Sizing Kicker to Boat?

I just purchased a twenty foot olympic Hardtop and was wondering if a 15hp 4 stroke is to large or will it just give me a little more power? the Main motor is a 115 Yamaha 2 stroke.

15 4 stroke will be plenty big. I run a 8 honda on my 17ft arima and it is plenty of kicker for the boat. Take a look at the difference in weight between a 15, 9.9, and 8 and try and determin if the weight difference is worth the extra horses.

I don't think you would need that big of kicker for that boat. I have charter boats in the 24' range and they weigh in around 5400 lbs and I use yamaha 9.9 four stroke. They come with a power prop and they work fine. I will be starting to switch over to there 8 hp four stroke, which work just fine also. We fish in a lot more wind and weather than most folks, because we have to and they do just fine.
One other problem you would incounter with a bigger kicker, is the weight. I am sure yo uwill be using a drop down bracket for the kicker and the more the kicker weighs the more trouble you will have with them and the harder it will be on the transom.

I run a 9.9 2 stroke on my 21' bayliner with no problems.

unless you are thinking of a backup motor, a 15hp on that boat is to much. when trolling with a kicker you want the rpm's on the higher side, rather then dead idle. This will give you more control at slow trolling speeds.

Good luck

I have a 24' hardtop trophy. I run a yamaha 9.9 4 stroke hight thrust. It seems to work just fine.

ss

My 8 hp high thrust Yamaha is sweet on my 22 campion and pushes the boat just fine. I even had to come in out of Westport 8 miles with it a few weeks ago, as the check valve in my main motor stuck shut.
Have the TR 1 gold and just set a course and hit every buoy coming in.....in thick fog.

Ng

thanks for all of the reply's I am now looking at getting something a little smaller, thanks to your advice.

Thanks,

Steve

i would buy the yamaha t8 it has the high thrust lower unit and the power trim and tilt it is a sweet motor i heard that auburn sports has a pretty good deal on them !!!!

I run a 21' Hardtop Trophy with a Yamaha 8hp 4 stroke high-thrust. It's trolled in all weather conditions from a sub 1 mph to over 5 mph speed. Mount is one of the OMC brackets, only one I felt was strong enough to hold up under wave pounding and highway travel. I looked at the power tilt model and while it was sweet (friend has one and loves it), it didn't have an outside accessable manual starting rope. The non-power tilt model (with electric start) did so I got that one. No regrets and if I ever have a dead battery but need to get the kicker started in a hurry, no fumbling around with removing a cover and brackets and ... .