The boat now is out of the water. I will post pics later but some information so far:
- Evinrude engines are 2009 E-TEC 130-HP 25-inch (E130DPXSES), the boat should have 20-inch, so a hijacker jack plate was added. From my measurements, this moved the outboards up about 3-inches.
- The engines are mounted three-holes-up to the jack plate; the jack plate is up as far as it can go.
- Propeller s are stainless Raker 14.5 X 20. They are counter rotating.
- We weighed the GUARDIAN 25 with no people and a nearly full-tank of fuel: 6,151-lbs.
- The GUARDIAN 25 has (I''ll call it) a full width aluminum "transom guard". It is one piece and covers the top and inside and outside of the transom and adds a lot of strength to the transom.
- The GUARDIAN 25 is a 1994, was built to RCMP specs, was used as a quick response vessel so spent most of its life on a trailer and probably indoors. It is in excellent condition, not waterlogged, and the transom splash well usually has only a few inches of water at rest and only in the lower level.
The inner plate for the hijacker (which bolts to the transom) looks like it can be redrilled and moved up another 2.5 to 3-inches and that is what we intend to do at this point. My measurements say the this will give us a lift of 5.5 inches to 6 inches ( or 3-inches from the original hijacker lift plus 2.5 to 3 inches from re-drilling). I would say that would mean we should move the outboards down at least one notch from where they are now?
Once that is complete, we will do another sea trial and see what we get for performance. We can go to the plate Phil has suggested if the performance is not adequate with the change to the hijacker.
Jim, I note your comments about these 130's maybe not being big enough for this boat. The boat performed very well, in the 45-48 know [knot] range with the old 20- inch 1994 Johnson 150-HP engine. The T-Top was added since then. The owner would be happy with say 40-knots with this setup, rather than going to the expense of new power.
It is a great boat in ocean swells, I ran it more when it had the 150-HP twin engine, hopefully this "tune up" will work.
Thanks very much to all for the help. I'll post pics later today. Feel free to offer further advice.
Don