tcm
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i am posting this here with all the fun-loving speed-crazy petrolhead boaties. That's you, that is.
Here in las palmas I bought a 2.1m runabout dink secondhand for 135euros, Suzumar with inflatable keel and single lump of plywood floor and set about looking for a suitable motor. The other dink I have is 3.6metres (12feet) and has modest 25hp on it altho it can take (it says) 40hp - the idea is that the baby dink allows other people to go elsewhere without waiting around cos we only had the one dink, and/or we can take the small dink for easier hoiking it up the beach. Altho it's not too hard dragging the heavy one up the beach - if you sort of drag at the dinghy pathetically whilst beached.....pretty soon some other people always come to help. But anyway, i need a motor for the new baby dink. Hm.
Many hereabout are well-known practitioners of spectacularly overpowering the dinghy. Frinstance i saw that JFM had something like 40hp on the back of a 9-10ft dinghy a while back, very good value, and from a distance his dink was completely lost from view in all the airborne spume and wash. Superb stuff.
Soo, i put the 25hp motor on the 2.1 metre dinghy (max rated 4hp) to see wottle it do. Yeehah! It does 9knots at just over tickover and erm, i saw 24knots on the hh gps at half-throttle but the sea conditions outside las palmas marina here aren't ideal for full-on Coniston-type speed tests. Main thing is the fabulous acceleration, wham, straight up to 20knots in seconds. Also excelent cornering - still bags of power to turn at speed instread of all that slower stuff on corners as the prop sort of loses it if not loads of spare power. I spose it's a bit of a waste cos i can't really see us ever using maximum power, really. But 10hp would be fine, easily.
No sign yet of the transom falling off or any such nonsense. The only thing stopping me from putting gianty motor on it is that the whole idea was a lighter setup. Also, erm, actually carrying out the initial speed tests as above have somewhat reduced crew appetite for a massive motor on that dink, so i think a secondhand 5hp 2-stroke will be just fine. Well, okay, maybe 6. Or 8....
Here in las palmas I bought a 2.1m runabout dink secondhand for 135euros, Suzumar with inflatable keel and single lump of plywood floor and set about looking for a suitable motor. The other dink I have is 3.6metres (12feet) and has modest 25hp on it altho it can take (it says) 40hp - the idea is that the baby dink allows other people to go elsewhere without waiting around cos we only had the one dink, and/or we can take the small dink for easier hoiking it up the beach. Altho it's not too hard dragging the heavy one up the beach - if you sort of drag at the dinghy pathetically whilst beached.....pretty soon some other people always come to help. But anyway, i need a motor for the new baby dink. Hm.
Many hereabout are well-known practitioners of spectacularly overpowering the dinghy. Frinstance i saw that JFM had something like 40hp on the back of a 9-10ft dinghy a while back, very good value, and from a distance his dink was completely lost from view in all the airborne spume and wash. Superb stuff.
Soo, i put the 25hp motor on the 2.1 metre dinghy (max rated 4hp) to see wottle it do. Yeehah! It does 9knots at just over tickover and erm, i saw 24knots on the hh gps at half-throttle but the sea conditions outside las palmas marina here aren't ideal for full-on Coniston-type speed tests. Main thing is the fabulous acceleration, wham, straight up to 20knots in seconds. Also excelent cornering - still bags of power to turn at speed instread of all that slower stuff on corners as the prop sort of loses it if not loads of spare power. I spose it's a bit of a waste cos i can't really see us ever using maximum power, really. But 10hp would be fine, easily.
No sign yet of the transom falling off or any such nonsense. The only thing stopping me from putting gianty motor on it is that the whole idea was a lighter setup. Also, erm, actually carrying out the initial speed tests as above have somewhat reduced crew appetite for a massive motor on that dink, so i think a secondhand 5hp 2-stroke will be just fine. Well, okay, maybe 6. Or 8....
