Swivel dinghy motor mount

I currently have my dinghy on my aft deck and put it over with my boom. My boat already has Weaver davits on the transom and I would like to start using them. I want to keep the motor (4 stroke) on the dinghy.
Does anyone have any experience with these mounts? It looks like a cheaper option than other systems I have seem.
http://www.adventuremarinemfg.com/

I've never used one but it looks like it would work well with a small engine.

If the engine is big enough to plane the dinghy, I don't think moving the engine that far aft would be good. I once converted a planning boat from a transom mounted engine to a bracket mounted engine and it wanted to porpoise badly until I added trim tabs.

If you're using a 5 hp or less I'd be inclined to try it.

Don, on Moonstruck, has the Weaver device for handling the engine. He may be able to give you some useful info.

A friend has the Weaver with a 10ft large diameter pontoon. His 9.9 catches as it swivels. He still uses it but then takes it off and onto a bracket he had made on his stern rail which is just a few inches away. He maintains this was the plan all along.
Just saying....

I had one on a 8 foot Livingston. Hung an old 4hp Merc on it. The wgt of motor plus the 12 inches or so of distance the motor is back from the dink, had it setting lower in water. The swiveling part of it worked well. I took it off. Might be better on a larger dinghy.

adventure swivel mount

I had one on a 11' horizon with a 9.9 2 stroke merc. If you were by your self you would have to sit in the middle of the dingy with an extension on the handle of the motor so the for/aft trim would level. The leverage produced by the swivel causes a lot of list on the after end. I think if you used a small motor
3 or 4 horse it would probably work out better

fryedaze said:

Does anyone have any experience with these mounts? It looks like a cheaper option than other systems I have seem.

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We have had one on our 9' Livingston for the last 15 years. We have a 4hp 4-stroke Yamaha on the dinghy. The mount is so simple there is nothing to break. It has operated totally reliably all the years we've had it.

The only drawback is that you have to get down on hands and knees to use it when the dinghy is in its upright stowed position on the swimstep. So if you have bad knees or have a hard time getting up and down like this, it might be a bit frustrating to use.

It has three locked positions: parallel with the top of the transom, 90-degrees from that in the run position, and a position 45 degrees between them.

In practice, I swivel the motor to the 45-degree detent before we lower the dinghy using our boom fall. Then when the boat is in the water I move the motor to the normal run position. Leaving the motor in its parallel stowed position all the way down to the water puts the motor head a bit into the water with a Livingston. It might not with a dinghy with more freeboard.

Retrieving the dinghy we do the opposite. We don't leave the motor in its run position when we haul the dinghy up into its stowed position because we have our Weaver standoffs mounted to give the dinghy a forward slant so the weight is pushing on the standoffs, not pulling on them. This would elevate the motor shaft above the horizontal and that's a no-no with a four-stroke motor.

But it's a great little mount, and between it and our use of the boom fall to launch and retrieve the Livingston, it's makes for a sort of poor man's Seawise davit.

A four stroke can be stored upright or on one particular side. If you put the dinghy the right way on the davits you shouldn't have to rotate the outboard.

rwidman said:

A four stroke can be stored upright or on one particular side. If you put the dinghy the right way on the davits you shouldn't have to rotate the outboard.

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This is true but according to the Seattle Yamaha dealer, the shaft should never be elevated above the motor head no matter how the motor is stored or laid down, even on the correct side.

Marin said:

This is true but according to the Seattle Yamaha dealer, the shaft should never be elevated above the motor head no matter how the motor is stored or laid down, even on the correct side.

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My hard dingy winds up with a forward slant too so I would have the same issue.

Even if left perfectly upright it still wouldn't have the same storage angle that is preferred by it resting on it's folded tiller.

I have the weaver davit system with a weaver leaver for the outboard. It is a simple fool proof system, relatively cheap, designed for a light weight motor. Works great on my 8HP 2 cycle Johnson.

timjet said:

I have the weaver davit system with a weaver leaver for the outboard. It is a simple fool proof system, relatively cheap, designed for a light weight motor. Works great on my 8HP 2 cycle Johnson.

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Cheap... It costs 5 times what my POS dingy did

if I wasn't thinking of a dingy upgrade, I might go that way as the do seem popular and easy to use.

The only consideration is if you want to get a 4 cycle, it may be too heavy. I think the weight limit on the weaver leaver system is 75 pounds and knowing the system I would stay under that weight limit.

I had a 9.9 merc four stroke that I put 25,000 miles on while permanently attached to a RIB on Weaver davits. It rotated up to lie on its port side and a short rope looped on the handle kept it from flopping around. I have about 2000 miles on the 9.9 Yamaha replacement used the same way with no problems. The motors need to be in neutral so they don't tip up. I also use the Dinghy-Mate tank system so I can be underway in a minute. I use the boom to pull the whole arrangement up.