Right now I have a 9.9 HP engine on my 14ft row boat, with front casting deck, trolling motor and two batteries. Also with usually two people and gear. I am guessing the weight after all this is 7-800 pounds. Possibly more. The 9.9 does not get it on plane. Do you think an 18 would? I have the opportunity to trade for an 18hp engine but I wanna make sure it would get it on plane.

Thanks

-Dylan

What pitch prop are you running and how old of a motor is it?  Is it a flat bottom boat and how wide is it?   I would think a good 9.9 would get a small 14' boat on plane unless you really went over board adding the deck.    I used a 9.9 on a 14' glass boat with bow TM, battery's, two people, big cooler full of ice and cooler for the fish and it would run faster (on plane) than you could safely run in a few of the rivers I fished.

As for the 18, yea, it should have almost twice the power of the 9.9.

Being an 18, I guessing it's an 60's - 70's Evinrude Fast Twin, which is actually a 25 with a smaller carb, very strong little motor.

If that is the motor, be very sure to check the lower unit.  They are bad to get water in them after they get some age on them and I don't think a coule of the parts to fix the leak are still available and the main drive shaft's upper bearing would freeze/rust up quickly when water got into them, ruining the drive shaft.  Where the shift rod goes into the LU, there is an O-Ring under a brass sleeve.  You have to drill the sleeve out to replace the O-ring and not sure you can get another sleeve now.

if its an 18hp tohatsu/Nissan ( not very old 1980's 1990's) I would say get it they are great motor and will get the boat up on plane.

Another guy on the forum, dink, has a 9.9 2 year old Yammie pushing his 14 ft, that's set up like yours and it scoots along pretty good.  Where are the batteries located at?  

Batteries are in the front mid section, where most of the weight is. My top speed with the 9.9 is 8.1 MPH on gps.

try moving them to the back. My 14foot V hull 9.9merc s stroke with two batteries (in the back) tm up front, and back front and rear deck with two guys (over 225lbs each) will do 11-12mph on gps. also you might want to try a set of "dole finns" with out them my 14 footer will not plane at all. you can get them for $25-$30