Hi all,
About a year ago one of my kids decided he wants to go on a long trip down some rivers (Illinois, Ohio, Mississippi) so we agreed when he graduates from college in 2 years or so we'll build a river cruiser. I was planning on getting something like a pontoon boat and we'd build a cabin on it. I wasn't really looking at all but mentioned it to a friend and the backstabber went out and found me a project boat already. So now I get to look at it for the next couple of years while my son is still in school.
It's a 24' Rinker with a low time 5.7 ltr Mercruiser I/O. I'm planning on having a gross weight of 6500-7500 lbs when all finished.
I am wanting to put an outboard on it that will do the lions share of the cruising work which I'm hoping to be 8-10 kts at approx 80% throttle if that sounds reasonable. I'll always have the main engine available to deal with crappy winds or current but no sense in using it if I don't need it at that time. I have a couple spare 20 HP engines laying around but they're 2 stroke and I'm wanting a 4 stroke here so I can plumb it into the main tank and not have to worry about it. Anyway, for most purposes how would a 10 HP work in this situation? Since I'm not in any sort of hurry at this point I'm just going to be keeping an eye out for something and I figure worse case scenario put something on that I already have and from there guesstimate what I should look for as the permanent engine. I am planning on connecting it to the stern drive via a linkage for steering.
Anyway, interested in hearing what people here have experiences with and suggestions.
Thank you for reading this far! Hope everyone is having a great day!
Piaro
About a year ago one of my kids decided he wants to go on a long trip down some rivers (Illinois, Ohio, Mississippi) so we agreed when he graduates from college in 2 years or so we'll build a river cruiser. I was planning on getting something like a pontoon boat and we'd build a cabin on it. I wasn't really looking at all but mentioned it to a friend and the backstabber went out and found me a project boat already. So now I get to look at it for the next couple of years while my son is still in school.
It's a 24' Rinker with a low time 5.7 ltr Mercruiser I/O. I'm planning on having a gross weight of 6500-7500 lbs when all finished.
I am wanting to put an outboard on it that will do the lions share of the cruising work which I'm hoping to be 8-10 kts at approx 80% throttle if that sounds reasonable. I'll always have the main engine available to deal with crappy winds or current but no sense in using it if I don't need it at that time. I have a couple spare 20 HP engines laying around but they're 2 stroke and I'm wanting a 4 stroke here so I can plumb it into the main tank and not have to worry about it. Anyway, for most purposes how would a 10 HP work in this situation? Since I'm not in any sort of hurry at this point I'm just going to be keeping an eye out for something and I figure worse case scenario put something on that I already have and from there guesstimate what I should look for as the permanent engine. I am planning on connecting it to the stern drive via a linkage for steering.
Anyway, interested in hearing what people here have experiences with and suggestions.
Thank you for reading this far! Hope everyone is having a great day!
Piaro