From all accounts, the Skerry is an excellent sailer and a decent rowboat, but I want to add a little something extra that will make my Skerry a standout. I am going to add auxiliary electric propulsion in the form of a modified trolling motor. This will be no easy task as the Skerry has no transom. My plan is to hack the motor apart and somehow fiberglass it into the rudder. I hope to locate the electronics under the rear breasthook and the battery aft of the center frame. Even more ambitious is that I want to install the twist grip throttle mechanism in the wooden tiller. My intent is to keep the wooden boat look. Other vessels should not be able to tell I have a motor.
This has been done before, but to my knowledge, not to a Skerry. Because a trolling motor in the rudder would increase drag considerably during sailing, I can take one of two routes to prevent this. The first method is to build a second, sailing only rudder. The second method is to build the rudder with a shape that allows it to be half kicked up, motor part out of the water, steering part in the water. And example of an “always submerged motor” and a “half kick-up” sailing rudder are attached.
I am not sure which method I will use, but I do know which motor. I bought a Minn-Kota Endura C2 on Amazon.com and it should be here in a couple days. I purchased the 40 pound thrust model after looking at the manual online and visiting bass pro to look at other similar models. From what I can tell in the manual, I shouldn’t have too much difficulty tearing it apart and relocating electronics. We shall see…
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