I'm about to cross another milestone - cutting the transom height down to the size outboard I have. Generally, you can have a short-shaft motor requiring a 15-inch transom height, or, as in my case, a long-shaft motor which requires a 20-inch height.

Before I made my cut, I had to install part of the rear deck plate framing. It was held in place on the inside of the transom with epoxy and the stainless screws you see going into it from the outside.

I drew a line just over 20-inches above and parallel to the bottom of the transom. I then drew two vertical lines from the top of the transom 15-inches to either side of center down to the horizontal line I had previously drawn. Last, I marked off another inch and a half out from each vertical line, and drew an angled line down to the vertical lines intersection with the horizontal line. These markings would give me a 30-inch centered cutout with beveled ends.

The cutout was made with the skill-saw. The last inches of intersecting cuts needed a hand saw.

The outboard really only needs a 10-inch cutout to fit. But it turns out that with a cut 30-inches wide, I have greater access to the steering cable nuts.

This is the completed transom. You can see by the markings my outboard made on the motor board that the original transom design would not have worked for my motor. This setup puts my cavitation plate 1-inch below the bottom of the hull. Even with the current 20 and 1/4-inch center transom height, the engine mounting bracket sits a half-inch higher. I am told that this is actually desirable when the outboard is clamped on by bolts, as mine is.

While we are here on transom pictures, way down the road, just prior to the "Voyage of Intrepid", I added an Eagle Sea Finder. This is the mount for the transducer.