleasure cruising, although not a ton. The driver sits on the starboard side of the boat, so with just the driver and the motor the boat definitely "lists" to the starboard side. Now I understand somewhat that there is prop torque, so maybe the engineers who mounted my motor knew about that and put it on the starboard side to prevent it and are geniuses and I should follow their example.... or maybe they were a couple of drunk/hungover college students who couldn't see straight... I really don't know!
So help me out, is there a reason to mount the outboard off center, is that the "right" place for it, or should I mount it in the centerline of the boat. The rear transom is going to be without any holes when I start, so I really can put it anywhere... where should I put it?
When I removed the motor, I noticed that the motor was mounted a good 2 inches or more to the starboard side, it wasn't totally noticable with the motor on, but once the motor is off and you look at the drain hole in comparison with where the mounting holes were, you can see the port side mount hole is almost in a vertical line with the drain hole.
Here is the deal, I only owned the boat for about 2 weeks before I realized I needed to replace the transom, so I can't really tell you too much about how she drove. Also, the boat is a 1966 Reinell, and the motor is a 1968 Mercury, and I am 99.9% sure where the motor was mounted was where it was mounted when it came out of the factory. So it has been mounted there for 40+ years.
My question is, should I just mount it back where it was, over on the starboard side, or should I center the motor in line with the centerline of the boat? I primarily will use the boat for pulling tubers, skiers, wakeboarders, etc with "some" pleasure cruising, although not a ton. The driver sits on the starboard side of the boat, so with just the driver and the motor the boat definitely "lists" to the starboard side. Now I understand somewhat that there is prop torque, so maybe the engineers who mounted my motor knew about that and put it on the starboard side to prevent it and are geniuses and I should follow their example.... or maybe they were a couple of drunk/hungover college students who couldn't see straight... I really don't know!
So help me out, is there a reason to mount the outboard off center, is that the "right" place for it, or should I mount it in the centerline of the boat. The rear transom is going to be without any holes when I start, so I really can put it anywhere... where should I put it?