The Pros and Cons to Kickers:  Do you need one?  

As a boat dealer who deals primarily with fishing boats we have a tendency to sell a lot of kicker or auxillary motors.  Most new boaters don’t even know why they need one, just that every other boat seemingly has them so their new boat must also have one. Here’s the thing, you don’t NEED one. But they do have their uses. If you absolutely needed one then major manufacturers like Grady White and Boston Whaler would offer kicker mounting options (which they don’t).  Why don’t these huge builders that have seemingly the best fishing boats on the market offer you a kicker bracket? It's because the Pacific Northwest is one of the few markets that use them. Grady Whites are built in North Carolina – a coastline famous for huge Tuna fishing, and Boston Whaler is built in Florida where you can fast troll for Marlin.  Now here on the West Coast we have a completely different fishery. We slow troll for Salmon. Our Canadian builders like Campion and Kingfisher have plenty of options for kicker mounts on every fishing boat they put out. Even Cutwater Boats built outside of Seattle offers a kicker option on their cruising vessels. Now that we know some boats are designed with kickers in mind and others are not we have to circle back to the first question, do you NEED a kicker?
 
Arguments for having one:

A kicker motor will allow you to rack up hours on the water without raising hours on your main engine.
While this is true, and engine hours is the first thing people look at when purchasing a used motor,  the modern fuel injected power-plant records engine hours separated by RPM range so a simple computer check will show that a seemingly high hour motor has 80% of its time under 1000 RPM.  Does that make it a worn out motor? The truth is not at all, but it will be less enticing to prospective buyers hurting your resale value. If you're not planning on selling it, then really there is no problem with trolling hours.

A kicker motor can get your trolling speed slower than main engines.
This is absolutely true, and as far as I’m concerned the only real argument to a kicker.  While most of the modern outboards have introduced a “troll control” function they generally can only get as low as their standard 700rpm idle speed and go up from there in 50 rpm increments.  If that idle speed is too fast for you then a kicker is going to be very beneficial. If that troll speed is slow enough for you, then save the kicker money and put the $4k into a good sonar system.

A kicker motor will burn less gas than your main engine.
This is debatable. For starters at idle speed, yes the two cylinder 9.9 motor will burn less than your main power plant does, but that kicker isn’t running at idle when you’re trolling. If you’re in any kind of current or wind that little motor is likely running at three thousand RPM and likely burning very close to what your main engine idles at. This is very dependent on your main motor and the fact that nobody bothers to install fuel flow sensors on their kicker motors means we have no good barometer for how much they truly burn. I can tell you that my Yamaha F150 trolls at 0.6 GPH. I don’t care how much less than that a kicker would burn because the difference would be so negligible. How long would it take to recoup a $4000 purchase price in fuel savings if the difference is only a couple tenths of a gallon per hour?

Safety/Backup
There certainly is value in redundancy. There’s plenty of debris in our waters and every boater eventually encounters engine trouble on the water so having a back-up mode of propulsion will definitely give you the peace of mind that you’ll be able to get home.  
 


Arguments for not having one:

Purchase price.
A full remote controlled 9.9 four stroke with power tilt and electric start will cost you somewhere around $5500 after installation and controls and a tie bar connecting it to your main steering system.  That’s equivalent to a 10” Garmin GPSMAP with a really good transducer and a G2 Visions Map card. I know what I’d rather have in my boat.   

Weight.
A four-stroke 9.9 weighs in at over 100lbs.  That’s enough to make even 25 foot boats list. In some cases requiring a touch up on the bottom paint to raise the waterline on the port side (same side the engine was installed on) not to mention the added difficulty for some lower powered boats to get on plane.  Ever had to ask someone to move to the front of the boat to help get on step?  Why would you want to add 100lbs to the transom?  

Service Costs.
Even if your kicker motor is only 10% of the horsepower of your main engine the service costs associated is not far off.  Let’s consider a 20 foot boat with a 150hp main and a 9.9hp kicker.  Literally the only difference between these two motors is two spark plugs and slightly less oil.  Now oil is your cheapest maintenance item.  Both still require fuel filters, water pumps, eventually timing belts and thermostats.  Both have control cables, in some cases steering cables. The labour involved to service a two cylinder engine vs a four cylinder engine is very similar regardless of horsepower rating.

ROI.
Return on investment. Simple. Is this motor going to catch you enough fish to justify its purchase and operating costs? 
 
In the end you have to make the decision on what you add to your boat. Some would consider kickers just as necessary an add-on as a fish finder.  Do the pros outweigh the cons? 

For information on Yamaha High-Thrust outboards please click HERE 

For more boating related articles check out our Talking Boats Blog Page Here. 
 
Thanks for Reading - Mike Di Nardo - Galleon Marine