Newbie with Outboard questions

[mike_kelly]

I have owned a boat with a 36hp Volvo diesel but this new little boat with its Outboard mount is confusing me.  The boat is a Kingfisher K20, a British twin keel sailboat. It was designed to use a cockpit well with a 5hp Johnson Outboard. The previous owners glassed over the cockpit well and moved the outboard to the transom because the 2 stroke exhaust was bothering them in the cockpit.

I know nothing about outboards so the following questions might be laughable I suppose....

1. If the outboard is mounted on the transom, see pix, would it not drive the boat in circles causing the operator to have compensate with the rudder lowering the gas mileage?
2. The outboard must be locked down and the rudder used to steer? Shame because I always had problems docking my old boat and a steerable prop sounds like a good idea.
3. The cockpit is a couple of feet from the transom and the outboard gets lowered on a scissors like mount, how do you reach the controls from the cockpit? Are there remote control options for some motors?
4. Do you have to take off the outboard tiller for it to fit on the transom, dropped below the deck level?
5. Are there outboard brands to stay away from. Must have features to make sure a new purchase has included?

Thanks for any thoughts on the matter!

[CharlieJ]

1. If the outboard is mounted on the transom, see pix, would it not drive the boat in circles causing the operator to have compensate with the rudder lowering the gas mileage?

No- you slightly offset the OB so as to compensate for it being off to one side.. Takes just a tiny offset. You won't notice it in practice


2. The outboard must be locked down and the rudder used to steer? Shame because I always had problems docking my old boat and a steerable prop sounds like a good idea.

Depends- looks like on that boat it would


3. The cockpit is a couple of feet from the transom and the outboard gets lowered on a scissors like mount, how do you reach the controls from the cockpit? Are there remote control options for some motors?

Yes, Yamaha's in particular.


4. Do you have to take off the outboard tiller for it to fit on the transom, dropped below the deck level?

I would think not.

5. Are there outboard brands to stay away from. Must have features to make sure a new purchase has included?

Not that I know of, but I'm partial to Yamaha's. 4 strokes.


Of course, if it were my boat, I'd reopen the well, and stick a 4 stroke OB in there, and do away with the mount on the stern. but that's just me :D :D

Wish I could do  that in my present boat.

Oh- and welcome, and we don't feel ANY serious questions are laughable. At least I don't . None of us started knowing all the answers, and personally, I STILL don't.

[mike_kelly]

Thanks for your reply.
So you are saying the outboard would be "pointed" slightly off-center to help counter the location?

I could cut open the outboard well and the only issue is that I probably could not reproduce the sliding door used to close the well when the outboard was retracted.

It seems running it off the back does give a lot of room for storage taken up by the outboard and the noise would be reduced by having it further away and down below the deck.

What reasons would you return it to using the well?

Cheers

[CharlieJ]

Yes- sets the prop thrust slightly off, so compensates for the off center set up. Not a problem in practice- just takes a smidge of adjustment.

Yeah- having it hanging off the back does give you more room.

Reasons? Personal preference and aesthetics really. My current boat. Necessity has an outboard on a bracket.. My previous one had it in a well. 4 stroke OB's are so quiet, the engine noise isn't a factor, by the way. Reaching controls is far easier in a well. Two pics- current boat, and previous.

[CharlieJ]

Second pic, engine in well

[mike_kelly]

So did you remove the tiller arm from you external mounted outboard? Do you use the remote control option for throttle?

Did your previous boat have a way of moving the well mounted engine out fo the water with a door to cover the opening? Since my door assemble was removed I would have a Lot? of drag when sailing due to the opening for the outboard?

thanks

[CharlieJ]

So did you remove the tiller arm from you external mounted outboard? Do you use the remote control option for throttle?

Did your previous boat have a way of moving the well mounted engine out fo the water with a door to cover the opening? Since my door assemble was removed I would have a Lot? of drag when sailing due to the opening for the outboard?

thanks

No on removing the tiller arm- I reach over the transom to shift and control throttle. But on Necessity it's an easy reach. Your pics show a much longer reach. Some sort of remote would most likely be a good idea.

On the boat with the well. No-took 30 minutes, a wrench and two people to take the engine out. But in some 7000 miles (last trip) we really never noticed the difference. Same drag as an inboard with prop and strut would have.

[mike_kelly]

Charlie,

I was not thinking about the fact that most sailboats have a prop in the water all the time. Although in many cases the prop "hides" behind the keel.

I didn't mean to remove the engine from the boat, the original Kingfisher has a well with a sliding door to close the well. You can tip the engine back and the prop  goes up into the well and you can close the door during sailing for reduced drag. You can see in the drawing the outboard tilted back and up out of the water.

I guess I could cut a much smaller hole if I was going to just drop the engine straight down into the well. I also guess I would not need a sail drive outboard, a short shaft would work in the well?

Cheers

[CapnK]

Ooh, I like that tilt solution, haven't seen such before... Do you have any info on how to reproduce the sliding door? Seems like it might be fairly straightforward to recreate, and picking the prop up does clean up the water flow so it is an aid in sailing (esp. in light air) *and* you don't have to worry about growth/antifouling...

Seems like your 'door' would slide aft and up to open?

Wish I had room to implement that in the Ariel laz... Don't think there is, what with the rudder being forward of the motor, instead of abaft. Wah.

If at all possible, I'd go for the longest shaft that would fit in there, though with that arrangement the motor does come forward and down, burying the prop pretty well, maybe better than it would arranged otherwise...

[mike_kelly]

There is a user group, not real active, but I'll see if anyone can take a picture of the aperture and how the slide works. My other post is about the thru hulls needing replacing and it looks to me like I could run the cockpit drains into the engine well eliminating any holes in the hull proper. This is sounding like a better solution all the time....