Transom height measurement

Moxieabs · Posted: Fri Jun 09, 2023 10:04 am Post subject: Transom height measurement

Looking for a transom height on the West Marine RU-3 inflatable. Mine is not currently available and WM does not list it nor have a sample on display. Thanks!

srbaum · Posted: Fri Jun 09, 2023 7:22 pm Post subject:

All of these little inflatables have the short transom. A short shaft outboard it the correct choice.
As a side note, I have a few of these available that are new 2 strokes, if interested.

tsturm · Posted: Fri Jun 09, 2023 8:33 pm Post subject:

srbaum · Posted: Sat Jun 10, 2023 6:30 am Post subject:

The old short shaft standards were 15” (short), 20” (long) and 25” (extra long). Of course outboard powered boats have gotten bigger and there are fewer inboard outboard boats, so now there are 30” shafts.
Japan’s outboards have consistently added 2” additional inches to all of their outboards (17”, 22”, 27” and 32”).
Back to small inflatable dinghies, they are almost all short shaft transom’s.

Moxieabs · Posted: Sat Jun 10, 2023 9:15 am Post subject:

Thanks for the responses. The reason I'm asking is that I purchased an E-propopulsion 1.0 motor for my dinghy and went with an "extra short shaft" from their charts. Problem is a "short shaft" arrived and before sending back wanted an exact measurement of the transom. 15 3/4" is the change over point from ES to SS on the chart on their web site so maybe the short shaft is fine and makes more versatile to be used on other craft? Looking it over(no usage yet) it appears more robust vs Torqeedo and definitely larger capacity battery.

thataway · Posted: Sat Jun 10, 2023 10:55 pm Post subject:

You should be fine with that motor--I would prefer it. I had a longer shaft on the Torqeedo I used for almost 10 years. It was fine, but a little long when I had to beach the boat, and even with all of the way up.

Moxieabs · Posted: Sun Jun 11, 2023 7:36 am Post subject:

Finally had a chance to measure transom height and the inflatable was 15.5". Forgot about my fiberglass C-Puffin dinghy and it was 19.5" so stayed with the "short shaft" vs the "extra short shaft". Thank you for the replies. Getting ready for a cruise in the North Channel, Ontario.