Yeah, old post bump...
What I did, and I suggest people do who are looking for a small 2-stroke 10-15hp for an inflatable, is buy a whole boat/motor combo at a good price, then dump the boat/trailer onto somebody for cheap, keeping the motor. I actually gave the boat I got away, and kept the 15hp motor, cost me $800
-Josh Murrah
Finally...
Ok, so I did what was suggested in the last post... a few weeks back... found a boat with a 20hp 2 stroke, and trailer, bought it all for $750 (not bad!), sold the boat and trailer two days later on craigs list for $400... how about that! A 20hp motor for $350... well of course it ran like a champ at the guys house... got it on my inflatable and took it out for the maiden voyage and nothing... motor wouldn't start... finally about the time I was ready to kick it off the boat, it fired up, in forward gear, sent me shooting out from the dock, ripping the line off my boat and damaging some of the fabric on the rail... then it died and I couldn't get it to run. took it back to the guy, he got it going again (nice of him) and I thought it was solid... so I was off for a weekend on the mill pond. Long story short, a day sitting in the boat in the pouring rain with a motor that would hardly start and not produce much more than an idle before puttering out. Weekend shot, ended up renting from Edd one day, and rowing my inflatable to hole in the wall the second day. took the motor home, put it on craigs list, sold it 4 hours later for $350... and believe it or not, I had it running flawlessly in my driveway and it ran great when the guy came to pick it up... so... still no motor.
Ended up finding a guy selling a boat and motor again on craigs list, this time a 9.8hp Mercury 2stroke... 1984, totally rebuilt/restored to better than new condition. Really, this thing looks like it came right out of the box. On the boat and now i'm cookin'! We hit the river two weeks ago the day the Withalacoochie crested and there was approx. a 10mph downstream current and we were making great headway. This motor rocks my little boat and is the perfect size for what we are doing. I'd love more power, but the 20HP was huge and tough to lug around... plus this new motor is 100% reliable and will be perfect. Now if we can just get the floods to reside and the caves to blow clean, we'll be set!! Wheeeew!
Hey, that is a nice looking boat...how come you got rid of it? The way you can pack that Honda...I am sure you could fit that boat in there too!
Originally Posted by ShagMan
Yeah, old post bump...
What I did, and I suggest people do who are looking for a small 2-stroke 10-15hp for an inflatable, is buy a whole boat/motor combo at a good price, then dump the boat/trailer onto somebody for cheap, keeping the motor. I actually gave the boat I got away, and kept the 15hp motor, cost me $800
The size motor depends on the boat and the intended use. I have a small john boat with a 30 HP motor and that's a little oversized for the Sante Fe where you may have to lift the motor a lot. But, it's great on the Suwannee where I can cruise at over 20 MPH and cover a lot of distance. If I had to do it again, I would look for something more like 15 HP. The type of boat makes a difference. A RIB has a lot more drag and needs more HP to achieve the same performance. I had to abort a dive once because a small RIB with a 5 HP motor wouldn't make headway against the incoming tide.
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