I am amazed that you originally wanted to carry 5-6 divers on that boat. Good to hear you have changed your idea.
But even so, when I read about your plans to carry 3 persons (something tells me it might be even 4) on an 8 hrs trip with no food, 10 NM from shore on a heavy loaded boat powered by a 20 HP motor, I can't help wishing you sincerely a plenty of good luck.
Dear sir,
you have given us valuable advise, Please provide us more assistance as our nightmares are not over yet.
We have kept our 20 HP engine as a spare for our Wellcraft Eclipse 18' powered by 1983 Suzuki 2 Stroke 140HP OBM. The boat runs fine and has served us very well in heavy seas upto 15' swells.
The little boat we bought was re-powered by Yamaha F75 4 Stroke motor but has some serious stability issues.
Problem # 1
The stern digs in if we don,t put all the load at the bow.
We took it out for a test ride, came on plane at 3800 RPM @ 19 Knots and shakes the hell out of us.
Problem # 2
Over 20 knots it just skids over water like a wild ***.
Test Run
@ 5-7' Swells, We meet the waves head on it manages to clear them but scary ride, while we were crossing a mega container ship in the port channel the swell suddenly became unpredictable, we turned back (under the supervision of pilot boat assisting the ship) and now the waves were at our stern side, we rode a couple of them but one caught us from crest and down and the boat leaned sideways and almost overturned the boat, our captain handled very well then and we were saved from capsizing.
Now we can really understand what you were talking about, please give us suggestions.
We now have an option of swapping the boat with the following.
25' Shallow V Hull, with 18" gunwale, 5'6" beam, 12" Draft, Dead weight 700 kg
or
21' Deep V hull with 24" Gunwale, 6'6" beam, 18" Draft, dead weight 1100 Kg
Please guide us a viable option with respect to our 75HP 4 stoke engine.