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Ditch the outboard kicker?

Albin's "power cruisers"
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Burton
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Joined: Sun Dec 02, 2018 3:17 pm
Home Port: Ellsworth, Maine
Location: Mid-coast Maine

Ditch the outboard kicker?

Post by Burton »

Slow Motion (an A25 FC) came with a typical retractable outboard bracket, and so I hung our long shaft Evinrude on it as “insurance”.

In pictures of other Albins, I see very few outboards on the transoms. Our tender is an 8 foot Avon RIB, but its a pig to tow. And so for longer journeys, I’m thinking of a hard shell dinghy like the Eastport pram with Weaver davits or something like that. And that would require that the outboard and bracket go goodbye.

We’ve only had this boat going for a few years, and it’s still in somewhat of the project stage. I would really appreciate the opinions of more experienced owners. Oh – our power is a low time Yanmar 3JH3E.

Thanks!
tribologist
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Joined: Wed Jul 18, 2018 11:53 pm
Home Port: Groton. Ct

Re: Ditch the outboard kicker?

Post by tribologist »

I would personally never consider a kicker. Lots of trawlers that would have much more issues if they started to drift has single engines and no kicker. A drift anchor and a good regular anchor is all I carry and I'm not overly worried over an engine issue. We have a Mercury 240 hypalon inflatable that we hang in Harbormen marines sling. Very happy with that system but we don't use the dinghy much. I think there are images in a previous thread.
Last edited by tribologist on Wed Jun 22, 2022 12:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
Driftless
A25 1971 #737
South Windsor, Ct
tribologist
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Home Port: Groton. Ct

Re: Ditch the outboard kicker?

Post by tribologist »

Driftless
A25 1971 #737
South Windsor, Ct
Burton
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Posts: 114
Joined: Sun Dec 02, 2018 3:17 pm
Home Port: Ellsworth, Maine
Location: Mid-coast Maine

Re: Ditch the outboard kicker?

Post by Burton »

Thank you! The web davits system is brilliant.

In sailing for years we always had a kicker… hard to break old habits.
tribologist
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Re: Ditch the outboard kicker?

Post by tribologist »

https://youtu.be/vRhvrzSfj0w
https://youtu.be/KFQjqWZNmyA

Had these videos from the first time we used it.
Driftless
A25 1971 #737
South Windsor, Ct
trbeau
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Home Port: Hickory

Re: Ditch the outboard kicker?

Post by trbeau »

I have a 21' Bruce Roberts diesel trawler and have never considered a kicker because i have an inflatable Avon with 3hp motor I tow when traveling. When I tie up the Avon to the side of the big boat I can travel at 4 knots and steer with the rudder on the big boat. It takes a minute to tweak the outboard to the right angle and away we go. Only downside would be fairly frequent refueling of little Yamaha. The Roberts has an extremely reliable Vetus 33 hp motor. It's a marinized Mitsubishi industrial diesel that hasn't missed a beat in over 10 years. I notice a slight decrease in fuel mileage (.75 gph rises to 1.0 gph) when towing. Otherwise don't know it's back there until approaching a dock.
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