Re: Brackets are they that much better
Besides the obvious benefits of providing a solid transom to keep some noise and a following sea out of the boat and allowing you to eliminate the splash well and create more storage area and bilge access, they're generally worth about +3 mph in top end speed which will allow use of a smaller motor. I don't care about the speed, but the safety aspect of a solid transom is significant if you spend much time offshore! A bracket moves engine weight aft and tends to screw up balance of the boat, so you have to be sensitive to that. I would not consider one w/o a BIG flotation tank if you care about self bailing, and I'd use the lightest motor and the smallest setback possible and at least a 25" shaft. That longer shaft made a big difference in ability to control my boat's running angle with power trim and seems to cancel out the effect of the aft weight shift. Boat will also behave like a longer boat during low speed maneuvering because you've shifted the pivot point aft with the bracket.
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