Thank you so much, Frank! Excellent info and just what I need.
A little more info on the boat just came in from a Marine Bio professor who said he logged hundreds of hours on her for research. Yes, they got her new and she came with a 90hp Johnson. I guess someone thought that was too small, because a decade later they got the 130 Yamaha, but the prof admitted he always thought it was too heavy for the boat.
I had already mentioned to the refurb crew that raising the transom would be a good thing, since I can't imagine that the whole transom won't need rebuilding anyway. Hadn't thought about raising the deck, but will talk to the Shipyard about it. She did get hauled out today! Work has started on the bottom, which has a zillion student-applied layers of bottom paint (with something that looks bizarrely like primer in between the layers).
Okay, I have been racking my brain about how to put a samson post on this boat and couldn't figure out how to. Can you give me an idea, Frank? I have only ever seen Samson posts on boats with inboards. If put on a boat with an outboard, how do you keep the towline from rubbing on and interfering with the outboard?
I don't think we need the full 130 HP. I hope we will never again have to tow 8 sailboats at once, more usual is one and rarely two at a time! The boats we tow, while heavy, tend to be easy towers. Once up to speed, they stay there with little help and track very well. I will have to look into which of the two-strokes mentioned are actually available in California (with our strict CARB regs).
McGillicuddy, it isn't just our SeaCraft that is a Classic! Our keelboat fleet is actually quite a bit older. We have five 30' Shields, which are a motor-less inshore racer/knock-about, basically just a scaled down version of the meter class America's Cup boats. They were made by ChrisCraft. We are Fleet #20, Cal. State Long Beach. It has been a long project, but we have been restoring these sailing classics to their former glory as well.
Shields hull #10 (yes, 10!) with the Seacraft in the background:
