Welcome to the world of SIB'n
and good luck to you on your
path to finding a boat you will
totally enjoy.
If you would like to start feeling the wind in your hair on a calm day,
you are going to want something that can, relatively easily,
get up on plane and go 15+/- mph when you throttle back.
E.G. 365 / 390 cm class sib and a 15 or 18 HP 2-Stroke.
I was able to put together such a rig for under a grand,
but that was back when iBoats was clearing out a surplus 365 cm ChinaSIB model for 700 big ones.
....RedStar Marine - zRay 500 Buccaneer (JiLong)
And then I found a "Jurassic" 1962 10 HP Evinrude Sportwin
that I bought and was able to restore to perfect running condition for under 200 clams
(including fuel tank and line).
(SeaRider always has the best humor -- this was actually what we call a "barn find")
(my main knock against these "obsolete outboards", they are not from an era where
the concept of being green was really in the social consciousness at all
and hence emit lots of un-burnt fuel and uncontrolled oil(s) )
The 10 HP mostly was mostly fine, but was under powered under certain circumstances,
especially compared to mounting up a 1992 15 HP Mercury (brother's OB)
or a "Juriassic" 1962 Evinrude Fastwin (I did this one for under $250).
I would have kept the chinaSIB except the transom was only rated for a 10 HP OB,
and so for liability concerns,
I swayed away from operating the boat all the time with that 18 HP Evinrude,
eventually selling it (now my only "SIB" is actually a Stand Up Paddleboard).
Unless you are mechanically competent and able to do a thorough per-inspection yourself,
I totally agree with SeaRider in that you should stay away from
old used outboards as any work on them quickly adds up to more than the motors will
fetch on the open market, if not open up the proverbial "Pandora's Box"
or maybe the box of worms at the very least.
Starting out, I really did not want to wrench on outboards as much as I wanted to go
cruise around, but I ended up totally gear heading out on the outboards. It actually
became a bigger hobby than going boating. You could even say I had a habit. Not
as bad as the antique outboard motor guys with their 100's of motors, but at one
point I had 5 outboards and a trolling motor. I'm better now, sold off everything.
Though one day, I might get a 2 hp for my square stern canoe.
If you have the stomach, stay away from anything other than the OMC products
.... ( primarily Johnson & Evinrude, maybe Gale, and possibly badge engineered derivatives )
&&&
there are some very nice articles on
DuckWorks by Max Wawrzyniak about Obsolete OMC outboards
and then there is that Leroy's Ramblings website which has
a very comprehensive set of articles that cover the older
Johnson and Evinrude outboards
(and of course use Google to search all you can on the topic)
If you find a solid motor in this class, pre ~1973, and learn
how to maintain them, there not a better bargain to be had in an outboard.
For one thing these motors have the OMC universal ignition ( magneto
/ breaker points ) which you can totally rebuild yourself for about
the cost it would take the shop to take the cover off your outboard.
Other than the prudence of an annual tune up, water pump
impeller change, and maybe a quickie carb clean up, there is little to
keeping these motors running another 50 years ( as long as you are
willing to correctly premix the fuel and not totally beat on them )
cheers,
JRC