coleman kayak1
Petty Officer 1st Class
- Joined
- Aug 8, 2005
- Messages
- 260
Hey guys! Been a while since I've been around and just looking for some ideas.
I have this 12' Sears Fiberglass boat that I have had for a long time. It has a variety of uses, but one of my favorite things is it can go in the back of the pickup and is easy enough for me to load/unload by myself, so it is my go-to fishing boat for when I'm too lazy to launch my pontoon or in the winter when the water levels are low.
I have always ran my Evinrude Lightwin 3hp on it (my great granddad bought this motor new). It does a great job trolling but not much performance wise. I think the max speed I've got with it was around 5mph and that was with a good tail wind. For a while now I've been wanting to go over to a coastal area not far from me and do some crabbing in the bay and salmon fishing in the river. My pontoon is just too big and bulky to bother towing over there, and gets blown around like a kite in any type of wind, so I set about looking for a bigger engine for the fishing boat.
I was browsing marketplace the other day and ran across this Johnson 9.9. I could resist picking it up. The previous owner said the water pump needed replaced, but they threw in a new pump kit they had bought for it. Turns out, the issue was just the grommet had folded over. I went ahead and replaced the pump (since I already had), hooked up a tank of fresh gas and it lit off second pull!
I went out and tried it out on the boat today and had the motor running pretty smooth by the time I was done. However, I had some issues with balancing the boat. With just myself (240lbs) in the back of the boat, along with the 9.9 (2x the weight of the 3hp), the stern was sitting lower than I like in the water. I was able to get on plane but it definitely did one heck of a wheelie on its way there. I put all my gear up front but really I don't have that much gear (maybe 20 lbs), so it didn't make a huge difference.
So I am reaching out to see if anybody has ideas for getting better balance. Here's a few things I've thought of:
I have this 12' Sears Fiberglass boat that I have had for a long time. It has a variety of uses, but one of my favorite things is it can go in the back of the pickup and is easy enough for me to load/unload by myself, so it is my go-to fishing boat for when I'm too lazy to launch my pontoon or in the winter when the water levels are low.
I have always ran my Evinrude Lightwin 3hp on it (my great granddad bought this motor new). It does a great job trolling but not much performance wise. I think the max speed I've got with it was around 5mph and that was with a good tail wind. For a while now I've been wanting to go over to a coastal area not far from me and do some crabbing in the bay and salmon fishing in the river. My pontoon is just too big and bulky to bother towing over there, and gets blown around like a kite in any type of wind, so I set about looking for a bigger engine for the fishing boat.
I was browsing marketplace the other day and ran across this Johnson 9.9. I could resist picking it up. The previous owner said the water pump needed replaced, but they threw in a new pump kit they had bought for it. Turns out, the issue was just the grommet had folded over. I went ahead and replaced the pump (since I already had), hooked up a tank of fresh gas and it lit off second pull!
I went out and tried it out on the boat today and had the motor running pretty smooth by the time I was done. However, I had some issues with balancing the boat. With just myself (240lbs) in the back of the boat, along with the 9.9 (2x the weight of the 3hp), the stern was sitting lower than I like in the water. I was able to get on plane but it definitely did one heck of a wheelie on its way there. I put all my gear up front but really I don't have that much gear (maybe 20 lbs), so it didn't make a huge difference.
So I am reaching out to see if anybody has ideas for getting better balance. Here's a few things I've thought of:
- Sandbags in the front. I like this idea because you could easily adjust the weight for what you need, but not sure. Anybody tried it?
- Tiller extension allowing me to sit more forward- tried it once on a prior boat and didn't care for it- it was fine if you were just driving around but not being able to access the engine (eg kill switch, shifter) without moving was a pain.
- Attach some PVC Tubes (4 or 6") to the sides toward the rear, potentially extending rearward of the stern. I may do this anyway for stability, but by my math even 6" tubes wouldn't add that much buoyancy, and obviously they'd only help after they went into the water.
- Lose weight. We'll leave this one as a last resort
