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Phil,
I am "picture challenged" on the computer and the wife is out of town so cannot help me navigate. I believe both yours and Wings assessments are correct. Also my thoughts. I have never had the boat in the water with this setup so I cannot reply to "sitting lower". I had a 6 inch jack plate on in the past, but friends who have been in similarly hulled Whalers without the jack plate said wet feet common when drift fishing.

At this point I am looking for reinforcement for the flex. I know that each boat has different characteristics but, I read several posts and studied the different installations on this website, and thought that the jack plate installation was somewhat a "turn key". Others did it and I was hoping that the flex was standard. A little deflating not to hear what you want to hear. Maybe I do have to "can the experiment". Off to work and day dream a solution. I may have to go with additional bar stock to go the complete width of stern.

Thanks all so far for your comments, please keep them coming.

Garris