Thanks Abe.
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Why the heck put a jack plate on a 23' boat?
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Simple - preference. Due to the additional 5" notch in the transom, my father needed to move the engine up and back so that the engine would tilt all the way out of the water and not hit the splashwell. Since the boat has a sound transom, going the full bracket route didn't make sense.
Although the engine was put on the boat at the same time as the jack plate, it's hard to know for sure what, if any, performance gains it has produced. But I will say that the boat now planes at 15mph when it used to take 18-20 with the old 'Rude 225 bolted directly to the transom spinning the same size prop (15x15 SS). So from that standpoint, the addition of the jack plate has served its purpose very well. With these boats, if you hang an engine on a Stainless or Armstrong non-flotation bracket, that engine is getting dunked with 2 guys in the back. Not the case with the jack plate.