Trolling motor speed...

[nofearengineer]

Hey guys, long story short. I have been having a lot of trouble with my trolling motor, as you know. Rather than spending a ton of money on it, I am considering a new digital trolling motor I found at a VERY steep discount. (almost 40%). It even has a wireless remote control which would come in very hand when trolling for stripers. Plus, with the wireless control, I wouldn't need to buy a kicker motor next year. I could still sit at the helm and steer.

However, this motor is 105 lb thrust, and I was wondering if any of you with GPS knew the maximum speed of your boat with the trolling motor. I don't have a GPS yet, and my outboard speedo only goes down to 20 mph, so I have no idea exactly how fast my current 67 lb thrust was pulling me. The old one seemed good enough to slow troll deep crankbaits all day long, but like I said, I don't know exactly how fast I was going. It would be nice to not have to run the motor full bore all the time.

Any examples of your hull, motor thrust, and top speed would be greatly appreciated, as a guide.

[Bender]

I think with my 70# on high it will go almost 3 MPH. I'll check next time I am out for sure.

[1FASTLASER]

Hmmmmmmmm.........interesting qestion that I never thought of......will check this weekend and let ya know.

[nofearengineer]

Man, the monkey is gearing up to chew on me pretty good. It has occured to me that I will of course have to buy another battery, a 3-bank charger (though I'm not sure why simply adding another 1-bank charger for the new battery wouldn't work), a new 70A circuit breaker, rewiring with #4 AWG...man, this "bargain" could end up being ridiculously expensive hehe.

I figure in the long run, not having all of those hours on my outboard could save me some resale/trade-in value though.

[Jigger]

I had a remote control pretty soon after they first came on the market and I couldn't wait to get rid of it. Nothing but problems. I finally sent it back to Motor Guide and they converted it to a regular cable type and I never had other problems. They may work better now but I wouldn't own one based on my experience.

[nofearengineer]

I also read where some had had trouble with the remote control, but the design is a few years old now, and I would hope they have the bugs out of it.

For me, I don't really care so much about the remote steering, as I will just do that with my outboard skeg and my steering wheel. But the "throttle" control would be great.

I also figured out that I can simply buy another 12V-only Guest 2-bank charger, put one bank on my additional battery, and use the other one on my outboard battery just in case. No need to buy an expensive 3-bank charger.