My boat is a Mod 1 also and I did reinforce the transom with plywood epoxied inside between the inner and outer hull and some maple hardwood doublers on the inside. I used TH screw on deck plates to cover the holes in the seats, because I don't expect to need access again, and I have a dry bag for my valuables. I saw your posts before I did this and wanted the ladder to extend further into the water.OK check out how I did my ladder. Mod 1 had a flimsy transom, I beefed it up as shown. What year is your's, did you have to reinforce? Access holes for feeding 5" wide plywood strips inside, through bolted to the fiber or plywood outside. Deckson plates have bag inserts, they're real handy.
The motor is super light and doesn't put out a ton of thrust so don't think that mount gets too much stress. But my ladder is pretty shallow when extended (maybe about as deep as your first rung), so I must yank and flip my 190 lb butt into the cockpit, like a giant tuna! I'll bet that mount gets a workout!
I just cut a 4.5" round hole centered at the back edge of the non skid surface of the seat and covered the holes with 6" TH screw down covers.Hey megigharbor, do you have any pics of the access you made on the seat? Would love to put a swim ladder on my mod 1 and accessing and reinforcing the transom is my concern. I also like the price point of the ladder you found. I have seen the previous posts from the work aquaman has put on his, and until now didn’t realize he had those access ports. I don’t imagine you were able to make your way to the transom from the cuddy.
That will work on a mod 3 hull which has a stronger transom than the mod 1 boat in my post. The mod 1 boats need the interior reinforcement.Different way to mount the Hoffen 2step ladder. I also ordered the Hoffen telescoping two step ladder and it is economical, well made, and easy to adapt for the stern of my 2016 model 14.2K. Instead of installing an inspection port, reinforcing the transom, etc. I used two one inch square bright aluminum tubing "legs" and cut them to about thirteen or fourteen inch length. I through bolted the top six inches (about) through the transom and used a one inch wide length of flat aluminum stock as a backing plate in the transom area above the seat for each leg. Three 1/4 -20 stainless pan head screws bolted through the tubing and into the cockpit then held in place with locknuts. The backing plates are about 5.5 inches long. The ladder's mounting brackets were bolted to the lower portion (about 5.5 inches) of the square tubing legs with two 1/4-20 stainless pan head screws on each leg, locknuts are affixed inside of the tubing. Everything was bedded with 3M 5200 sealant/adhesive which I have used for years on all of my boats to bed and make any fittings water tight; the stuff says flexible and needs two days to skim fully and about a week to reach full cure, the adhesion is permanent after cure. The finished project results in the ladder being in about the same position as the megigharbor method, and the ladder is offset from the hull by the one inch depth provided by the square tubing. The length of the square tubing is sufficient to eliminate any flex in the transom and using a continuous backing plate inside of the cockpit also helps. Final step was to inject expanding foam into the legs to further ensure sealing from moisture. This season will show me if any problems show up, but I don't expect any.