Power for my 1972 20 ft. CC (Potter)

[Bushwacker]

Hi Geoff and welcome to CSC!

Boat should be fine with that motor; it just won't be real fast. Many 20's were sold new with 85 & 115 hp motors in the late 60's/early 70's. Fr. Frank had a Seafari that ran fine with a 90 HP Optimax on it, got great gas mileage to boot, and that Seafari is also a couple hundred pounds heavier than your CC. I ran my Seafari for over 30 years with a 1975 "115" Evinrude on it, but back then motors were rated at the powerhead. It was actually about 90-100 hp at the prop, but the boat rode better and would plane easier with that 300 lb motor than it would with a more powerful but heavier motor. Carl Moesly designed the 19-20' hulls in the early to mid-60's for motors that weighed less than 300 lbs and proved that the VDH design was about 10% faster than conventional deep V's. A lot of folks don't realize that and screw up the fine handling of these boats by hanging 500 lb 4-strokes on 'em because that's all they see on new boats that have more beam and much less efficient hulls!

Ran my Seafari over to the Abacos a half dozen times with that "115". Cruised at 20 kts at about 4500 rpm all day long with a very heavy load. WOT was about 30 kts. One benefit of a small motor wound up to high speed is that it's pretty high up on the torque curve, so it holds rpm well when you get into big following seas and doesn't require a lot of throttle jockeying when you're going "up and downhill"! Just make sure mounting height is correct (AV plate at least an inch above bottom of hull, so it's dry when you're up on plane and fully trimmed out) and use a prop with low enough pitch to let it rev up to it's optimum rpm, which I think is 5000-5200 rpm for your motor. Checkout this great E-Tec Owners Forum for more info on your motor: http://www.etecownersgroup.com/post/...-Chart-2671224