Yamaha this year came out with the new
electric fuel injected 25HP
engine. Their new
engine has reduced weight from 170 lbs to around 125 lbs or so, giving it the greatest HP to weight ratio of any of their 25 HP engines (two stroke included!). It's a nice engine, and I have it now paired with a WM 350
RIB. At idling speed, the engine is very quiet, you can carry on a conversation with someone on the
dock without raising your voice. At around half throttle with two
kids and two adults (about 600 lbs of people weight), we can go around 12-13 knots and 18 knots wide open throttle (around 600 lbs of people weight). We can get 4 adults and three
kids (800 - 900 lbs) onto a very nice riding plane.
No complaints about the
RIB itself, seems to be aging well (it's now 2 years old), West
Marine seems to stand behind their products. The bow locker is decent sized, but will be wet, so you need to put things in a dry bag.