Right now I am in the research phase for a custom jack plate that I plan on building. My skiff has about a 14″ transom from top to bottom, and from the mounting points on the motor that I will be using to the bottom of the skeg, is about 33 inches. Unfortunately the motor is a super long shaft, yamaha sailboat motor. I acquired the motor for free however, so i’d like to just make a super tall jack plate that will lift the motor straight up and make it work on the skiff. With that being said, I need to be able to lift this motor almost 20 inches. I found this forum that has given me some good insight, but nothing as drastic as a 20 inch jack plate. Any insight on this would be great. I am really going to need a good design in order to pull off such a lengthened jack plate. Luckily it will only be holding a 10 horsepower motor that weighs about 80 Pounds. Any suggestions please let me know! I found another site with some good plans to build a jack plate out of aluminum angle. *UPDATE* Sold my Yamaha and purchased instead a 20 hp Johnson long shaft tiller motor. This motor will be much better suited for my boat. It will be mounted to a Mini jacker Jackplate by TH Marine. The jackplate gives the motor about 4″ of rise and 4″ of set-back. Picked up the Mini Jacker on Amazon for about $112 and the motor was purchased on craigslist for $350 with a new fuel tank and line. Right now I am doing some work on the motor to get it running (and looking) right.
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