Quote Originally Posted by DENNIS BOWERS View Post
Dont think you"ll be happy with a 40. I took a 55 off my 18 ft. BumbleBee and went to a 71. Plenty of power now and I can still use lower speeds . You have to consider wind,boat wakes,ect.-Better to have to much then not enough!!
I'm definitely looking for something larger, because I continue to read that more is better. My boat is an 180CC, which is fiberglass, and my total gross weight is about 2600 lbs including gas and tackle. My farther in law gave me an old Motor Guide 730 but it only has 30lbs of thrust. Before mounting it I started doing my research and discovered that it would not work for me. That's when I started looking into larger motors and was just blown away at the price difference between bow and transom mounts. It’s already bad enough that I have to have someone fabricate a special aluminum bracket to mount it too because I don’t want to loose access to my anchor locker and I don’t want to remove my bow rails. My bow doesn’t have enough space for a traditional mount and I don’t want to loose valuable storage.

The other problem I have is with a foot pedal, I don’t want to secure it to the deck because when I take the family out, I insert my cushions in the bow for seating. I have to secure it to the deck, because if not, then I would have a foot pedal bouncing around when I’m cruising and it could damage the fiberglass.