Carolina Skiff J 16, 25 HP enough?

[nightstalker]

I'm looking at a 2004 Carolina Skiff with a 25 HP Merc on her. What kind of performance can I expect? I think the J-16 is rated for a 40 HP max, and see most of them with 30's on the back. Does that 25 have enough nuts to move that rig right along? I usually fish with two of us on my present rig.
Nightstalker

 

[runabout199]

Re: Carolina Skiff J 16, 25 HP enough?

is it tiller or consol steer i think the max on the plate is for consol steering. i have a v hull with a 9.9 that could use a 20 hp but thr 9 hp does pretty well. also are you fishing rivers with alot of current or in open lakes? that will affect performance as well. as always i could be wrong but bigger is better no matter what women say

 

[cwhite6]

Re: Carolina Skiff J 16, 25 HP enough?

I have the exact same boat with a 25hp Nissan. One quick note, depending on the manufacturer you can change the 25hp over to a 30hp very easily. With my 2 stroke 25hp, I can change the gasket on the carb and the motor is now a 30hp. Viola! My Nissan pushes my boat along very nicely. Definetly faster than you want to take a hard turn with. Boat tends to skip through hard corners as the bottom is perfectly flat. I rode in it yesterday on the river with myself, my 4 year old and a buddy of mine and we were moving pretty good. I meant to bring my GPS to measure speed but I forgot. The boat gets on plan pretty quick and is very stable. The cool thing about Carolina Skiffs is there are all kinds of accessories you can buy for it from Carolina. You can change out decks and all kind of stuff to customize it. I am going to add a rear deck with livewells and a console to mine. Hoep this helps.

 

[Jdeagro]

Re: Carolina Skiff J 16, 25 HP enough?

Check the specs on the Carolina Skiff Web site www.carolinaskiff.com

Also check their recomendations for Smart Tabs sizes.

 

[rentprop1]

Re: Carolina Skiff J 16, 25 HP enough?

The cool thing about Carolina Skiffs is there are all kinds of accessories you can buy for it from Carolina. You can change out decks and all kind of stuff to customize it. I am going to add a rear deck with livewells and a console to mine.

tell me more about this, I called my local dealer and my take was that's not how it works, I guess you can accessorize when you order your new boat, not but a bunch of stuff aftermarket ???....I ended up not getting a CS, but would love to buy some of their aftermarket products for my boat.

from the CS website : Unlike any other boat builder, we give you the option to decide how your boat should be rigged. No matter what type of boating you do, we offer a full array of fiberglass and non-fiberglass accessories so you can truly design your very own Carolina Skiff.

 

[cwhite6]

Re: Carolina Skiff J 16, 25 HP enough?

Their catalog has a whole list of accessories for each boat. Mine came as a blank slate, just a hull, nothing else. The guy who owned it before me put a front deck on he made and fiberglassed. He also bought one of the accessory benches from CS. Go to their website and download their PDF catalog. Look at all the accessories in the back of it.

 

[nightstalker]

Re: Carolina Skiff J 16, 25 HP enough?

is it tiller or consol steer i think the max on the plate is for consol steering. i have a v hull with a 9.9 that could use a 20 hp but thr 9 hp does pretty well. also are you fishing rivers with alot of current or in open lakes? that will affect performance as well. as always i could be wrong but bigger is better no matter what women say

She's a CC. I'd be using it on and around the flats of Tampa Bay.
Nightstalker

 

[cwhite6]

Re: Carolina Skiff J 16, 25 HP enough?

I just called my local CS dealer. He said they stock all of the accessories and install them any time someone wants them. FYI.