Posts: 3487
Location: Elk River, Minnesota | Hiya,
A friend of mine had a 2012 1750 fishhawk that had a 115 four stroke on it. I did not get a chance to work with him on getting a different prop on it, so it was very slow out of the hole. Sound was fine....quiet enough to have a good conversation side by side with a little louder voice. Once on plane it was a 38 - 40 mph boat...something always struck me a little off with it, though... He ended up selling it...
The extra 10hp from the opti is nice, but not a huge necessity as the 10hp will only gain you a little more "umph" and about 2 mph at most. I am also a proponent of maxing out the horsepower on the boat as it is nice to have the low end torque when you need it...especially in rougher seas and you need to get out of it. Biggest advantage is in a following sea... more power to get the boat up onto the next wave before the following wave crashes down onto the transom, swamping the boat.
Overall performance between the two and 4 strokes will be very close with hole shot edge going to a 2 stroke for the most part, but the technology in these motors has them very close throughout. Expense you will see more with the Opti as it requires oil being a 2 stroke model. Weights will be fairly close.
top speed should be right around 45 lightly loaded if you go with the 125, and just shy of that with either of the 115's.
If you plan on using the motor to troll a bit, the four stroke will be a nice choice as fumes are not an issue, and it will sip the fuel, without any issue of gumming up a spark plug. I have not heard of many who use their opti's for trolling so hopefully someone will chime in on that aspect as well.
My gut instinct says go 125 opti, with the understanding there might be a little more cost involved for oil...but...that is highly dependent on how you plan on using the boat. the 10hp is not a huge amount and probably will not hurt any resale value overall if you decide to go 4 stroke. There are many out there with the 4 stroke 115 on them.
Steve
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