To much power?

[one4rose]

I just bought a old 14 ft fiberglass boat. trying to get some pics posted to try and get some in for on a year. It looks like somewhere around a 1960s runabout. It cam with a 65hp mercury thunderbolt motor. Just wondering if it would be to much power for such a small fiberglass boat.

Any info is great.

Thanks

 

[Mercurylips]

Plenty of power but you just need to know when to back off. It is possible that the boat is not rated for that much motor but I don't think it is too much.

 

[Scott Danforth]

technically this is a boat question, so you may want a mod to move it accordingly

what kind of boat did you buy? what does the title and registration say it is?

your boat could be rated for 65hp (seriously doubt that in a 14' boat), then your 65hp would be fine.....or it could be rated for 20hp in which case your over powered. the capacity tag will tell you. if your capacity tag is missing, you can look up the specs for your boat

if you still dont know what it is, you may have problems registering it. however until then, you can use the international law calculation that the coast guard also uses to determine the maximum hp of your boat.

https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2002-title33-vol2/xml/CFR-2002-title33-vol2-sec183-53.xml

so assuming your 14' boat has a 4' wide transom that is 15" tall and you have steering wheel and not a tiller handle your boat is rated for 25hp

if your 14' boat has a 5' wide transom that is 20" tall you have a steering wheel your boat is rated for 30hp

if your 14' boat has a 6' wide transom that is 25" tall and you have a steering wheel, your boat is rated for 45hp