Custom Scotty Flush Mount for Electronics on a Hobie Outback

Here is a spin I did for a Scotty mount, similar to how I did the RAM mount in my other article here.

After much reading it seemed that Scotty fluch mounts were a fairly popular choice, almost a standard approach to mounting rods in a much more useable way on an Outback. Despite this I really didn't want to cut big holes in my kayak, however after a couple weeks without my electronics or a rod holder I was able to build the courage.

I think one of the deciding factors was that my old 'dashboard' from my Quest seemed to fit the same spot pretty nicely. So I effectively killed two birds with one stone, while I figure out how I'm going to mount my electronics I'll use this rod holder to hold my old electronics setup from the Quest. The only time I tend to troll on this side of the boat is when I'm running more than one rod, and that doesn't happen very often so for now this will tie me over.

Here's the Quest 'dashboard' with the Hummingbird fish finder and GPS;

Here's the same dash on the Outback;

I didn't have to add any holes for the wiring either as I did a similar trick as to what I did with the RAM mount on the Sport. I simply followed the standard install procedure for a Scotty flush mount and then filed a small indent into the edge of the 1-3/8" hole for the wires. I made two backing plates out of Ikea cutting board. One goes inside the hull, one outside. The one on the outside had the channel cut for the wires as per the RAM setup.

You'll notice the angle the flush mount is on. This is necessary to make sure that the bolts are as far from the rudder lines that run inside the hull as possible.

In the future I could replace the dashboard with a simple Scotty Hummingbird mount for a really low profile fish finder mount, or put the electronics somewhere completely different and just use it as rod holder mount. The more I use this setup the more I like it and I'll likely keep it the way it is and figure out a way to mount the second rod holder towards the back of the boat. Another thing I've been debating is moving the fish finder a little to the right on the dash and putting a standard Scotty mount on the dash. It would be a little busy, but it would also be cool to take care of three things with a single flush mount in the hull, ie. less holes in the hull in the end.

My next rigging article will be about the fun I had mounting the outrigger mount.

YakDreams