Question for North River Seahawk Offshore Owners

[BCTony]

This question is mainly directed to North River Seahawk Offshore model boat owners who run a kicker motor in addition to to a main single or twin motors.

This week I had the first water test in my new North River Seahawk Offshore 24’. This boat is equipped with Twin Yamaha F200’s and a Yamaha T9.9 Kicker with trolling guard. (All three engines are to be connected by tie-bar but not all the required items had arrived at time of test). While I was happy with the performance of the F200’s, the kicker was catching the water. The dealer was able to raise the kicker two inches and while this improved matters it did not resolve the issue. It seemed to me that the kicker needed to be raised another three inches or so (which will necessitate some welding) which then gave concern as to whether the kicker shaft length at 22” will be long enough not to cavitate when used at sea in anything other than calm conditions. The dealer seemed to think that raising the mounting bar and going for the longer 25” shaft would simply put us back to square one with the kicker skeg and trolling guard catching the water surface when up on plane with the main motors.

I was surprised that this matter should be an issue as the North River Seahawk Offshore model with either twin or single main motors and a kicker is a well trodden path and I anticipated that any mounting issues of the type described would be well ironed out.

I would be grateful to hear from other North River Seahawk Offshore owners in particular (and owners of similar boats with an offshore bracket) if they have experienced this problem and whether/how it was resolved.

[Napa Mike]

Does anyone out there have an answer for Tony?

[welder]

Do they or can you get a CAM ACTION mount on your bracket?
It's a type of hinge that allows the motor to drop low to run and when you pull the motor up it rotates over the top to raise it way out of the water.
looks something like this...

[BCTony]

Well it seems my issue has been resolved. Mounting bar for kicker has been raised 3" and kicker is now not catching when running at all. I have not been able to check when trolling for cavitation at sea or in chop but when lowered the kicker looks to be buried sufficiently. For some reason I cannot upload pictures at the moment.