Penn yan kicker 20" or 25"

[coup]

Looking into installing a kicker and I'm wondering if 20" will work or do I need the 25"? I'm thinking 25" but not sure. The boat is a 245 Contender. Anyone know before I screw this up. Thanks, Coup

[Harepie]

I wish you had a reply because we are researching how to add a kicker to our recently purchased '89 245 Contender. We have auto pilot and power steering and my husband dreads the idea he will not have either option with the kicker - we have spoken to MANY boat people and no one thinks we can get the kicker attached to power or auto pilot... Just yesterday we saw (2) other 245 Contenders off the Catt, Lake Erie and both had kicker motors. One was charter. We're going to try to contact the charter capt to see if he has any ideas. Name on boat was Capt. K Charters. We can't imagine he has a kicker without auto pilot, at least auto pilot!

By the way, we're going with a 15hp kicker. Really just for trolling.

Tom&Ruth

[Harepie]

forgot to mention why we've been told power and auto pilot out of question for any kicker - our Contender is stern drive. As a woman, I don't see the differnce as to why that is such a problem...but apparently all the men my husband has spoken to say that IS the problem, stern drive. I look at a stern drive and an outdrive right next to each other and can't see what the big deal is

[Tim Bromund]

stern drive and outdrive are the same thing. The problem with kickers and autopilots is if you have the kicker connected to the outdrive with and EZ Steer or something like that without the main engine running, the AP will have to work too hard to steer without the power assist and you'll burn up the autopilot motor.

you might want to check into the Garmin Autopilot (TR-1 Gold ) which has both speed and steering control and is specifically made for kickers and from what I understand, doesn't work off the main motor.

https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID ... featureTab

a little pricy, but I've heard nothing but glowing reports about them.

Tim

[Diversion]

Tim is right on the money, as stern drives / IOs whatever you want to call them, they are for the most part, power assisted steering, so as soon as the engine is turned off, steering the outdrive becomes difficult.

This is all changed if the steering is hydraulic, then, it would be cake to set up a kicker with an ez steer.

[Gray Fox]

To reask the first part of the question does anyone on here, have a kicker on their 245 contender. I would like to add one to mine over the winter and would like to know what shaft length works best. I have talked to 2 different marinas and each marina said the opposite. Just curious if anyone has installed one on their penn yan.

[coup]

At Wrights marina in Oswego the weekend of the Scotty I saw several Pens with the kickers. Long shafts on all and most had the garelick manual motor brackets. All had the ez steer type hook up to the I/O. Anyone I talked to were more than willing to tell me about how it worked and how much it saved them in fuel. I did notice that most 24fts. had 9.9hp instead of the 8hp.

[dcso]

I have an 86 21ft bayliner trophy w/o pwr steering with a 9.9 yamaha connected withan eeze steer. Question; what auto pilot would you recommend ( wife hates to steer the boat)

ted