Long vs short shaft

[Jim Rester]

I have to buy an outboard and need advice please.

Does anyone use a short shaft OB?

How much horsepower is enough?

Which motors exhaust outside the well

Thanks for any input.

This is my first post - any suggestions appreciated.

Jim Rester

[c_amos]

Welcome Jim.

I have a long shaft 6hp Yamaha. It moves the boat to hullspeed quite well. From what I have read, most folks agree this is about the biggest motor you need on our boats (although quite a few run 9.9's and at least one 15).

The 4 stroke motors are the popular thing now, they are much more fuel effecent, and dump less fuel and oil in the water.

I also have a suzuki 8 that was mounted on the boat when I got it, it is a short sahft, and tends to cavitate in any chop.

The best thing to do would probably be to enter 'motor' into the search engine. One deceptive thing about the board is that there may not appear to be any threads that cover the topic of discussion because the view defaults to "From the: Last month". There are many threads available, you just have to use search, or change the thread view at the bottom. Try "from the: beginning" you will have pages and pages of stuff to browse.

Again, welcome aboard!

[tcoolidge]

By all means do a search for outboards, etc. More info is available than you need. I seem to recall the consensus being that the 6hp 4stroke long shaft Nissan/Tohatsu/Mercury (same engine, different packaging) is the motor of choice- powers the boat nicely, fits in the well, small and light enough to move relatively easily, very reliable.
Tom