Kicker Motor Bracket w/swim platform?

[Luna Sea]

I've been meaning to ask this one for a while now. The boat's a 25' Grady with a straight inboard, and has a full size swim platform. I always tow my inflateable and have to take the 8 horse, 15" shaft, Johnson off of it. Need someplace other than the deck to store it. I'd love to find a bracket for the transom that would lower it into a useable position beyond my swim platform? Do they make such a bracket? Or would I have to shim a standard one out? That would look ugly and probably not have much strength. Any ideas? I'm not sure I'd want it just mounted to the swim platform either, seen that type of bracket. Thanks for readin......

 

[navigator336]

Re: Kicker Motor Bracket w/swim platform?

I have a similar set-up with a 3.5 foot wide swim step. My kicker only weighs 27 pounds so it is very easy to pick it off the stern mount and put it on the dingy transom. A friend of mine has a Trojan sport fisher and a 6 HP 4 stroke Honda for a kicker. It's heavy so he had a thick wall aluminum tube about 1.5" in diameter (sized to fit perfectly into a flush mount rod holder on the transom) bent so that when swing out is just beyond his 20" swim step. He attaches a pully to the top of the tube and winches his kicker off the transom mount, then swings it out over the dingy and lowers it down. It works great. The pully setup has a double roller one attached to the tube and a free standing single roller on the rope with a hook on it. He bought a nylon web harness that attaches to the kicker. The hook attaches to the harness.

 

[Luna Sea]

Re: Kicker Motor Bracket w/swim platform?

Thenks for the reply Navigator.<br /><br />But once again, my question may not have been worded cleary. Oops.....<br /><br />I want to find a "kicker bracket" that will extend beyond the swim platform and enable me to use the 8 horse for light trolling. And retract so I can store it while underway. Some of the bracket's I've seen can't be used with a swim platform.....

 

[navigator336]

Re: Kicker Motor Bracket w/swim platform?

O.K. I've got it. The problem with using a kicker off the swim step (well behind the transom) is cavitation. Depending on the width of your swim step and the overall boat length, the kicker will come out of the water when the bow dips down in a swell. If you are using it on a calm lake or if your kicker is a long shaft, you'll be fine. I built a custom kicker bracket that I mounted on my swim step for salmon season (it was a 15 hp kicker) hoping I wouldn't have the cavitation problem (I actually thought this might be a problem before doing it). Sure enough, even on a relatively calm ocean day, the kicker (short shaft) was cavitating or out of the water nearly a third of the time. My swim step is quite wide though at 3 feet so you may do better. I doubt you'll find a drop bracket that will extend out as far as you'll need, but who knows.